Solving Problems During the Construction Process

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With more than 25 years of experience dedicated to the area of construction law, Mike Baker focuses his practice on the representation of design professionals, engineers, general contractors, and public and private owners. His experience includes providing representation for business and contractual matters as well as disputes before arbitration panels, mediators, and trial courts. He has also acted in the capacity of mediator and arbitrator, and he has served on project dispute resolution boards on selected building programs and projects. Mike’s transactional experience in both construction and design-related matters includes drafting contracts related to project delivery methods, as well as drafting building program management agreements and construction management agreements for building programs ranging from $200 million to over $1 billion on behalf of contractors, design teams, and owners. His experience as a trial lawyer is shown by having brought 20 cases to trial for decision or verdict, including venues in 11 different counties in the State of California and trials in multiple federal circuit court districts in California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Additionally, Mike has arbitrated numerous cases in private arbitration on behalf of contractors, owners, engineers, architects, and construction managers involving building and civil works. Mike is a member of the State Bar of California and the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA), Southern California Chapter, where he is a board member and past Chapter President (2013); he was also a founding member of the CMAA Southern California Foundation Board.

Russ Vakharia has over 30 years of experience in the management of construction projects for major public agencies and private consultants and contractors. He presently is Supervising Engineer at the LA County Sanitation Districts and Construction Manager on the construction of a new 7-mile-long effluent tunnel—the longest single-drive pressurized face tunnel ever constructed in California. Russ has extensive experience managing major construction projects for other public owners as well, including the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Russ has experience with a broad array of projects and in-depth expertise in construction management and construction scheduling. He has taught Construction Management at UCLA Extension for 9 years and in USC’s Master’s program in Construction Management for 5 years. He also has taught CPM scheduling classes to employees of public and private firms, published multiple papers on the subject of CPM scheduling, and presented scheduling and construction topics at conferences conducted by AACE, Primavera, American Public Works Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, Water Environment Federation, RETC Tunnel Conference, Stanford construction conference, and others. Russ has a BS and MS from Stanford Engineering School. He also holds certifications as a Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP) from AACE International and as a Scheduling Professional from the Project Management Institute.

Erich R. Luschei is a Senior Attorney in the Costa Mesa office of Theodora Oringher PC. He has represented private and public owners, design professionals, contractors, and subcontractors for over 35 years in disputes and transactional matters. He has tried, arbitrated, or mediated many cases for clients such as the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the City of Long Beach, the County of San Bernardino, the County of San Bernardino Flood Control District, and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Erich’s experience with construction disputes led him into contract preparation for A&E agreements, construction contracts, subcontract agreements, and many other agreements for construction industry participants. He also has extensive high-level experience in construction disputes and substantial experience in complex day-to-day project issues, including changes, change orders, change management, constructive changes, directed acceleration, construction scheduling, and scheduling disputes. Erich is licensed to practice law in the State of California and has handled disputes across the country and internationally. He is a frequent speaker on legal issues affecting the construction industry and has authored numerous topics concerning construction-related topics.

Jin Oh focuses her practice in construction litigation, representing clients in various industries in both state and federal courts. She has played a central role in the firm’s representation of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority in extensive disputes initiated by the design-builder on an 8-mile light rail design-build project having three underground and five aerial and above-ground stations, tunnels, bridges, walls, guideway, track, systems, and testing, as well as design-builder claims that included nearly every type of claim on a mega construction project. Jin has worked with experts in multiple disciplines to demonstrate that contemporaneous project records of multiple types, ranging from entries on daily inspection reports to certified QA/QC reports, are vital, and she is familiar with the best practices in administration during construction. Jin attended University of Southern California, Gould School of Law, where she graduated as one of twenty honor students selected for the Gould Honors Program. In law school, Jin participated in the Honors Hale Moot Court program and served as a student supervisor at the Post-Conviction Justice Project Clinic. In her final year at Gould, Jin also interned in the Chambers of the Honorable S. James Otero, formerly of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Ms. McNutt has over 21 years of experience in the construction industry, primarily focused on heavy civil highway and transit projects. In addition, she has over 18 years of experience with Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. Ms. McNutt has worked on design management for complex design-build mega projects. She has also worked on construction methodologies and project execution for many projects. Ms. McNutt received her B.S. degree in Construction Management from Washington State University.