By Patrick St. Pierre There are two types of design professionals: those who have been stiffed by clients and those who will be. This pithy truism leads to another: obtaining payment for your work is your professional responsibility. Suing for unpaid fees is not equivalent to securing payment in the first place as the mire of litigation will assuredly squander the project’s original profitability. For the discerning design professional, the following is a best-practices guide for ensuring full and timely payment. First, include a contract provision conditioning the owner’s license to the instruments of service on full payment. Such language [...]

by David W. Lakamp, originally published in 1996 by Professional Practice Insurance Brokers, Inc., and updated in August, 2018 by Bruce N. Furukawa, Esq., Furukawa Buccierie LLP For decades, a/e specialist advisors have instructed design professionals to eliminate the word "supervise" from the owner/prime design consultant agreement, and to make it clear that safety on the jobsite is the sole responsibility of the general contractor. The idea being that these instruction prevent anyone from making the argument that architects and engineers somehow share a duty to keep construction workers free from harm. This approach has served us well over the [...]