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Holden Willits: The Phoenix Boutique That’s Recorded Over $1 Billion in Construction Liens

Holden Willits PLC is a small, national-caliber Phoenix firm built entirely around construction and commercial disputes — representing owners, contractors, subcontractors, and sureties on either side of a claim, and carrying the peer credentials to prove it.

Holden Willits PLC — At a Glance

Sources: holdenwillits.com (firm website), Martindale-Hubbell, Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, State Bar of Arizona. Compiled August 2026.

Origin

A Firm Built Around One Practice, for Over Two Decades

Michael J. Holden graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1980 — where he served as an editor of the Duke Law Journal — after an A.B. with high honors from the University of Michigan. He spent his first 20 years at Lewis and Roca LLP in Phoenix, rising from associate to partner and chairing that firm’s Construction Law Practice Group, before starting his own firm in 2000. The name changed twice as partners came and went — Holden Walker, then Holden Brodman (until partner Roger Brodman was appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court bench in 2007), then Holden Willits Murphy — settling into its current form, Holden Willits PLC, in 2010.

Barry A. Willits, the firm’s other founding member, earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1994 (Order of the Coif) after a B.A. from Indiana University (Phi Beta Kappa), and clerked for Chief Judge Sarah Evans Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana before joining Lewis and Roca in 1996. He has been a member at the firm since its 2000 founding.

Both founders helped shape the law they now practice. Holden helped draft Arizona’s 1989, 1992, and 1998 amendments to the mechanics’ and materialmen’s lien statutes and was a primary author of the state’s 2000 private-sector prompt payment law; he also served as general counsel to the Arizona Builders’ Alliance for 15 years. He has taught Construction Law as an adjunct professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law for more than two decades.

Practice

Where the Firm Concentrates — and For Whom

Holden Willits organizes its work into three areas: construction law, business litigation, and insurance recovery. Within construction, the firm’s own attorney biographies describe representing general contractors, subcontractors, sureties, architects, design professionals, lenders, insurers, and business owners — and, notably, doing so on both sides of a dispute. Willits’s own bio lists work “prosecuting or defending against delay and disruption claims” and “prosecuting or defending against construction defect or product liability claims,” and separately describes defending design professionals against malpractice claims while also representing contractors foreclosing liens against property owners.

This is worth stating plainly: Holden Willits is not a plaintiff-only or defense-only practice. It is a general commercial and construction litigation boutique whose attorneys take whichever side of a dispute retains them — a business owner one matter, a contractor or subcontractor the next. Readers looking specifically for a business’s advocate against another business, or specifically for defense counsel, should ask the firm directly which role it would play in their particular dispute.

Track Record

Representative Matters, As Described by the Firm

Holden Willits does not publish a dollar-figure verdicts-and-settlements table; construction and surety disputes of the kind the firm handles are frequently resolved through arbitration or mediation under confidentiality terms that make public dollar figures unusual. What the firm does publish is a list of representative matters, reported here with the same caution the firm itself applies: past results do not guarantee or predict a future outcome.

Client Voice

A Peer-Reviewed Practice, Not a Consumer-Review One

Construction and surety litigation is a business-to-business practice, and it shows in the review record: Martindale-Hubbell’s own directory listing states plainly that “this firm’s attorneys do not have client reviews.” What exists instead is peer commentary — other attorneys rating attorneys. One Martindale peer review of Michael Holden reads, in full: “Mr. Holden is a very experienced and skillful practitioner.” We’re reporting the absence of a consumer-review record honestly rather than substituting peer commentary for it; a prospective client comparing this firm to a consumer-facing practice should weigh that difference.

Community

Deep in the Industry, Not Just the Courtroom

Holden has been a member of the Arizona Builders’ Alliance since 1986 and served as its general counsel from 2009 to 2023; he founded and chaired the State Bar of Arizona’s Construction Law Section. Willits served as president of that same section from 2010 to 2011. Both have chaired or served on the Legal Advisory Council of the American Subcontractors Association of Arizona. Holden has presented more than 300 lectures and seminars on construction-industry topics over four decades, and has taught Construction Law at Arizona State University’s law school since 2005.

Recognition

Peer-Reviewed Credentials

Holden Willits PLC is ranked Band 1 for Construction Law in Arizona by Chambers USA (2025–present), and both founders are individually ranked Band 1 in the same practice. The Best Lawyers in America® has named the firm a Tier 1 firm in Phoenix for Construction Law and Construction Litigation every year since 2010, and both founders have repeatedly been named Phoenix “Lawyer of the Year” in Construction Law and/or Construction Litigation — Holden five times since 2010, Willits six times since 2016. Willits holds an AV Preeminent® rating from Martindale-Hubbell, that service’s highest peer-review tier. Holden is a Fellow of the American College of Construction Lawyers. None of these are state-bar specialty certifications, and this profile does not use the word “specialist” to describe either founder.

Arizona Legal Backdrop

The Statutes That Shape a Construction Dispute

Arizona’s mechanics’ and materialmen’s lien statutes (A.R.S. § 33-981 et seq.) let contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers who go unpaid record a lien against the property they improved — a remedy Holden himself helped draft amendments to in 1989, 1992, and 1998. Arizona’s private-sector Prompt Payment Act (A.R.S. § 32-1129 et seq.) sets statutory deadlines for payment up and down the contracting chain, with interest penalties for late payment. Arizona’s Stop Notice statute (A.R.S. § 32-1051 et seq.), which Holden was a primary drafter of, gives subcontractors and suppliers on private projects a separate remedy against project funds. General contract claims are also subject to Arizona’s eight-year statute of repose and standard breach-of-contract limitations periods. None of this is legal advice; construction claims carry some of the shortest and most technical deadlines in Arizona civil practice, and missing one can bar an otherwise valid claim entirely.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Holden Willits is a genuinely elite boutique by the metrics that matter in this field — Chambers Band 1, a Tier 1 Best Lawyers ranking held for fifteen consecutive years, and founders who literally helped write the statutes their cases turn on. The trade-off is built into the model: this is a small firm (nine attorneys) serving a business clientele, not a consumer-facing practice, and it takes both sides of disputes depending on who retains it — so it is not the right fit for someone looking specifically for a one-sided advocate against a counterparty. There is also no independent client-review record to weigh, which is normal for this kind of practice but worth naming rather than glossing over. For an Arizona business or contractor facing a genuine construction or commercial dispute who wants deep, specific subject-matter expertise rather than a generalist litigator, this is about as credentialed as the Phoenix market gets.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website (holdenwillits.com), including individual attorney biography pages, Martindale-Hubbell’s firm and attorney listings, Chambers USA recognition announcements, and Best Lawyers in America award history as republished by the firm. No claim in this profile was taken from the firm’s marketing without checking it against a second source where one was available. Compiled and verified August 2026.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by the firm prior to publication, and inclusion in this directory is not an endorsement of any outcome. Firms are added or excluded based on our own editorial verification process, not advertising relationships.