Business litigation of a civil nature has constituted a considerable part of Mr. Carrow's practice. He has litigated complex business and securities claims and disputes and has represented foreign and domestic directors, officers and employees of the client business at the administrative, trial and appellate levels of both the state and federal judicial systems. Mr. Carrow's many years of broad-based experience in litigation, ADR proceedings and investigations involving business issues generally, and securities related actions specifically, has involved both plaintiff and defendant advocacy.

In one of his more convoluted pieces of litigation, Mr. Carrow recently represented the Irish rock group U-2's English lighting company in defense of an action brought against U-2 and Mr. Carrow's client as a result of personal injuries suffered by a California rigger. The accident occurred in the course of a U-2 concert in France. The trial was conducted in San Francisco. Fortunately, the case was settled in the course of trial, thus, avoiding the many conflict of laws issues that would otherwise have been presented had the litigation continued.

An anecdotal example of Mr. Carrow's willingness to take on difficult causes, is a case recently completed. Mr. Carrow represented a corporate real estate broker and the company's agent, in a complex action in which plaintiff developer sought approximately fifty million dollars in compensatory damages, and a like amount in punitive damages from his own real estate agents, based on the agents' alleged breach of their fiduciary duties to the plaintiff, involving purchase and sale of certain valuable Nevada property. Plaintiff contended that his agents conspired with others to sell the property to a third party, after documents required for purchase of the property had been signed by plaintiff and before the escrow on the plaintiff's purchase could close.

Plaintiff was represented by one of California's largest law firms, which had over two years to prepare for trial. Pre-trial deposition transcripts alone totalled approximately 4,000 pages. Due to the court's disqualification of the defendants' attorney during the week preceding trial, and the somewhat questionable refusal of the presiding judge to allow any lawyer substituting into the the case for defendants a continuance to prepare for trial, the defendants faced the probability of having to defend themselves at trial.

Mr. Carrow was approached by the defendants who explained their predicament to him. Against the advice of his professional associates, Mr. Carrow agreed on the day prior to commencement of trial to assume representation of the the real estate broker/agent defendants. Despite the fact that Mr. Carrow was required to prepare his defense on a day to day basis in the course of of the litigation, after a five week trial the jury found in favor of Mr. Carrow's clients, against plaintiff, and Mr. Carrow's clients were awarded their costs of suit. (See, Grand Land Investment v. Coscan/Stewart, San Francisco Superior Court No. SCV-960340).

Recognizing the ever expanding cost of business litigation, Mr. Carrow has been particularly active in the Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") process of mediation and arbitration as it applies to business, including securities related, litigation. In addition to his experience as an advocate involved in the ADR process, Mr. Carrow has acted as a private arbitrator and as a settlement conference and trial pro tempore judge of the Superior Court of California, the highest trial court within the California judicial structure.

A third area of Mr. Carrow's business and securities law emphasis is prosecution and defense of business torts, including fraud, deceit and other non-contractual breaches of a legal duty by a business directly resulting in damages to another. Closely aligned to business torts are many other wrongful acts, including breach of the implied warranty of good faith and fair dealing, which exists in any contractual relationship.

A fourth area of emphasis of Mr. Carrow's involvement in business and securities related law extends to defense of white collar crime, an area of law with which he has had considerable experience and notable success. Assuming provable culpability, his approach is to initially make an informal effort to resolve the matter on terms satisfactory to the prosecution and his client. Only in the event this effort proves unsuccessful, will the criminal charges be brought to trial, since experience has proven that even if acquitted, the publicity accompanying trial will adversely effect, or even destroy, the involved business, the client's family relationships, and the health, well being and reputation of the client, his family and his associates.

Mr. Carrow is an international and domestic commercial trial lawyer, who maintains commercial law attorney offices in San Francisco and San Rafael, California and barrister chambers in London. He limits his involvement in commercial litigation to claims and disputes of a substantial nature.

One would think that "commercial law" would include all law that, by definition, involves commerce. Lest the reader be confused, it does not. If all commerce related law were encompassed by that term, there would be very little law remaining. Even torts and criminal law often involve commerce, directly or indirectly . To make matters even more confusing, certain areas of law generally treated as falling within the ambit of "commercial law," arguably do not, e.g., intellectual property law, information technology & multimedia law and tax law, to mention but a few. For purposes of this page, "commercial law" is defined to encompass substantial matters affecting credit, debt collection, bankruptcy and the Uniform Commercial Code, including creditors' rights, mortgage foreclosure, banking law, development financing, and contracts for the sale of goods.

As is the case with "business law," Mr. Carrow recognizes the ever expanding cost of civil litigation, including commercial litigation, Mr. Carrow has been increasingly active in the Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") process as it applies to commercial claims. In addition to his experience as an advocate involved in the ADR process, Mr. Carrow has acted as a private arbitrator and as a settlement conference and trial pro tempore judge for the Superior Court of California, which is the equivalent of the English High Court, i.e., the highest trial court in California.

On occasion, the facts surrounding the commercial dispute involve allegations of fraud and deceit, or other wrongful acts, of a criminal nature. Mr. Carrow has had considerable and successful experience in defending against such charges, but limits his criminal defense involvement to "white collar crime, which is defined elsewhere on this site."

The fee terms of Mr. Carrow's representation on commercial, or commercially related matters, whether on an hourly or contingent fee basis, or a combination of the two, are negotiated on a case by case basis.

A substantial part of Mr. Carrow's practice consists of construction related litigation including:

Representation of Contractors Before Public Agencies,
   Including Licensing & Bid Disputes;

Prosecution & Defense of Claims By or Against the Owner
    Involving the Contractor;

Prosecution & Defense of Claims by the Owner Against
    Architects & Designers;

Prosecution & Defense of Claims By or Against the Contractor
    Involving Subcontractors;

Prosecution & Defense of Claims By or Against the Contractor
    Involving Material persons;

Prosecution & Defense of Claims By Homeowners Associations
    Against Contractors and/or Developers;

Prosecution and Defense of Bond Claims By and Against the
    Contractors, Subcontractors and/or Owners;

Perfection and Foreclosure of Mechanic Lien and Stop Notice
    Claims;

Contentious construction matters have made up a substantial part of Mr. Carrow's 37 years of the practice of law. He has successfully litigated or negotiated settlement of numerous complex construction disputes, both private and public in nature, and has represented directors, officers and employees of the client business at the administrative, trial and appellate levels of both the state and federal judicial systems. His practice is limited to construction claims and disputes of a substantial nature.

Consistent with his attitude with regard to other business related disputes, Mr. Carrow seeks, wherever possible, to bring the advantages of ADR procedures to the construction industry.

As is the case with business and commercial disputes, the facts surrounding the construction dispute sometimes involve fraud, deceit, or criminal behavior. As in other areas of the law, Mr. Carrow's involvement in crime is limited to offenses of a "white collar" nature.

Mr. Carrow's practice includes other civil litigation of a substantial nature. The term "civil law" is subject to definition, but to many, it is not an easy task.

According to Blacks' somewhat pretentious definition, civil law "is that body of law which every particular nation, commonwealth or city has established particularly for itself; more particularly called 'municipal' law, to distinguish it from the 'law of nature,' and from the international law. Laws concerned with civil or private rights and remedies, as contrasted with the criminal laws." (Blacks Law Dictionary, 6th Ed., 1990.)

The number of categories of law encompassed within the term "civil law" is almost endless. One surfing the web, will come across web sites offering attorney services and, more often than not, the entries are broken down by category, since most lawyers concede that they are not qualified to practice in all. At a minimum, there are at least sixty categories of civil law, everything from admiralty to workers' compensation. This is exclusive of the sub categories within those categories.

Recognizing his limitations, Mr. Carrow places his primary emphasis on the civil law categories mentioned above, i.e., commercial, business, and construction litigation, together with prosecution and defense of personal injury and wrongful death claims, discussed elsewhere.

Parenthetically, provision by Mr. Carrow of consultation and expert witness testimony on the laws of Britain and the United States would not, in itself, be considered a category of law. It is more the business of explaining the state and meaning of the law.

"Civil litigation and arbitration" is included in Mr. Carrow's categories of services merely to keep the door open to allow him to take on any civil case to which he may take a fancy, and which he believes he is qualified to handle. In truth, given reasonable time to prepare, and assuming an interest, a qualified litigator should be able to litigate most any case since, typically, the legal issues are narrow and focused. Most attorneys will forego involvement in a case which falls within a category with which he or she is unfamiliar because of the cost to the client of the lawyer educating himself or herself in the subject area. From the client's standpoint, it is less expensive, and a favorable result is probably more predictable, if the attorney has already had considerable experience in the subject area involved.

Some of the categories in which Mr. Carrow has involved himself over the years, each of which he has litigated, but upon which he does not place his primary emphasis, include: legal malpractice, consumer law, civil rights, corporate & partnership law, family law, juvenile law, foreclosure, landlord-tenant, securities, insurance, real estate and probate. The question of whether Mr. Carrow chooses to become involved in these, and other areas of civil law, are made by him on a case by case basis.

Without belabouring the point, Mr. Carrow's preference for Alternative Dispute Resolution procedures remains.