Whether you’re planning a new multi-purpose development, or the head contractor on a job, you need a solid building and construction lawyer to lend their expertise along the way.
Importantly, in the ebb and flow of project delivery, you can’t be waiting weeks for a long-winded legal essay on your contract – you need practical, fast advice to highlight your risks and give you real-world advice on what you might be able to do about it.
Sather Legal can help you with all aspects of building and construction law from project inception, through to contract negotiations, administration and disputes.
Project Inception
Of course, in many cases you’ll have a lot of the groundwork done internally with your expertise as a developer or contractor.
However, it can be handy to have a construction lawyer on hand at this early point to help workshop potential future issues, important contract provisions, or potential areas of contention down the track.
This can help smooth the way for better contract negotiations and ultimately a more streamlined administration later on.
Contract Negotiations
There are two main aspects to contract negotiations:
- The commercial and practical side – dealing with the scope of works, appropriate annexures and detail documents, pricing, staging and other aspects of the project itself;
- The legal and contracting side – dealing with who bears what risks, how contract administration and notices are to work, formulating and checking contract priority, and dealing with the contracting process for sub-contractors.
While it’s tempting to keep your construction lawyer away from (1) and only involve them in (2), the truth is that the better we can understand your commercial drivers, the better we can help you with the legal side of things.
With that in mind, if we understand how the commercial side of the negotiations has gone we can give you better advice on the contract terms, the risk allocation of the contract, the proper course for engaging subcontracts, and the other areas that will commonly be covered during contract negotiations or review.
Contract Administration
Most issues, concerns, complaints and disputes in a building project can be avoided by one fairly simple, but ultimately uninteresting, thing: good contract administration.
The key starting point is to ensure that you have a practical contract review which points out:
- Key timelines;
- Notice requirements (both timing and contents) for relevant likely steps such as delays and variations;
- How to ensure your rights are reserved throughout the contract process.
Beyond simple advice, many developers and contractors find it useful to have their key staff on the project team trained in the contract requirements.
That way each person understands their role, how to give or respond to notice, and how to ensure that you don’t get caught out by technical arguments about non-compliance later.
This will set you up for a much stronger position in the event of any disagreement later. Without doing this, you may just be giving your contracting parties a free hit.
Dispute Resolution
Generally speaking, most participants in the construction industry want to maintain a good relationship with their contracting counterparts.
However, despite best intentions, sometimes disputes do arise.
When they do, you need a good lawyer on your side to put you in a strong position to either negotiate a successful outcome, or argue the matter through adjudication or Court.
Sather legal can help you when a delicate conversation is needed, but also when a big stick is needed.