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The Contractor’s Approach to Risk Allocation II: Indemnity Clauses This article continues the series of discussions about risk allocation and the manner in which contractors can use various contract clauses to more equitably assign risks inherent in the industry to parties best suited to accept risk. One clause [...]
The Contractor’s Approach to Risk Allocation: Liquidated Damages and No Damages for Delay In my last column, I introduced the idea of addressing risk allocation in a series of columns to appear on a monthly basis. The goal of this series is to educate contractors, subcontractors, and owners [...]
The Public Private Partnership wave has come to Texas. P3s or PPPs are being used to to deliver new projects to the public in transportation and vertical construction. Is it only a matter of time until the P3 wave moves into the world of water infrastructure? For the reasons discussed [...]
New Water Infrastructure ProjectNorth Texas and the Upper Trinity Water Regional Water District are set to construct the first new water supply reservoir in decades. This article demonstrates the time required for planning, permitting, approval, construction, and use. New water supply and reservoir construction is not a quick process. Even [...]
13th Court Comments on Certificate of Merit Statute The Thirteenth Court of Appeals released this opinion on December 5, 2013 that provides commentary and interpretation to the Texas Certificate of Merit Statute, found in chapter 150 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. In the case, a general contractor [...]
Blocking and Tackling. It’s football season, so a discussion of fundamentals essential to successful performance is worth having. Sound fundamentals are equally important in football and in business. The fundamentals of performance and management are vital to success, but because they tend to be basic, they can often be overlooked [...]
In my previous post on this issue, I discussed HB 586 that was making its way through the 83rd Regular Session of the Texas Legislature. As it turned out, the bill went through some significant revisions before it was ultimately passed and signed into law by the governor. In outline [...]
I attended a convention last week whose attendees were primarily general contractors in the commercial side of the industry. These contractors generally build vertical structures on both publicly bid and privately negotiated work. I had discussions with contractors in both arenas about the fact that their subcontractors and suppliers were [...]
Most construction contracts have some form of mediation provision. I discussed that provision and some factors for consideration in my last post. In this post, I'd like you to consider alternative dispute resolution provisions that can help you resolve disputes in real time, or, in the alternative, before engaging in [...]
In my previous post, I commented on arbitration and whether it still deserves to be the go-to procedure for binding dispute resolution in construction contracts. Carrying that post one step back into the dispute resolution process, parties to construction contracts should also consider the procedures they create for non-binding dispute [...]