BECKLEY WEST VIRGINIA CONSTRUCTION EXPERT WITNESS
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

IEEPA Tariff Refunds: CBP Launches CAPE Process

April 27, 2026 — David J. Creagan, Guido Antolini, Bruce W. MacLennan & Gary P. Biehn - White and Williams LLP
On April 20, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) launched the first phase of the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) tool in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) portal to administer refunds of duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) through a streamlined electronic filing process. Background In February 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain tariffs imposed under IEEPA were unlawful. Subsequent proceedings before the U.S. Court of International Trade required CBP to develop a scalable refund process applicable not only to litigants but also to non-plaintiffs. According to CBP and court filings, approximately 330,000 importers paid or deposited an estimated $166 billion in IEEPA duties across more than 53 million entries. In response, CBP developed CAPE as an electronic, consolidated refund mechanism within ACE. Reprinted courtesy of David J. Creagan, White and Williams LLP, Guido Antolini, White and Williams LLP, Bruce W. MacLennan, White and Williams LLP and Gary P. Biehn, White and Williams LLP Mr. Creagan may be contacted at creagand@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Antolini may be contacted at antolinig@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. MacLennan may be contacted at maclennanb@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Biehn may be contacted at biehng@whiteandwilliams.com Read the full story...

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Mandatory Arbitration Isn’t All Bad, if. . .

July 13, 2026 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
In the past week or so mandatory arbitration has been all the rage. From those that argue that arbitration is becoming more burdensome than litigation, to my friend and fellow construction attorney Scott Wolfe who gives great advice on how to make arbitration worth it again. You can place me in the camp of those that think that mandatory arbitration clauses of the type typically found in contracts can add a layer of expense that can be unnecessary. However, if an arbitration clause is carefully drafted, and properly used, these clauses an be helpful in assuring that the streamlining effect for which arbitration was created actually occurs. Because the contract is king in Virginia, these provisions can essentially create the rule of civil procedure used to resolve any dispute relating to the project. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

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Benchmark Litigation Recognizes Andrea DeField Among Nation’s Top Young Litigators

September 08, 2026 — Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog
Hunton’s insurance coverage team is proud to celebrate the recognition of Andrea DeField on Benchmark Litigation’s 2026 40 & Under List, an annual ranking that highlights the nation’s leading litigators age 40 and under. Andrea was one of only six Hunton lawyers selected and was recognized in the South region. Benchmark Litigation’s 40 & Under List honors attorneys who have distinguished themselves through significant case work, client feedback, and peer review. This honor reflects Andrea’s reputation as one of the country’s leading policyholder-side insurance recovery litigators and her standing as a trusted advisor to companies facing some of today’s most complex insurance and risk management challenges. As head of Hunton’s cyber insurance practice, Andrea has built her career helping companies manage risk and maximize insurance recovery. Her practice spans the full spectrum of insurance-related issues, from advising clients on contractual risk transfer and insurance program design to representing policyholders in high-stakes coverage and bad faith disputes. She has guided clients through some of the most complex and widely publicized losses in recent years and helps companies recover under a broad range of insurance products, including D&O, professional liability, crime, property, cyber, and general liability policies. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

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Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (6/24/26) – HUD to Fund AI Grants, Luxury Hotel Deal Investment Activity to Surge, ESPCs to Fund Energy and Infrastructure Improvements

July 06, 2026 — Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
In our latest roundup, data centers are exposed to climate change, commercial tenant sues CoStar, cities see opportunities in emerging sports markets, and more!

• With deferred maintenance growing and capital dollars stretched thin, local governments are using ESPCs to fund energy and infrastructure improvements through future operational savings. (Vicky Uhland, Construction Dive)
• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is offering up to $3 million in grants for local governments to deploy automated permitting and building code systems. (Ryan Kushner, Construction Dive)
• Luxury hotel deals are set to see a surge in investment activity due to strong fundamentals and strengthening capital markets. (Noor Adatia, Hotel Dive)

Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team

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Leaders in Dispute Resolution Need to Make Unbiased Decisions for Mediation to Succeed

March 31, 2026 — Rick G. Erickson - Snell & Wilmer
As a mediator helping to settle construction disputes and as an arbitrator deciding outcomes of these disputes, I found certain lessons to be especially helpful after graduating last summer from the Executive Education program at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). The exceptional HKS curriculum included courses focused on negotiation strategies for multiparty disputes, decisive leadership during crisis, and human behavior affecting dispute resolution. In particular, our HKS class debated the impact of cognitive bias in dispute resolution, and we studied a central theme that decision-making is universally scientific. That is, parties making decisions in dispute resolution exhibit and rely upon empirical factors that good mediators and decision makers should appreciate and understand. Bias, for example, can cause key players to discount persuasive witnesses, admissible evidence, and reliable expert opinions that influence the outcome of a construction dispute. Biased decision makers may also choose to withhold key information from the mediator, as though doing so will help rather than hurt what is supposed to be an objective and diplomatic process. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Rick G. Erickson, Snell & Wilmer
Mr. Erickson may be contacted at rerickson@swlaw.com

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The AI Knows Too Much: When Employees Feed Trade Secrets into Generative AI Tools

April 14, 2026 — Kazim A. Naqvi & John V. Mysliwiec - Sheppard
Every time an employee pastes proprietary source code, a customer list, or a confidential business strategy into ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini, they may be quietly dismantling the legal protections that make those secrets worth protecting. Courts and regulators are only beginning to grapple with this problem, and right now, the burden of preventing it falls squarely on employers. The Legal Stakes Under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) and the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“UTSA”) as adopted across most states, a trade secret plaintiff must show that the information at issue was subject to reasonable measures to maintain its secrecy. Courts have historically credited measures like confidentiality agreements, physical access controls, and employee training—but those safeguards were designed for a world of thumb drives and disgruntled employees. They were not built for a world where a well-meaning engineer can, in seconds, transmit an entire corpus of proprietary data to a third-party AI platform operating under terms of service that may permit the provider to use inputs for model training. Reprinted courtesy of Kazim A. Naqvi, Sheppard and John V. Mysliwiec, Sheppard Mr. Naqvi may be contacted at knaqvi@sheppard.com Mr. Mysliwiec may be contacted at jmysliwiec@sheppard.com Read the full story...

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Your AEC Firm Has a Memory Problem. Here Is How to Fix It

June 01, 2026 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
AEC companies trying to operationalize AI often find they lack the data foundation on which to build. There may be an abundance of data hidden in documents, but you can’t reliably use it for AI. The lack of data quality was a key topic discussed at the AI in AEC 2026 conference. During the event, I met many experts working to solve this problem, including Pavlina Nikolova, Egnyte‘s EMEA AEC Practice Lead. The chat and her presentation highlighted the challenges and ways to overcome them. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

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Las Vegas Partner Jeffrey Saab and Team Leader D. Ryan Efros Secure a $0.00 Settlement on a Multimillion-Dollar Construction Defect Case!

April 14, 2026 — Dolores Montoya - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Partner Jeffrey Saab and Team Leader D. Ryan Efros’ client was a construction supervisor on a palatial mansion. The homeowners claimed millions of dollars in damages and asserted the client was a general contractor (GC) and so responsible for the alleged defects. Jeff and Ryan took more than 15 depositions, reinforcing their trial strategy theme: that the client was not a GC, but Plaintiffs were. They secured significant concessions from Plaintiffs, pressed Plaintiffs’ own negligent construction choices, and made the risk of trying the case intolerable. On the eve of trial, Plaintiffs backed down, settling out Jeff and Ryan’s client for $0.00. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP

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