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Practice Areas
Experience
A member of the construction practice group, Matt has
represented owners, contractors, design professionals
and sureties in a wide array of construction litigation
throughout California and the western states. He is
familiar with the unique needs of public agencies in
litigations, having litigated several difficult and
sensitive matters for a major Bay Area city in recent
years.
From 1986 until 2002, Matt served as Chief Litigation
Counsel in California for one of the five largest general
contractors in the United States. He supervised complex
construction litigations involving issues of payment,
licensing, construction defects, design failures, mechanic's
liens and stop notices, and has advocated and defended
claims for delays and extras involving damages in the
hundreds of millions of dollars. He has also attacked
and defended numerous bid awards under Public Contract
Code's "Subletting and Subcontracting Fair Practice
Act." He has tried or arbitrated more than 30 construction
disputes and successfully mediated or resolved countless
more.
Matt's experience in construction litigation includes:
- Negotiated and assisted in the drafting of project
documentation for numerous projects with values ranging
up to $400 million, including hotels, hospitals, manufacturing
facilities and sports complexes.
- Recovered $15.5 million in delay damages and extras
from the City of Beverly Hills for the general contractor
who built the city's new Civic Center.
- Recovered $1.8 million from one of the largest mechanical
contractors in the U.S. who abandoned a winery project
in Northern California. The total attorneys' fees
expended for the client in this matter were less than
$125,000.
- Successfully negotiated contractor and subcontractor
claims in excess of $2.5 million on the State's Pelican
Bay Prison Project.
- Successfully negotiated over $20 million of contractor
and subcontractor claims on the State Office Building
in San Francisco.
- Successfully negotiated a surety's payment of more
than $2.5 million from the City of Los Angeles to
a general contractor client and its surety for delays
on several projects taken over by the client after
abandonment by the previous contractor.
- Successfully negotiated the resolution of claims
in excess of $1 million on AC Transit's Oakland headquarters
building.
- Recovered in arbitration $1.2 million in delay damages
for a general contractor from a national hotel chain
for delays suffered on a new hotel construction. Working
with opposing counsel and an independent arbitrator,
Matt was able to format the ground rules for a one
week arbitration (for a matter that would have taken
at least six weeks to try) in order to reduce the
attorneys' fees and costs to all parties.
- Successfully negotiated more than $4 million in
subcontractor claims on the Theo Lacy Jail in Orange
County.
- Recovered $950,000 (including attorneys' fees) for
a property owner after a three week jury trial for
damage to property caused by earth movement.
- Recovered $875,000 (including attorneys' fees) from
a developer after a two week trial for a local general
contractor who had been unfairly backcharged by the
developer.
- Successfully negotiated on behalf of the owner and
general contractor of a large hotel in San Francisco
the settlement of some twenty subcontractor claims
for project acceleration in the total amount of $7
million.
Admissions
Affiliations
- Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Honor Society
- Alameda County Bar Association
- San Francisco Bar Association
- American Bar Association
Education
- University of San Francisco, J.D. (1980)
- University of San Francisco, B.A. (1977)
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