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Steven M. Charney is the Chairman of the firm and the Managing Partner of Peckar & Abramson’s New York office. Mr. Charney’s practice includes ongoing representation of contractors that are among the top ten as reported by Engineering News Record. Mr. Charney’s background couples extensive academic and hands-on experience in the construction industry with decades of experience in litigating for and providing legal counsel to contractors and developers. Throughout Mr. Charney’s career, he has handled numerous construction related disputes, in court, arbitration or in alternative dispute forums. Mr. Charney frequently handles multi-million dollar delay, lien, default, equitable adjustment, termination and construction and design defect matters. Mr. Charney’s experience includes the representation of contractors and owners in connection with some of the most prominent projects built throughout the United States. He represented the developer of the largest private building construction project ever to take place in New York City and represented contractors and design/builders in connection with numerous professional sports facilities (such as the Arthur Ashe tennis stadium and several National Football League and Major League Baseball stadiums). Mr. Charney led the Associated General Contractors of America to establish a task force to study mold related issues, and then vice-chaired that task force as it drafted the industry’s first guide to understanding this problem.
Before joining Peckar & Abramson, Mr. Charney served as Eastern Division Counsel for Turner Construction Company. Mr. Charney was employed by Turner Construction Company for nearly a decade, prior to entering private legal practice, and served in a number of operations related roles, including field superintendent, cost and scheduling engineer, and manager of litigation and claims, before serving as counsel.
Mr. Charney is a member of the Associated General Contractors of America and serves on both the Contract Documents and Risk Management Committees of this leading national organization. He has often published commentary regarding issues applicable to the construction and development industries, including commentary in New York Construction. He is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and served on the Construction Law Subcommittee of that association. He is also a member of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association.
In view of his accomplishments, Mr. Charney has been repeatedly recognized by Chambers USA, as a leading attorney in the field of Construction Law in New York. He has also been repeatedly named to Who’s Who of International Construction Lawyers, selected for inclusion in the publication Best Lawyers in America, and listed in New York Magazine, as a top construction attorney in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area. Mr. Charney is also a fellow in the American College of Construction Lawyers.
Mr. Charney is a graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, where he attended as an evening student while working fulltime in the construction industry. In 1983, Mr. Charney received a Master of Science degree in construction management from the School of Civil Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology (where he also studied as an evening student while working full-time in the construction industry). Mr. Charney also holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Syracuse University, with a minor in construction technologies.