Thomas J. Kirkwood

Practices

• Construction
• Business Litigation

Professional Experience

Tom is a partner in Thompson Hine's Construction practice. He has handled private and public sector construction transactions and claims litigation for local and national owners, developers, designers, CMs, and contractors since 1974. Tom has served as special counsel to such major developments as Cincinnati's $600 million riverfront Banks project and has served as counsel to public agencies for sewer, flood control, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' projects. He has appeared on behalf of clients in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Kentucky Supreme Court, and federal district courts or state trial courts in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Georgia, West Virginia, and Florida.

From 2005 to 2009, Tom served as special counsel to the City of Cincinnati for the public/private $600 million Ohio riverfront project, developing a 5500 space underground garage and 2 million square feet of above ground mixed use (residential, office, retail) construction. Tom worked with community leaders, elected officials, other agencies, the construction manager, designers, and master developer in formulating the project's contours and legal documents.

Tom has extensive trial and ADR experience in a broad range of construction matters, litigating cases involving heavy and highway, wastewater treatment, bridges, structural steel, structural failures, tunnels, roofs, wall failures, building envelopes, soils and foundations, and other design and construction defects as well as disruption, and inefficiency claims and the design professional standard of care and delay.

Tom is also a principal construction consultant in Project Management Consultants llc (PMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thompson Hine. The PMC team of professionals has extensive experience in the areas of design, construction consulting, construction management, partnering facilitation and owner's representation services.

Facilitation Experience
As a principal construction consultant in Project Management Consultants (PMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thompson Hine, Tom has provided field level consulting to more than 160 projects with budgets totaling more than $7 billion. Over the past decade, he has facilitated over four hundred construction workshops with project owners, design, and construction teams, teaching best practices in problem resolution, architect and construction manager team communication, RFI and change order processes, budget and program management, owner systems for managing large projects, scheduling and job progress strategies, project commissioning, managing trade contractor close out, punch listing processes, retainage issues, attic stock turnover, project records, facilities training, guarantee and warranty, and final project accounting.

Tom pioneered for the Ohio School Facilities Commission a unique program that focuses project participants on the nuts and bolts of project commissioning and close out. Tom was also hired by Turner Construction to facilitate the public / private / Ohio / Kentucky "STRIVE" educational initiative's systems engineering team in its development of processes to apply Six Sigma to educational delivery in the region.

Mediation
Tom has formal mediator training with the CPR Institute For Dispute Resolution (1996). Tom has mediated more than 150 public and private sector construction disputes involving tens millions of dollars of claims. The issues have ranged from site condition disputes to construction defects, MEP / architect E&O issues, surety claims, and acceleration, compression, delay, and stacking claims. Tom's settlement rate for claims he has mediated is greater than 93%. Tom formerly served on the Board of Trustees of the Center for Resolution of Disputes.

Education

• University of Cincinnati College of Law, J.D., 1974, University of Cincinnati Law Review, Editor, 1973-1974
• University of Cincinnati, B.A., 1971

• Contributor to Baldwin's Ohio Construction Law Manual (2009)
• "Owner Claims for Building Code Violations" · Ohio Code News, March/April 2006
• "Partnering Can Resolve Construction Conflicts" · Cincinnati Business Courier, 2004
• "Construction Partnering" · 9th Biennial Midwest/Midsouth Construction Law Institute, January 2003
• "Private Mediation Can Save Time and Money" · Cincinnati Business Courier, 1997
• "Records Retention & The Ten Year Statute" · The Cincinnati Constructor, 1994

• "Project Delivery Methods: Which is Right for You?", Lorman Education Services, 2008
• "Construction Claims and Dispute Resolution", Allied Construction Industries, 2008
• "Managing Risk for Profit", Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati, 2007
• "Calculus of Risk", Cincinnati Chapter AIA, February 2006
• "Regional Development: Land Mines and Gold Mines", Thompson Hine Roundtable Series, October 2005
• "Partnering Contractor Claims: A Track Record Second to None", Ohio BASA, May 2004
• "Project Close Out", Ohio Builds Symposium, 2002
• "Can this Project be Saved? Delay Damages and DIffering Site Conditions", Cleveland Construction Contracting Community, 1998-2001
• "Construction Law", Cincinnati Bar Association, 2000
• "The Cost Effective Solution of Dispute Resolution", Allied Construction Industries
• "Designer-Led Design Build Project Delivery", Cincinnati Large A-E Firms, 1999
• "Risk Management", Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati, 1998

• 2012 Cincinnati Construction Law Lawyer of the Year - The Best Lawyers in America
• Selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, 2012
• Selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, Construction, Ohio, 2010-2011
• Selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers by Ohio Super Lawyer magazine in 2009