Salon, Joel

Mary A. Salamone is a partner in the firm's Irvine office.  Ms. Salamone has dedicated her over 20 year career exclusively to the area of construction law and has acquired an in-depth knowledge regarding all aspects of construction projects and disputes.  Her practice encompasses a wide array of construction industry matters such as competitive bidding, contract drafting and administration, scheduling and delay issues, cost overruns, mechanic's lien and bond rights, risk management, and claims resolution.  Ms. Salamone has handled multi-million dollar disputes on high profile, complex construction projects and achieved favorable settlements and judgments on behalf of her clients.

She has represented some of the largest general contractors, both in California and nationally, in claims arising from major construction projects, including the John Wayne Airport, Metro Red Line Rail Stations, the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.  Ms. Salamone has also been retained by various counties, municipalities and other governmental agencies to assist in their construction-related disputes and in the development of their contract documents. These governmental entities include the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Cities of Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, and Reno (Nevada), the Counties of Sonoma and San Bernardino, San Bernardino Associated Governments and Santa Barbara County Association of Governments.  Her understanding of these disputes from the perspective of both the owner and the contractor uniquely enables her to reach cost-effective resolutions.

Some of Ms. Salamone's more notable engagements are a $2 billion earthen dam (7th largest in the world) now known as the Diamond Valley Lake in Hemet, California; the Alameda Corridor below-grade, freight rail system running from the Ports of Long Beach/Los Angeles to downtown Los Angeles; the Pacific Pipeline which is a 128-mile buried pipeline running between Kern and Los Angeles Counties; the $500 million state-of-the-art University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona; the expansion of State Route 71 in Chino Hills, California and State Route 1/101 in Santa Barbara, California; the Aladdin Hotel and Casino and Desert Passage Retail Mall (now known as Planet Hollywood), and the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ms. Salamone graduated magna cum laude from the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and International Relations.  She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honorary academic fraternity. Ms. Salamone earned her Juris Doctor from Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York.

Ms. Salamone is a popular speaker for various construction associations and educational institutions, including Lorman Education Services, Continuing Education of the Bar, the American Bar Association, Loyola Law School, Turner School of Construction Management, and the Construction Industry Superconference. Ms. Salamone has also authored a number of articles as noted below.