John Neary is co-chair of Akerman’s Construction practice. He represents owners, developers, contractors, subcontractors, and design professionals in civil litigation matters. Among other areas, he focuses on critical infrastructure projects, renewable and conventional power generation facilities, energy storage systems, and data centers and digital infrastructure. John also advises on contract formation and administration across project delivery systems for public and private construction contracts. In the energy sector, he regularly advises key project stakeholders in negotiating engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC), operation and maintenance (O&M), power purchase agreements (PPAs), and interconnection agreements.
As co-chair of Akerman’s Data Centers and Digital Infrastructure Sector Team, John's practice covers the full life cycle of mission-critical facilities. He works on single-building colocation facilities and on multi-building, multi-phase hyperscale campuses. He represents data center developers, operators, general contractors, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) and specialty trade contractors, and design professionals. He structures and negotiates design-build, EPC, construction management, and master services agreements for fast-track, schedule-driven programs. He also advises on risk allocation for long-lead electrical and mechanical equipment, and on commissioning and turnover requirements. Power is now often the critical path for data center delivery. John draws on his energy practice to counsel clients on on-site substations, behind-the-meter and front-of-the-meter generation, battery energy storage, utility interconnection, and the EPC and O&M agreements behind them. His recent work includes supporting the development of over 1 GW of new power generation for large data center campuses. When disputes arise, he represents clients in delay, disruption, change order, defective work, payment, and lien and bond claims involving data center projects.
In addition, John represents a wide variety of government contractors, including engineering, construction, defense, information technology, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical companies, with a focus on state and federal contract counseling and compliance. He also assists clients with due diligence and other work related to acquiring government contracting businesses, and with drafting and negotiating teaming agreements, subcontracts, and licensing agreements. His government contracts litigation experience includes claims litigation in federal courts and before boards of contract appeals, and bid protests before various state and federal tribunals.
Before joining Akerman, John was a field engineer for Kiewit on the replacement of the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. He also worked as an engineer for Babcock & Wilcox, providing technical support to home-office and field-office operations on power generation and environmental air quality control systems. He uses this engineering background to give clients both technical and legal insight on complex capital projects.