James P. Groton

Jim Groton is a retired Partner of the firm of Sutherland. Asbill and Brennan - now known as Eversheds Sutherland - where he led the Construction and Dispute Prevention and Resolution practices of that firm.

As a pracicing lawyer during the Atlanta building boom in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, he specialized in construction matters, progressing from trial lawyer to trouble-shooter, to behind-the-scenes counselor, to problem-solver, and advocate for “keeping the peace” on construction projects. He was an early student of the construction industry’s newly-invented dispute prevention processes such as realistic risk allocation, partnering, incentives to encourage cooperation, dispute review boards and standing neutrals. He sponsored research into the relative transaction costs of various methods of processing disputes in order to provide empirical data for making decisions about the most appropriate methods for dealing with potential disputes.

Jim was the principal editor and one of the authors of the 1991 book published by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR), “Preventing and Resolving Construction Disputes,” which presented the construction industry’s newly-invented techniques for preventing, controlling, de-escalating and achieving the earliest possible resolution of disputes, and advocated applying those mechanisms as a dispute prevention system. He chaired CPR’s Prevention Study Group which authored CPR’s 2010 “Prevention Practice Materials.” In 2016 he persuaded the leaders of the Global Pound Conference to include the still-developing subject of dispute prevention as a part of the Conference’s examination of ways to improve ADR. In a surprising development, the delegates to that Conference voted that “pre-dispute or pre-escalation processes to prevent disputes” are the processes which should most be prioritized to improve the future of dispute resolution. In retirement, Jim has continued to conduct research and advocate the widespread use of dispute prevention practices in business.

Jim has received numerous awards and recognitions for his dispute prevention and resolution work from such organizations as the American Arbitration Association, the Construction Industry Institute, the American Institute of Architects, Engineering News-Record, and CPR. He was the first lawyer to be elected to the National Academy of Construction.

Jim is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia Law School.