Patrick J. Wielinski, JD

Mr. Wielinski is a principal in the law firm of Cokinos | Young in Dallas, Texas. He has practiced in the areas of insurance coverage and risk management, representing general contractors, subcontractors, owners, insurance companies, and sureties. He has advised clients as to coverage claims involving defective workmanship for nearly 40 years. Over his career, Mr. Wielinski has been comfortable being known as a construction lawyer who practices insurance coverage law and an insurance coverage lawyer who practices construction law. In other words, he enjoys the best of two worlds.

Mr. Wielinski received his bachelor of arts degree from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and has a law degree from the University of Minnesota. Mr. Wielinski is past chair of the Insurance Law Section of the State Bar of Texas and regularly lectures to construction, insurance, and legal groups on insurance coverage and risk management issues.

Mr. Wielinski is the author of Insurance for Defective Construction and coauthor of Contractual Risk Transfer, both published by International Risk Management Institute, Inc. (IRMI), and has contributed articles on insurance coverage for construction defects and content for the IRMI references Construction Risk Management and Professional Liability Insurance. He is the coeditor of Construction Insurance: A Guide for Attorneys and Other Professionals, published by the American Bar Association Forum on the Construction Industry, and he coauthored the chapter on commercial general liability coverage.

Mr. Wielinski is a member of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) Surety Bonding and Construction Risk Management Committee. As part of that committee, he has monitored the status of insurance law on a national basis as applied to construction risks, filing amicus curiae briefs for a number of Texas and national construction trade organizations, including the AGC, in important cases addressing those issues.