Overview
Kirsten Worley provides a full range of litigation and counseling services to clients in the real estate and construction industries. Kirsten represents owners, developers, investors, general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, lenders, sureties, and businesses of all sizes, from large corporations to local small businesses and business owners. She handles disputes and litigation, as well as prelitigation counseling, contract drafting and negotiation, and general advice.
Kirsten represents clients in a range of disputes and claims ranging from large-scale breach of contract litigation to mechanics’ liens, stop notices, and bond claims. She has experience handling large firm, institutional-sized litigation with hundreds of thousands of complex discovery documents or disputes involving small vendors.
Kirsten also handles transactional matters such as purchase and sale agreements for real estate and business purchases, easements, tenant matters, construction contract drafting, construction licensing, and corporate formation and governance matters. She has also served as outside general counsel for select clients to assist with routine and special corporate compliance needs and contract matters.
Kirsten’s practice also includes creditors’ rights and commercial law issues related to the real estate and construction industry. She represents parties in claim objections and adversary proceedings, receiverships, collections actions, litigating lien priority issues, transactional matters, and negotiated solutions, restructuring, and workouts where she works to minimize the impact of insolvency.
Before joining Stoel Rives, Kirsten headed the construction litigation practice for a prominent firm in San Diego. Earlier in her career, Kirsten was a partner at a national construction litigation boutique firm and also founded and ran a small firm.
Education
University of California, Berkeley School of Law, J.D., 2002; Certificate in Law & Technology
University of California, Los Angeles, B.A., 1999, summa cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions
California
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
United States District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California
United States Bankruptcy Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California
Supreme Court of California
Experience
Construction Claims
- Represented material supplier in defeating general contractor’s claim relating to $1 million in construction defects claims.
- Represented steel subcontractor in recovering over $20 million in excess completion costs due to substantial design changes on a public works project.
- Represented subcontractor in terminating relationship with supplier and defeating $2 million termination damages claims.
- Represented general contractor in recovering excess completion costs from the owner of hospitality project.
- Represented the owner of a hospitality project in recovering costs against general contractor for defective and nonconforming work and defeating general contractor's mechanics’ lien.
- Represented multiple subcontractors in terminating their bids due to price escalation caused by delays resulting from COVID-19.
Transactional Matters
- Represented local family office in purchase and sale of over $250 million in commercial real estate assets and handled all related title, easement, and lending issues, as well as the creation and structuring of single-purpose asset entities and corporate governance issues.
- Represented construction services company in terminating relationship with shareholder who had misappropriated funds, resulting in negotiated $1 million payout to client without litigation.
- Represented contractor in sale of construction company to large national contractor and successfully negotiated all remaining liabilities, including with respect to the leases, surety bonds, and line of credit.
Surety & Lending Collections:
- Represented surety in resolving bond and indemnity claims, resulting in 100% recovery against indemnitors.
- Pursued recovery against multiple construction surety bonds for obligees.
- Represented lender in pursuing collections against multiple guarantors, resulting in 100% recovery.
Bankruptcy Matters
- Represented engineering company in defeating claim by liquidating trustee for preference avoidance in bankruptcy.
- Represented large national contractor in defeating adversary claim for turnover of retention to subcontractor in bankruptcy based upon incomplete and nonconforming work performed by subcontractor/debtor.
- Achieved full payment to subcontractor creditor from bankruptcy by successfully asserting priority of mechanics' lien over the construction lender's trust deed.
Published Opinions
- Archer Western Contractors, LLC v. International Fidelity Insurance Company, 2017 WL 4286970 (U.S.D.C., S.D. Cal., September 27, 2017)
- Archer Western Contractors, LLC v. International Fidelity Insurance Company, 2017 WL 882401 (U.S.D.C., S.D. Cal., March 6, 2017)
- Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co. of Amer. v. Amoroso, 2004 WL 1918890 (U.S.D.C., N.D. Cal., August 24, 2004)
Affiliations
Professional
- California Lawyers Association, Member, Real Property Law Section
- San Diego County Bar Association, Member, Construction Law Section
- Lawyers' Club, San Diego
- American Bar Association, Construction Law Forum
- American Bar Association, Member, Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section
- UCLA Real Estate Alumni Group
- Berkeley Real Estate Alumni Association