Thomas S. O'Leary

Partner

Tom O’Leary is a Partner in VLMG’s Tysons Corner office. His practice focuses mainly on construction litigation involving private projects and government contracts.

Tom’s clients include owners, general contractors, construction managers, and subcontractors, who he represents in both state and federal courts, as well as arbitration proceedings. Tom provides counsel to his clients through all stages of their respective projects, advising on contract negotiations, dispute resolutions and claim preservation during the course of a project, all the way through trial. Tom represents regional, national, and international clients in connection with complex legal matters involving contract administration and performance, risk analysis, claims and liability issues, design-build / design-bid-build projects, project scheduling and delay claims, and damages analysis.

Tom collaborates with his clients to resolve problems at the project level in an effort to minimize the expense and disruption of formal legal proceedings. When litigation becomes unavoidable, he manages every stage of the dispute process, with a focus on safeguarding his clients’ financial interests while building the strongest possible case for trial if necessary.

Tom earned his law degree from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, in Washington, D.C. While in law school, Tom served as the Senior Leads Article Editor for the Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology. Prior to joining VLMG,  Tom served as judicial law clerk for the Honorable Sharon V. Burrell of the Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, Maryland.

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE

• Currently representing designer on design defect and CERCLA liability action brought by the Government of Guam in Federal District Court (Guam).

• Currently representing design joint venture on $4 billion infrastructure project, defending against $450 million in defective design and delay claims, and prosecuting affirmative claims for additional design scope on behalf of design joint venture team.

• Currently representing a pipeline contractor in litigation with the project owner on a water pipeline project in Pennsylvania.

• Currently representing international general contractor in multi-million-dollar ASBCA appeal related to construction of barracks for Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command in Rota, Spain.

• Represented a contractor in disputes with the project owner on an 800MW offshore wind farm off the United States East Coast.

• Represented a general contractor in an ASBCA appeal concerning a dispute with the government on a reservoir project as part of a major Everglades restoration plan.

• Represented an ENR U.S. Top 50 general contractor in a dispute with a museum owner.  The parties reached a confidential settlement prior to the evidentiary hearing of the matter.

• Represented a dredging subcontractor in a dispute with a general contractor on a nuclear power station project in Southern Virginia, securing a favorable settlement on behalf of the client.

• Represented a major design-build tri-venture contractor on a $1.5 Billion classified federal government data center project in dispute against designer for errors and omissions totaling in excess of $15 million. The parties reached a confidential settlement prior to the evidentiary hearing of the matter.

• Represented a contractor in an AAA / ICDR dispute with an EPC contractor on a 674MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle plant in Massachusetts. Following a multi-week evidentiary hearing, the client received a Final Award of over US$25 million on its claims of, among other things, lost productivity and change order work.  The Arbitration Panel also awarded the client its attorneys’ fees and costs.

PUBLICATIONS

• Co-Author: "2024 AIA Design-Build Contract Forms at a Glance", The Construction Lawyer, Volume 45, Number 1, Winter 2026.

• Co-Author: Chapter 9, Design-Build Contracting with the Federal Government, in Design Build, Public-Private Partnerships, and Collaboration Handbook (Wolters Kluwer) (3d ed. 2022).

• Author: “Better to Ask for Clarification than Beg for Forgiveness: Recent Ruling Reinforces Mandatory Nature of Bonding in Government Contracts,” Government Construction, Volume 4, Issue 4, February 2019.