Construction Contracts

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Construction contracts generally outline various scenarios in which a party can terminate the contract.  In one common scenario, a contractor is permitted to terminate its subcontractor “for cause” if the subcontractor provides deficient work or fails to meet the project schedule.  Contracts often describe this type of deficiency as a “failure or neglect to carry…

Summer associate, Luke Alba, contributed to this article.

Dispute resolution provisions providing for mediation as a prerequisite to arbitration are standard in AIA construction contracts. Parties may nonetheless mutually agree to eliminate or waive those provisions and proceed directly to arbitration.  Often, however, settlement discussions will ensue during the arbitration as costs begin to mount…

The typical arrangement on most construction projects is that the property owner or developer engages the services of a general contractor or construction manager, which in turn subcontracts the work out to the various trades pursuant to a number of subcontracts.  Under this standard arrangement, subcontractors seeking payment for their work are generally limited to…

A frequent topic of dispute in litigation involving construction projects is whether a subcontractor is entitled to payment for work it performs outside its contractual scope of work—often referred to as “extra work” or “change order work”—without obtaining a signed written change order to perform the work.  The same issue often arises in the context…

On May 2, 2019, Nathaniel Lorenz was sentenced to 18 months in prison following his November 8, 2018 conviction on eight counts of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud for defrauding the government in connection with a bridge maintenance project administered by New York State and funded primarily by the Federal Highway Administration…