J. Laurens Wilkes

Practice Areas

Laurens, Chair of Infrastructure & Projects – Global Disputes, focuses his practice on complex civil litigation in state and federal courts as well as arbitrations highlighting infrastructure, fiduciary duty, fraud and products liability disputes. He represents clients in the construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, energy transition, and financial industries in litigation, counseling, and regulatory matters. He is an active member of the Construction Law Sections of the American Bar Association and State Bar of Texas and is a noted trial and arbitration lawyer in the construction and infrastructure sector globally. Laurens has represented numerous US and international infrastructure and construction companies in the US and across the world in commercial disputes, including both domestic and international litigation and arbitrations.

Within the infrastructure and construction industry, he represents both contractors and owners/sponsors as well as lenders. He handles the full range of infrastructure related matters from front end bid/procurement disputes and risk counseling to breach of contract, administrative actions, products liability, fraud and fiduciary duty, trade secret, restructuring, and tort matters. He has extensive experience with traditional construction related issues, including delay, disruption and acceleration claims, and with extra-contractual claims occurring across projects. He has led many trial and arbitration matters involving multibillion dollar disputes from preliminary restraining orders and injunctions to jury trials and final arbitration hearings.

Additionally, Laurens implements and manages e-discovery policies and practices for clients around the globe related to major multiparty and multiforum litigation. He also served as co-chair of the Special Olympics Committee and he served on the United Way Young Leaders Council.