Professional Summary – Mary Anne Wolf, PE, FCIArb

With 30 years of combined experience as a construction law attorney and design/project engineer, Mary Anne Wolf, PE, FCIArb, focuses her practice on alternative dispute resolution of construction and other complex cases. She serves as an arbitrator on the American Arbitration Association panels for Construction, Energy, Commercial, Consumer, and Large Complex Cases. In 2019, she received her arbitration training at the AAA, and she garners over 50 hours per year of continuing education credits in ADR, construction, energy and legal fields. In 2024, she was honored to achieve fellowship in the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a prestigious global community of dispute resolution professionals, after intensive training in international arbitration. Also in 2024, she obtained certification in Energy Fundamentals from the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University.

Mary Anne is also on the Arbitration, Mediation and Early Neutral Evaluators panels at Perry Dampf Dispute Solutions. In 2023, she received mediation certification at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University. She was recently selected by the United States Middle District Court of Louisiana to serve on its panel of mediators for Hurricane Ida cases.

Arbitration is a valuable alternative to litigation to resolve disputes, and mediation provides parties the opportunity to resolve disputes early thereby avoiding the heavy costs of protracted litigation. Many construction-related contracts require mediation as a condition to filing suit and/or require arbitration in lieu of litigation. Mary Anne is an advocate of these alternative dispute resolution methods for businesses to better manage risk and efficiently resolve disputes.

Arbitration & Mediation Experience

Mary Anne has served as sole, chair, panel or special arbitrator in over 35 cases. Representative cases include: a $10 million ownership, unfair trade practice, and servitude dispute between pipeline companies; $60 million design error claim in interstate expansion project; $10 million hotel construction defect dispute; $1.8 million breach of contract claim between contractors in construction of a cleanroom at a U.S. government facility involving federal acquisition regulations, ISO standards, and breach of technical proposal; dispute between Japanese plant owner and U.S. based contractor involving COVID-19 delays and change order disputes in chemical plant expansion; joinder and consolidation issues in a payment and construction defect dispute arising from construction of a solar panel farm; numerous commercial contract and residential construction disputes; and disputes involving hurricane damage and property insurance, construction defects and delay claims.

She has comprehensive experience in managing discovery, arbitrability, due process and pre-hearing disputes and dispositive motions; multi-party cases; claims and counterclaims involving complex issues; bilingual witnesses and use of interpreters; evidentiary issues; technical expert evidence and complex damage models; cost allocation decisions; virtual/remote hearings; electronic document submissions; lengthy merits hearings; and detailed reasoned interim and final awards. She is a licensed attorney in Louisiana, which is primarily a civil law jurisdiction, and has extensive experience in common law practiced in most other states. Her arbitration philosophy entails a detail-oriented and thorough approach to case management and decision-making with a focus is on neutrality, fairness to parties, and efficient dispute resolution even in the most complex cases.

Mary Anne received her mediation certification in 2023 from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University. She is on the Mediation panel at Perry Dampf and the United States Middle District’s Hurricane Ida neutrals panel. She has served as mediator in about 20 cases to date, with a high success and repeat business rate. Her clients appreciate her preparation and attention to detail. As an attorney, she has wide-ranging experience representing clients in construction-related litigation, trials, arbitrations and mediations.

Industry Experience

Construction – engineering, design, contracting, procurement, build, commissioning
Energy – oil and gas, petrochemical, pipelines, solar facilities
Real Estate – land use, zoning, sales, breach of contract, servitudes, expropriation
Environmental – assessments, government regulations, permitting
Products Liability – design, manufacturing, compliance, distribution, failure to warn
Intellectual Property – trademark, copyright
Insurance – hurricane, casualty & property claims, surety, indemnity
Business – LLC & corporate governance, operating agreements, noncompete agreements, shareholder disputes, trusts

Industry Outreach

Mary Anne is a frequent speaker at conferences for professional organizations on ADR, liability, construction law, risk management and current trends. Recent presentations include: Engineers’ Liability & Risk Management Best Practices at the Joint Engineering Society Conference in Lafayette, February 2025; Legal Liability Roundtable at the Louisiana Society of Professional Surveyors, Baton Rouge, October 2024; Construction Insurance at the LSU/LSBA Construction Law CLE, Baton Rouge, September 2024; Project Communication & Documentation – Best Practices & Liability Issues, Louisiana Engineering Society BR Chapter, March 2024; Engineering Liability in a Climate Change Environment, JESC, Lafayette, February 2024; Engineers’ Liability, Risk Management & Evolving Trends, ACEC, New Orleans, January 2024.

She also writes articles and blogs on construction and ADR, including: Green Design – What Can Go Wrong? The AIA Trust (2019); Construction Insurance, 2024 Construction Law in Louisiana publication issued by LSU/LSBA; The Role of Arbitration in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Construction, ABA Dispute Resolution Section, Arbitration Newsletter, Spring 2025.