Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 37th Annual Construction and Public Contracts Law seminar and conference in Charlottesville, Virginia. This year’s theme was construction contracts and as always the speakers and the company knocked it out of the park. This year was particularly satisfying because I was one of the co-chairs of the committee that planned the program. Thank you to all of the speakers and my co-chair Alison Mullins (not to mention the staff at Virginia CLE) for making the planning of this great event as easy as I could have hoped.
As always, there was something for every level of construction attorney from the beginner to those that literally made some of the law we were discussing. The topics ranged from the basics of the Owner, Architect, General Contractor relationship to more esoteric topics such as job order contracting (a topic that is new to me). There was even a great segment on settlement agreements, a topic near and dear to my heard as a construction mediator. I highly recommend that you check out the schedule at the Virginia CLE page linked above to get an idea of the breadth of knowledge that these speakers brought to the table. I also got some new topics for Construction Law Musings from the annual Recent Developments portion of the seminar.
While I always learn something from the speakers, I also take the time to pick the brains of those in attendance. The opportunity to discuss issues with this level of construction law expertise does not come by often (or at least not more than once a year for me) and I always try to take advantage of the chance to get some insight into current issues facing my construction clients. Add this to the friendly atmosphere and the face to face networking time (not to mention a whole year’s worth of CLE including ethics), and this is a weekend not to be missed.
To those new friends I met around a table: It was great meeting you, lets catch up again soon. To those old friends I got to catch up with again: Let’s not go so long next time. And to those that I didn’t get a chance to chat with due to organizational duties or family related engagements: I’m sorry that I missed you this time, lets catch up soon. To those Virginia and even Maryland attorneys that have an interest in construction law and did not attend: I hope to see you next year.
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