James D. Hollyday

Jim represented owners, contractors, and subcontractors in the resolution of construction-related disputes in litigation, arbitration, and mediation. A significant part of his practice involved counseling clients regarding project delivery systems, including the drafting and negotiation of design and construction documentation, and the administration of those contracts. In addition, he litigated numerous significant construction claims, on behalf of owners and contractors.

Construction industry clients also looked to Jim for representation and counsel in insurance issues, including the drafting and negotiation of contractual insurance provisions and, when necessary, litigating insurance coverage disputes.

He also counseled private and public owners with respect to drafting and administering contract documents and handling disputes. Jim handled owner-architect, owner-contractor, owner-construction manager and related forms of agreement on numerous private projects, ranging in cost from under $1 million to in excess of $250 million. 

Jim has an excellent working knowledge of the various form contracts published by the American Institute of Architects and the Engineers Joint Contract Documents Committee and is fully conversant with the insurance and bonding aspects of construction projects, from project planning to claims prosecution and defense.

He spoke frequently on construction law topics for groups such as Lorman Education Services and the Construction SuperConference. Jim co-authored a chapter titled “Delay Claims” in Pricing and Proving Construction Claims, published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; co-authored of a chapter titled “Problems of Arbitration” in the second edition of Construction Litigation published by the Practising Law Institute; and co-authored of a chapter titled “The Design-Build Agreement” in Design-Build Contracting Formbook, published by Wiley.

In 14 years of engineering practice with a major electrical utility company before he became a lawyer, Jim was extensively involved for 10 years in the detailed engineering design of complex fossil power plant systems, and was frequently the lead coordinating engineer for all other engineering disciplines involved in a project, including structural, civil, electrical and instrumentation and controls. He later served for four years as project manager on several high-cost, high-visibility projects. He is fully conversant with CPM scheduling techniques as well as project cost accounting and reporting systems.

• Legal 500 United States for Construction (2016)