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Attorney F. Eugene Atwood

Partner

20+ years of experience

My Story

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Attorney F. Eugene Atwood, Partner

My Story

Biography

Attorney F. Eugene Atwood is a partner at Regan Atwood P.A. and handles construction litigation and arbitration, business litigation, and real estate litigation across Florida from the firm’s home base in Jacksonville, Florida.

Board certified in Construction Litigation by the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, Gene is an incredibly talented and accomplished attorney who has been a Super Lawyer in Construction since 2012.

Gene’s experience includes litigation and arbitration of disputes involving construction defects, delays, and defective performance claims, construction lien claims, defective design claims and other common construction litigation cases.

Gene has represented owners, contractors, design professionals, municipalities and government authorities in various defective performance disputes, and contractors, design professionals and governmental agencies in procurement cases.

Gene has had clients who are investing members and managing members of various businesses, including Fortune 500 corporations, as well as individuals who have brought claims against large companies.

In real estate litigation, Gene has represented creditors, title companies, banks, and investors in real estate legal disputes.

What’s unique about Gene’s life is that he had a compelling 20-year career in the construction industry prior to becoming a lawyer.

A Jacksonville, Florida, native Gene said he tried three times to leave the city, “but each time, the river called me back.”

Gene entered construction through his father in the summer after seventh grade and worked in construction interrupted by a four-year stint in the army. He resumed his construction career after serving as a Czech linguist for the Army Security Agency.

He worked as a laborer, and received his union card as a plasterer graduating high school. He then worked construction while attending Jacksonville University.

Gene took the LSAT and was admitted to several law schools in 1974 but passed on the opportunity in favor of continuing his construction career.

“It was a humble beginning,” Gene said. “Another part of not attending law school was a feeling that I did not belong. “I had only known construction growing up and that is where I was comfortable.”

“I didn’t grow up in the city limits of Jacksonville. That was before we consolidated and I was out in this very rural neighborhood. There were two- and three-acre gardens. I mean, vegetable gardens by people’s houses. It was more farmland than suburb.”

Gene remained in construction, working up from an assistant project manager, to an acting division manager supervising other project managers. Gene said he wasn’t as attracted to supervising other project managers as much as he was in bringing buildings out of the ground and so turned his attention back to the possibility of law school.

Twenty years after first sitting for the LSAT, Gene took it once again. He attended and graduated from the University of Florida earning a law degree, with honors and serving as the Senior Research Editor for the UF Law Review. He worked as an associate attorney, then, became partner at Rogers Towers in Jacksonville.

Gene joined forces with former fellow Rogers Towers partner, attorney Jeffrey C. Regan in 2013, forming Regan, Zebouni & Atwood, P.A., as a shareholder. Gene, a partner with Regan Atwood P.A., has litigated and arbitrated many construction, business, and real estate cases.

One case Gene litigated involved defending a $14 million claim against a national general contractor. After four years of litigation and three mediations, the last mediation that went for three days and was attended by over 100 lawyers and clients, all claims settled with a net $0.00 impact to his client.

Another memorable case involved “a six-week arbitration early in my career that was against a construction company that was incredibly complex. It had delay claims, and construction defect claims, and cross claims and counter claims.

Gene has also handled a number of appeals, “I had an appeal on a nine-million dollar claim against a title company.”

“I’ve handled a $130 million-dollar bankruptcy claim against another company. And of course, bankruptcy litigation and adversary proceedings for creditors.

“The case where I got my client $2.1 million in lost profits on top of $1.8 million in actual damages — which included all of his attorney’s fees,” Gene said. “that was just recently settled.”

Gene is a highly honored attorney with awards including being named from 2012 to 2020 as a Super Lawyers, Construction Litigation Lawyer.

Gene was awarded in 2019-20 with the Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent Rating Judicial Edition.

Gene is also a 1998-2020 Martindale-Hubbell AV-Rated Preeminent Attorney.

Gene said that Regan Atwood P.A. has been a great relationship because he and Jeffrey C. Regan’s experience makes it easy to discuss legal issues.

“We can get into some very intense conversations on the law,” Gene said. “We both have strong opinions and those conversations are beneficial to both of us.”

Jeff finished the statement: “heated legal debates are beneficial for our clients because of the give and take that we have with one another and playing devil’s advocate – for our clients. It helps us see both sides of the problems that we’re trying to resolve. It’s been a great partnership.”

Practice Areas

  • Construction Litigation and Arbitration
  • Business Litigation
  • Real Property Litigation

Education

  • University of Florida, J.D., with honors, 1997
    • University of Florida Law Review, Senior Research Editor
  • Jacksonville University, B.A., 1974

Employment

  • Regan Atwood, P.A., February 2019-Present
  • Regan Whelan Zebouni & Atwood, Shareholder, P.A. 2013-19
  • Rogers Towers P.A., Partner, 2003-13
  • Rogers Towers P.A., Associate Attorney, 1997-2003
  • Rogers Towers P.A., Summer Associate, 1994-97
  • Senior project manager, Mel Smith Inc., 1989-94
  • B. Daniel Construction Company, Senior Project Manager, 1989-93
  • The Haskell Company, Senior Project Manager, 1984-88
  • Certified Building Contractor, 1984-94
  • Atwood Construction Company, Project Manager, 1982-84
  • S. Army, Army Security Agency, Voice Interceptor, Czech, 1977-81
  • Anning Johnson, Plasterer, Foreman, Estimator, 1973-77

Bar & Court Admissions

  • The Florida Bar, Admitted 1998
  • The Georgia Bar, Admitted 2010
  • Florida Bar Board Certified in Construction Law by the of Bar Examiners, 2005
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
  • United States District Court, North, Middle and Southern Districts
  • United States Bankruptcy Court, North and Middle Districts

Professional Memberships

  • Member, American Bar Association
    • Trial Lawyers of the ABA 2017
  • Member, Jacksonville Bar Association
  • Member, Construction Law Forum, American Bar Association
  • Member, Trial Lawyers’ Section, Jacksonville Bar Association
  • Past Member Dean’s Leadership Council, Thomas G. Carpenter Library, 2013 -14
  • Associate, Chester Bedell Inns of Court, 1994-1998

Awards

  • 2012-21 Super Lawyers, Construction Litigation Lawyer
  • 2019-20 Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent Rating Judicial Edition
  • 1998-2019 Martindale-Hubbell AV-Rated Preeminent Attorney
  • 2016-20 Fellow with Construction Lawyers Society of America
  • 2010, 2012-13 Florida Trend’s Legal Elite, Construction
  • 2000-Present ABA Construction Forum
  • Avvo Rated Superb Attorney

Why I Became an Attorney

I asked my wife — and you’ve got to understand, she is by training and by most of her career she’s been a nuclear physicist environmental engineer. She headed the Nuclear Disposal System for the State of Ohio for a number of years and now she’s an IT project manager.

I respect her opinion for obvious reasons, so I said, ‘now that you’ve gotten to know me, what would be the reasons why you would want to retain me as your attorney?’

The first word out of her mouth was “tenacity.” She said, “you are as tenacious an individual as I have ever met.”

And that spills into the fact that I adopt a dispute as my own. I am diligent in what I do and I’m very loyal to the client. I don’t like to lose and I will outwork every other attorney in the room in order to keep from doing that.

Interests

“My interests are golf, culinary, and oenology. The study of wine,” said Gene who has a respectable collection due several good friends in Napa.

“I’ve taken about 80 online classes from chefs Thomas Keller and Gordon Ramsey. My wife and I will watch a couple of Master Classes online, two or three classes a weekend. Kasparov on chess.

“I think the first class I watched was a Stephen King class. Well, we just fix coffee and sit there and watch classes while drinking coffee and talk about it. It’s really relaxing.”

Gene likes to work with charities that support children. Most recently, Gene helped professional tennis player Malavai Washington, with Andre Agassi. They selected 250 challenged kids in North Jacksonville to support and Gene helped out with tutoring and tennis every day after school.

Gene is a also a former Advisory Board Member for the Brooks YMCA.

Experience. Integrity. Results.

Regan Atwood P.A. Serves Clients Worldwide

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