Partner

Mark D. 

Changaris

Mr. Changaris’ practice centers upon assisting clients in a broad array of complex business matters, including construction law, intellectual property, litigation, and mergers and acquisitions.

As part of his construction law practice, he has assisted owners, contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers in connection with a wide variety of projects, with a special emphasis on EPC contracts and design-build contracts. He has worked on residential developments, industrial facilities, maintenance structures, mining infrastructure, and school construction, with projects ranging from several million dollars up to multi-billion dollar budgets. His involvement has included negotiating agreements, assisting clients to structure proposed transactions, counseling clients to mitigate risk, and helping clients evaluate and resolve contract disputes and related conflicts.

Mr. Changaris has also assisted clients with trademark, copyright, and patent related matters in many different fields, including information technology, software, advertising, product manufacturing, product distribution, and merchandising. In the technology field, he has assisted clients with drafting and negotiating license agreements, including Software as a Service (SaaS) agreements, development agreements, and professional services agreements. In the products manufacturing and construction fields, he has helped clients implement contracting standards and forms, negotiated distribution agreements, drafted risk management documents, assisted in development of product warranties and claims procedures, and assisted in the protection of intellectual property rights. Mr. Changaris has also assisted clients in enforcing and protecting their intellectual property rights through copyright, trademark, and patent litigation, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) proceedings, and arbitrations conducted pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

As part of his transactional practice, Mr. Changaris has counseled clients in a broad array of business matters, including entity formation, corporate governance, real estate sales, tax planning, mergers and acquisitions, asset sales, stock issuances, private placements, financing, and debt or equity offerings. Mr. Changaris has assisted clients by negotiating and drafting an array of loan and financing documents, security agreements, employment agreements, and non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. His experience spans multiple industries, including construction, mining, software development, manufacturing, and advertising.

Mr. Changaris has also counseled clients through all phases of dispute resolution, including informal business-to-business negotiations, stipulated judgments and settlements, litigation in state and federal court, arbitration with the Judicial Arbiter Group (JAG), and international arbitration with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). His cases have involved complex commercial disputes, insurance coverage disputes, breach of contract, civil theft, environmental contamination, CERCLA, NEPA, real estate disputes, mechanics’ liens, construction defects, breach of fiduciary duties or corporate trust, corporate fraud and abuse, securities fraud, including Rule 10b-5 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, SEC enforcement actions, fraudulent transfers, foreclosures, and landlord—tenant disputes. In addition to broad experience at the district court level, Mr. Changaris has conducted appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, drafting briefs and conducting oral argument.