Mary Anne Wolf, PE, FCIArb

Experience

Arbitration & Mediation: Mary Anne Wolf, PE, FCIArb, focuses her practice on serving as a neutral in alternative dispute resolution, especially in construction and complex cases. She serves as an arbitrator on the American Arbitration Association panels for Construction, Energy, Commercial, Consumer, and Large Complex Cases. Since 2019, she has been appointed as sole, chair, panel or special arbitrator in over 35 cases.

Mary Anne also serves on the mediation, arbitration, and early neutral evaluator panels at Perry Dampf Dispute Solutions and was selected as mediator by the United States Middle District Court of Louisiana for its Hurricane Ida neutral panel. As an attorney, she has represented clients in many construction-related mediations and arbitrations.

Legal: Mary Anne Wolf has over 20 years of experience as a civil trial attorney handling construction, commercial and complex litigation. Her recent cases include a $300 million class action flood case arising from an interstate expansion project, $500 million consolidated lawsuits by over 500 claimants arising from a building collapse during construction, multimillion-dollar delay claim by a contractor in a river dredging project, a design and construction defect claim by a public entity in a levee improvement and drainage project, and a suit against an environmental consultant arising from construction at an LNG facility alleging violation of wetlands regulations and permitting process. She has extensive experience handling commercial contract disputes, and design and construction defect and delay claims.

Her experience encompasses all aspects of construction and legal disputes from development through design, construction, and commissioning, including environmental assessments, utility coordination, government regulations and agency reviews, permitting by state and federal agencies, design-build and EPC contracts, bidding and procurement, change order and submittal process, jobsite safety, contractor warranties, defense and indemnity, insurance and sureties. Her engineering experience includes civil, structural, geotechnical, mechanical, piping, electrical, and instrumentation design, as well as zoning, building codes, surveying, servitudes, federal and state contract compliance, and technical drawings and equipment specifications (pumps, boilers, mechanical and electrical equipment, concrete, piping and fittings, structural components, generators, communication, security, and control systems). Other industry specific experience includes:

Industrial/Energy Projects: $85 million design-build contract dispute at LNG facility; payment, project delay, surety and lien claims arising from unforeseen conditions, Covid-19 and inflation factors on LNG project; directional drill and pipeline installation errors; equipment/process failures in petrochemical facilities; defective pipe fittings installed in chemical plant; boiler malfunction during commissioning at a chemical plant.

Public/Institutional/Infrastructure Projects: HVAC and moisture issues, special operating room requirements, and cost overruns in hospitals; contract dispute arising in design and funding phase of public-private partnership project to expand port and rail terminal; lightning protection system failure at EMS facility; malfunction of ventilation system at sugarcane research facility; and design and construction defects in hurricane/flood control and pump stations, wastewater treatment plants, underground utilities and pipelines, educational facilities, historic buildings, parks and arenas, and highway and bridge projects.

Commercial Projects: Design and construction errors in multistory offices, retail complexes, hotels, recreation facilities, and multifamily residential.

Licensing Boards: Mary Anne represents licensed professionals and contractors before Louisiana’s state licensing boards.