Sunday, July 13, 2025

3:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Registration

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Welcome Reception

Monday, July 14, 2025

7:30 am—5:00 pm

Registration

7:30 am – 8:00 am

Continental Breakfast

8:00 am—8:15 am

Welcome

8:15 am –10:00 am

Plenary Session

Session 1: Legal Updates and Perspectives from USDOT Senior Legal Officers (Invited)

In this kick-off session, you will hear from and interact with a panel of senior legal officers with USDOT including the FHWA, FTA, FAA and FRA. You will learn about current policy initiatives at USDOT, hot legal topics, key regulatory actions and other important developments shaping our transportation system.

10:00 am—10:30 am

Break

10:30 am—Noon

Plenary Session

Session 2: Working with the New Department of Transportation

With the change in Administrations, the new USDOT is making a number of changes in how it approaches grant making, grant implementation and compliance, permitting streamlining, and following through on Executive Orders.  This session will consider these changes and how transportation lawyers can work with USDOT in the new environment.  Specific issues will include spending or impoundment of grant programs, notice of funding opportunity conditions, obligating awarded grants, complying with grant agreements for obligated grants, compliance audits, enforcement, streamlining efforts for permitting and decision making, and related issues important for project development, safety, and operation

2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Concurrent Sessions

Session 3: Will Uber Be My Lyft? Current Challenges and Opportunities in Transit Agency – TNC Partnerships

Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) play a significant role in enhancing transit by providing flexible, on-demand mobility options, particularly for "first-mile/last-mile" travel, complementing traditional public transit, and expanding access for those who might not otherwise have transportation options. This panel will explore current strategies for partnering with TNCs, including contracting strategies and cautions, examples of how transit agencies have incorporated TNCs into their transit offerings, and the safety considerations involved in the proposed change in FTA guidance regarding the applicability of drug and alcohol testing rules to TNCs.

Session 4: Don’t Blink – Contractual and Extra-Contractual Methods of Contract Enforcement

This session features a series of quick-hitting topics that will help owners hold a recalcitrant contractor’s feet to the fire. Learn about bonds and other forms of security, material breach and default, surety response to performance bond claims, forms of liquidated damages [and incentives], enforcing liquidated damages provisions, remedies for non-conforming work (including accepting with deductions), warranties and long-term operations/maintenance contracts, and distinguishing patent and latent defects.

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Concurrent Sessions

Session 5: Crisis Management.  Recognizing and Responding to Threats to Employees, the Public and Public Infrastructure

Recognize the challenge, develop framework/template for response (structure), prepare/anticipate events/ communicate effectively and without admitting liability factual circumstances, minimize cost and risk to society, build trust.

We would focus on reasonable responses, reasonable planning methods, media outreach, liability neutral language, etc. in the context of a crisis such as fire on a highway overpass and severe flood events that result in widespread damage and closure of roads, bridges and rail lines.  This session will include a discussion of data and how it the agency can use it to assist in predicting incidents.    

Session 6: Technology in the Courtroom

While transits, display boards and videos still have their role inside and outside the courtroom, the nearly weekly advancement of available tools and communication mediums needs to be clearly understood by legal counsel and experts to make a sound argument and tell a story that can be understood by the judge and jury.  This session will demonstrate the latest tools and communication mediums used inside and outside the courtroom on tort liability, crash reconstruction, eminent domain, and land use cases.  Several case studies from various cases will be shared from across the country. Our speakers will bet an afternoon beverage that you will learn about at least three new tools and communication mediums by attending.

8:00 am—9:30 am

Concurrent Sessions

Session 7: Navigating Civil Rights in Transportation:  Requirements, Implementation and Compliance

This two-part session will provide the audience with the current expectations and practices for civil rights implementation and compliance in transportation projects. The panel consists of lawyers and practitioners will address the legal landscape as well as the impacts of implementation and compliance in transportation entities based on recent litigation, regulatory and procedural measures. 

Session 8: Same Principles, Different Applications: How the Modes Implement Buy America, BABA, Utility Relocation and Other Common Requirements

Panel discussion will cover FTA, FRA, and FHWA approaches to Buy America and other common requirements, FHWA’s new manufactured products rule, and contracting strategies for ensuring compliance during project delivery

9:30 am—10:00 am

Break

10:00 am—11:30 am

Concurrent Sessions

Session 9: Council of Environmental Quality guidance on NEPA revisions, and Recent Caselaw

In February 2025, the Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued interim final rulemaking for rescinding CEQ regulations and updating agency NEPA processes.  This session provides information regarding how federal lead agencies should categorize and analyze climate and disproportionate impacts in NEPA documents.  This panel will address the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition decision, current caselaw on scoping issues, and will provide best practices and case studies for addressing effects analysis issues in NEPA documents.  The panel will provide a variety of perspectives from CEQ and state DOTs (both with and without NEPA assignment), and private practice.  This will be an interactive session and will include a robust Q&A portion.

Session 10:  How to Talk to Engineers during Project Development 

Heard the phrase – know your audience?  We as counsel really do have our own language.  As counsel, learning to speak to that staff, particularly engineers, in a way they can fully absorb the information they need, allows counsel to successfully become part of the solutions necessary to keep a project moving.  This session will examine legal risks in project development, including planning, design, and construction.  But just looking at or knowing legal risks isn’t enough if your engineering, environmental, and real estate staff aren’t in tune with what those risks mean to a project’s timeline and budget.  Bringing a project in on time and on budget is the goal of every transportation team.  If your department’s goal is to avoid roadblocks in the project life cycle, as counsel, you can add value to this process by identifying those risks and offering the means to avoid or mitigate them before they become live and help to quickly resolve them if they do get loose.  Getting legal into the project development process early is an asset deployment that pays off by avoiding or resolving issues that may break a project timeline or budget.

11:45 am—1:15 pm

Lunch/Committee Meetings

1:30 pm—3:00 pm

Concurrent Sessions

Session 11: No Vehicles in the Park: Handling Hard-To-Categorize Transportation Modes

As transportation continues to evolve, so do vehicles and modes of transportation.  Many emerging technologies blur traditional lines between road and sidewalk, air and water, public transportation and private use. From delivery robots to last-mile autonomous mobility to identified flying objects, we will explore how stakeholders from the public and private sectors address these hard-to-categorize uses and modes. Topics will include regulatory challenges, developing standards, opportunities for cooperation, legal responsibility and liability, and competing interests at federal, state, and local levels. 

Session 12: Procurement and Contracting Strategies in Transit Infrastructure Projects

Panel discussion will cover procurement and contracting issues faced by transit agencies, contractors, and funders when delivering transit infrastructure projects.

3:00 pm—3:30 pm

Break

3:30 pm—5:00 pm

Concurrent Sessions

Session 13: More “Conspiracy” Than “Theory” - Is Bid Rigging a Hidden Cost to Your Projects?

Collusion and other anti-competitive practices can have real costs for transportation projects. Project costs can increase due to bid-rigging, market allocation, complementary bidding, and other nefarious schemes. Learn about FHWA’s focus on this area and explore the use of data analysis to detect collusion.

Session 14:  What is Happening? Recent Developments in Transportation Technology Law

The transportation sector continues to move fast not only in technology and market developments but also in legal developments. In this session, we will discuss the current legal landscape including recent executive orders, USDOT and agency activities, legislative developments, US rulemakings, and international regulations. With speakers with experience across different administrations and branches of government, as well as leaders from the private sector, this promises to be a lively and informative discussion, exploring transportation from multiple vantage points. 

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

7:30am

Registration

7:30 am—8:00 am

Continental Breakfast

8:00 am—9:30 am

Plenary Session

Session 15:  Mother Nature vs. the Department of Transportation:  Defending the Tort Claim

Transportation officials are adapting planning, design, and operational methodologies to accommodate Mother Nature’s constant challenges. Those challenges include flooding events, pavement conditions, temperature changes, population movement and other constantly shifting aspects of transportation planning and operations.   A mock trial scenario will be used to inform a discussion of the need for balancing the considerations of legal issues such as notice and reasonably safe road conditions with the realities of crash histories, the public’s need for access to roadways and the ease of access to roadway systems for emergency responders.   The session will incorporate a focus group concept in order to engage session attendees. 

9:30 am—10:00 am

Break

10:00 am—Noon

Legal Ethics Session

Session 16: Clients Gone Wild: Ethical Duties and Options When Clients Behave Badly

Every one of our clients is our favorite client! But on occasion, the attorney-client relationship can be strained. Problems in our client relationships can be as mundane as having difficulty communicating with or getting responses from a client to payment issues. More serious concerns also arise, like a client treating you or your staff poorly, or if a client makes it clear they intend to take illegal action. We all hope to avoid these awkward situations, but they inevitably occur. Fortunately, the Model Rules provide guidance to an attorney in all these circumstances, and others. This panel will explore an attorney’s ethical obligations and options when our clients, whom we all love and cherish, challenge our ability to effectively carry out our professional duties.

Noon – 12:15 pm

Closing Remarks & Adjournment

1:00 pm—2:30 pm

Section Council Meeting (By Invitation Only))