Saturday, August 31, 2013

Division 4 Presentation August 26, 2013: Consultants Explain Why You Should Hire them to Administer Change Orders. And you Should.

This month Michael Hager of AECOM, Terry Yeager of Berkeley Research Group, and Ben Patrick of Wilson Elser teamed up to discuss the merits of owner's relying on independent consultants to handle change orders on large projects.  

Michael Hager is a Senior Counsel in AECOM's Global Litigation Department located in New York. As Senior Counsel, Michael is mainly responsible for claim resolution and litigation management. He periodically provides training to AECOM employees on risk mitigation and claims avoidance, and is also involved in the development of AECOM’s e-discovery and records management programs. Before joining AECOM, Michael was a construction and commercial litigator in two law firms.  Before becoming an attorney, Michael practiced as a structural engineer with two NY-based consulting firms.

Terry Yeager is a director at Berkley Research Group in their Atlanta office.  He has more than 20 years of experience in general contracting, construction management, and business management and eight years of providing construction consulting services. He has extensive practical experience with project estimating, scheduling, cost and financial analysis, and project management.  Terry focuses on optimizing project development and design and construction administration processes, and minimizing the likelihood of delays, disruptions, scope growth, and disputes. He also has extensive dispute resolution experience performing claims analysis and providing expert testimony on matters including delay, disruption, acceleration, suspension of work, standard of care, differing conditions, constructive changes, late owner-furnished materials, over-inspection, interference, breach of contract, and business interruption. He regularly provides extensive risk management training services to oil and gas owners in Canada, including assessment of existing project development, design, and construction administration standards, policies, and procedures, determination of omissions and weaknesses relative to an ideal platform, and development of risk management strategies and training to achieve cost and schedule reliability.


Moderator Ben Patrick is partner with Wilson Elser and is a member of our Division 4 Steering Committee. Ben practices out of the Miami and San Francisco offices. Ben represents clients on projects in every sector of the construction industry, including heavy civil (interstate highways, local highways and streets), industrial (manufacturing facilities, wastewater treatment plants, and pump stations), power and energy (ethanol refineries and combined-cycle power plants), commercial (mixed-use developments, mid-rise office towers, and retail developments), health care (hospitals and elder care facilities), education (universities, colleges, and primary schools), and residential (condominium construction and conversion, planned communities, and single-family homes).  



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