Managing Construction Disputes Intelligently
Steven A Collins
Mr. Collins is a Senior Managing Director in Ankura Consulting’s Construction Practice. Mr. Collins possesses more than 30 years of diverse construction and consulting experience. His broad range of construction experience encompasses direct management of large complex projects as well as diverse construction consulting experience. Mr. Collins assists owners, developers, government agencies, contractors, subcontractors, and sureties on a wide variety of capital projects. His advisory consulting experience includes the Critical Path Method (CPM) schedule development and analysis, Government Contract and Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) compliance assistance, and contemporaneous project risk management services. His dispute resolution experience includes the preparation and analysis of various complex delays, acceleration, loss of productivity, disputed extra work and professional liability claims. He has qualified and testified as an expert in scheduling and delay and damages analysis in jury and bench trials, arbitrations, depositions and hearings in U.S. courts and before special administrative panel proceedings. Mr. Collins' experience includes construction projects around the world including North America, Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Egypt, and India.
James G. Zack, Jr., CCM, CFCC, FAACE, FRICS, FFA, PMP
James Zack is the Senior Advisor, founder, and former Executive Director, Navigant Construction Forum™ – the construction industry’s global resource for thought leadership and best practices on avoidance and resolution of construction project disputes globally. Previously, Executive Director, Corporate Claims Management, Fluor Corporation; Vice President, PinnacleOne and Executive Director, PinnacleOne Institute; and Senior Construction Claims Consultant, CH2M HILL, Inc. With 46 years’ experience, he is a recognized expert in mitigation, analysis and resolution or defense of construction claims. A Fellow of AACE and RICS and the International Guild of Project Controls, Mr. Zack is a Certified Forensic Claims Consultant, a Certified Construction Manager, and a Project Management Professional as well as a nationally known author and speaker on construction claims.
Construction projects are a fertile breeding ground for claims – unless everything on the project proceeds exactly as planned. To avoid all claims there must be no changes, no delays, no shortage of qualified craft labor, no late delivery of equipment and materials, no bad weather, etc. It is highly unlikely that anyone has ever seen this project in history. Even the pyramids in Egypt had changes, delays and construction problems. However, claims (requests for additional time or money under the provisions of the contract) do not have to result in disputes. Disputes arise when contractors and owners cannot resolve claims by negotiation and turn unresolved issues over to attorneys to resolve them in the legal arena. This webinar is designed to show owners and their representatives how disputes can be avoided at the end of the project through upfront dispute resolution planning during the design, bid and construction phases of a project.
Many owners do not give sufficient thought to the management of construction claims or the avoidance of legal disputes on projects during the planning and design phases of a contract. Then when change orders arise and/or claims are filed the is a lack of agreement on issues such as direct vs. indirect labor; how the contractor must demonstrate project delay; whether and when the contractor is entitled to extend overhead costs; how RFIs are to be managed; what is “unusually severe weather” and how this must be documented; and what are some ways to mitigate claims and avoid legal disputes on construction projects.
Areas Covered
- Learn the value of planning how to avoid disputes from the beginning of the project
- Understand the “ins and outs” of a comprehensive scheduling specification and learn what needs to be included in a scheduling specification
- Become knowledgeable about the value and use of a thoroughly drafted Payment for Changes clause
- Learn the cost, the value and the benefits of using a dispute resolution board
- Be able to identify the benefits and use of escrow bid documents, project partnering, pre-construction audits, project trending, and short interval schedule submittals
- Understand the use of standing negotiation teams and decision ladders
- Learn some new ways to mitigate delay damages and avoid the need for difficult cost negotiations and audits in the event of owner caused a delay
- Gain insight into ways to resolve claims on the projects and avoid the need to close out projects in a courtroom or arbitration hearing room
- The webinar will conclude with an eleven-point checklist of actions owners can take to avoid disputes at the end of the project
- Although the webinar is intended primarily for owners and their representatives, contractors will better understand the intent and operation of such clauses should they become involved in a project which has adopted some or all of these approaches
Course Level - All Levels
Who Should Attend
- Owners and their representatives
- Construction Managers
- Contractors
- Design Professionals providing services during construction
Why Should You Attend
The webinar discusses four types of reviews that should be applied to contract documents; the need for a comprehensive scheduling specification and payment for changes article; how to reduce claims based on large numbers of RFIs; how to pre-purchase owner caused delay and lock in daily delay costs at the time of bidding; how to predict the weather for the project; and other techniques designed to precludes disputes at the end of the project by resolving issues without going to arbitration or litigation.
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