Overview
Joe McManus focuses his practice on government contracting, construction litigation, and dispute resolution. With more than 40 years of experience in federal government contracts, Joe is intimately familiar with the federal statutes, regulations, and agency supplements unique to government supply, service, and construction contracts. Joe has represented clients on a variety of projects, including airports, hospitals, hotels and resorts, public-private projects, embassies, condominiums, office buildings, roads, and power plants. He has deep experience in infrastructure and transportation matters, as well as aviation and health care matters.
Joe has litigated, arbitrated, and mediated construction and commercial disputes in state and federal courts and contract appeals boards for owners, contractors, architects, engineers, subcontractors, and suppliers.
He is an active arbitrator on local, national, and international cases. He is on the construction, commercial, and international panels of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and an arbitrator with the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) and the Arbitration and Mediation Court of the Caribbean (AMCC). He has been involved in multiple extensive arbitrations in the Caribbean, with both public bodies and private contractors, and has represented electrical contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a strong advocate for alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
Joe has represented Associated General Contractors (AGC), Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA), and Associated Specialty Contractors (ASC) in the development of AIA standard form construction contracts.
Joe is a past president of the American College of Construction Lawyers (ACCL), an invited association of the leading construction law practitioners, professors, and judges. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb) and the Litigation Counsel of America (LCA), and a charter fellow of the Construction Lawyers Society of America (CLSA).
Joe is a frequent author on construction law topics and has served as an expert witness on construction contracts and administration in the United States and the Caribbean. He previously served as general counsel to a major construction contractor and as a captain in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps assigned to the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals.