Dennis A. Estis

Dennis Estis has specialized for 35 years in the area of complex litigation and alternate dispute resolution (ADR) relating to construction law. He has served as special counsel to the New Jersey (NJ) Builders Association, counsel to several national corporations, developers, contractors, engineers, condominium associations, cooperative corporations, a private school and several NJ municipalities and authorities. He was named 2012 Lawyer of the Year by the Best Lawyers organization in the field of construction law for the Woodbridge (NJ) Area and the 2010 Lawyer of the Year in the field of Construction for the Newark (NJ) Area. In 2011, he was named by the SuperLawyers organization as one of the top 100 attorneys in New Jersey.

Mr. Estis has lectured on construction and ADR law for the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Forum on the Construction Industry (Forum), ABA Litigation Section (Litigation Section), ABA Dispute Resolution Section (“DR Section”), the Community Associations Institute, NJ State Bar Association (NJSBA), the Litigation Counsel of America (LCA) and the NJ Institute of Continuing Legal Education (NJICLE). He is a past Co-Chair of the Litigation Section’s Construction Litigation Committee and the DR Section’s Construction Committee, and a former member of the Litigation Section’s Task Force on Mediator Ethics. He is a member of the Forum, the College of Community Association Lawyers, the NJSBA Construction Section, the DR and Litigation Sections and a founding fellow of the LCA.

He served as lead counsel for 100+ builders related to fire retardant treated (FRT) plywood roof sheathing, helped draft NJ’s FRT statute, and lead the successful effort to overturn the FRT regulations promulgated by the NJ Department of Community Affairs. Mr. Estis has represented a large number of developers/contractors/corporations, profit and non-profit, including Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., the Slattery Group, D.R. Horton, Lennar Corp., Torcon, Inc., American Properties, Inc., the Wardlaw-Hartridge School, the City of Orange Township (NJ), First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens (NJ), numerous condominium associations, cooperative corporations, and many diverse parties in numerous construction cases.

He is an American Arbitration Association (AAA) trained mediator and has served as an arbitrator, mediator and partnering facilitator. He is on the AAA’s National Construction Arbitration and Mediation Panels. He is a Professional Mediator with Construction Dispute Resolution Services, Inc. He is co-author of the NJ chapter of lienlawonline, an online website concerning lien laws around the country. Mr. Estis is a past president of the Middlesex County (NJ) Bar Association.

Law Clerk to a NJ Appellate Division Judge, Mr. Estis has been affiliated with Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP since 1973. He is admitted to the Bars of NJ, New York, Federal District of NJ, Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. A 1969 graduate of The Johns Hopkins University, he received his J.D. degree from New York University School of Law in 1972, where he was a Root-Tilden and John Ben Snow Scholar.