Change orders by cause
Every change sorted by cause: owner change, design gap, unforeseen condition or contractor risk, with the document that establishes each.
The position you are in
The claim asserts a number. The documents say something narrower
A claim has arrived against your client. It runs to two hundred pages, it asserts a number, and behind it sit eleven thousand documents: schedule updates, change logs, daily reports, payment applications, correspondence.
Before a position can be taken, somebody has to establish what those documents actually show. That is not a legal question and it is not billable at the rate that answering legal questions commands.
Why it happens
Why the owner side starts eleven thousand documents behind
The other side built its chronology as the project ran. Yours has to be built now, against a deadline.
The asymmetry is the same one that produced the claim. A contractor has a site team whose job for two years included writing things down, and a claims consultant who has been assembling the narrative for months before it was served.
The owner side has counsel with a deadline, a client who remembers the project differently from the records, and a chronology that does not exist yet because nobody was assembling one while the work was going on.
So the first six weeks of most owner side responses are spent building the factual base that the other side built as it went. That work is analytical rather than legal, and doing it at counsel rates is how a response costs more than it needs to.
The work itself
What we examine
Five readings, each producing a document counsel can build a position on.
Delay and disruption
The critical path read window by window against the updates of the time, separating owner caused, contractor caused and concurrent delay.
The record as it stood
A dated chronology built from the records as they stood at the time, with each entry sourced, rather than reconstructed from memory later.
Cost substantiation
The basis of each claimed amount: rates, burden, markup, general conditions and productivity, tested against the contract and the contractor’s records.
Notice compliance
Whether the notices the contract requires were given, when they were given, and what the contract says follows from a notice that was not.
Negotiation support
Positions and figures prepared for the settlement discussion, with the document behind each, for counsel to use in the room or alongside it.
What you receive
Owner side construction claims analysis, phase by phase
Deliverables by phase
Each phase quoted and approved before it starts, so the analysis never runs ahead of your decision on how much of it is worth buying.
A chronology for counsel
Dated, sourced, and organized around the questions a tribunal will ask rather than the order in which the documents happened to be filed.
The numbers narrowed
Most claims reduce substantially on method and on arithmetic before anybody reaches the merits. What survives that is a much shorter argument.
What counsel ends up with is a chronology and a set of numbers that can be relied on in a pleading, assembled at analytical cost rather than at legal cost, and available before the position has to be taken rather than after.
And the claim that arrived at one number is now two numbers: the part that is supportable on the documents and the part that is not, with the reason written against each.
The boundary
What we will not do, stated before you ask
- We act on the owner side only. We do not accept instructions where the client is the contractor, on any project, at any time.
- We do not give legal advice.
- We do not give a legal or an expert opinion.
- We do not opine on causation or on delay entitlement. We establish what the documents show and counsel draws the conclusion.
- We do not certify anything.
- We do not serve as an expert witness.
- Work stops when an approved cap is reached, and does not resume until a further phase is approved in writing.
Where it stops
What this is not
What an engagement is worth depends as much on what it refuses to do as on what it covers, so the limits are on the page rather than in the engagement letter alone.
Not a delay expert report
We produce the analysis that an expert or counsel builds on. We do not sign an opinion and we do not appear.
Not legal advice
Nothing we produce is advice on your client legal position. Counsel directs the work and counsel reaches the conclusions.
Not an open ended engagement
Every phase is quoted, approved and capped before it starts. Analysis that has not been approved does not happen.
How it runs
Turnaround, and what we need from you
Fixed fee against a named document set, never hourly. We work back from your date rather than quoting a duration.
Counsel directed
We take instructions from counsel and work within the privilege arrangements counsel establishes, from the first document request onward.
Phased
Records first, then change and cost, then schedule and delay, then negotiation support. Each phase is decided on what the previous one found.
Retainer first
A retainer before the first phase, then written approval before each one that follows. No phase begins on a verbal instruction alone.
| Fee | Fixed, quoted against a named document set listed in the engagement. Not hourly. |
|---|---|
| Payment | Fifty percent on engagement, fifty percent before the final deliverable is released. |
| The clock | Delivery starts when the complete document set arrives, not when the engagement is signed. |
| Included | One kickoff call and one readout call. |
Before you commission it
Questions we are asked
If the answer to any of these decides whether this is right for you, ask before you commission it rather than after.
Do you work under privilege?
We work to counsel instructions and within whatever privilege arrangement counsel puts in place, which usually means engagement through the law firm rather than directly with the client. The arrangement is counsel decision and we follow it. We do not advise on whether privilege attaches.
Will you act against a contractor you have reviewed before?
We act on the owner side only, so the question of acting for a contractor does not arise at all. Where we have previously read a price prepared by the same contractor for a different owner, we say so before accepting instructions and counsel decides.
Can you become the expert later?
No. We do not serve as an expert witness on any engagement, which means our analysis can be handed to an expert without a role conflict, and it means counsel can use us early without closing off the choice of who eventually signs an opinion.
How is the work priced?
By phase, each quoted against a defined scope and capped in writing before it starts. Work stops at the cap rather than continuing and reporting an overrun. Counsel therefore knows the cost of each stage before deciding whether the next one is worth buying.
What the documents support, and what they do not.
Send us the documents
2 days
Request a review
We reply within two business days with what this would cover on your project and whether it is worth the fee. If it is not, we say so.
Related reading
Three pieces from the same desk
Short notes on the mechanisms behind this work, written from the owner side of the contract.