For this week’s Guest Post Friday here at Musings, we welcome a new face. Rob Pitkin (@KCconstrlawyer) is an attorney with Levy & Craig in Kansas City, where he handles Construction disputes and other types of sophisticated business litigation. Originally from Iowa, he graduated from Wheaton College and Wake Forest University School of Law. Rob is currently listed in Best Lawyers in America in Construction Law and serves as an Arbitrator on construction cases for the American Arbitration Association. He has been practicing law for 25 years now and focusing on construction law for more than 15 years.
The economic downturn, the banking crisis and the resulting fallout in the construction industry have created more mechanic’s lien priority issues in the past 3 years than I’ve seen in the 20 years prior.
This situation is complicated by the fact that mechanic’s lien laws are based on statutes that can vary significantly from state to state. For example, Kansas City sits on the state line between Missouri and Kansas. Therefore, about half my work involves projects in Missouri and the other half involves projects in Kansas. In many ways, no two adjoining states could be more different.
