Rhoades McKee’s Construction Law Team’s depth and breadth of experience allows us to handle all aspects of construction projects, from concept to completion.
Our attorneys and paralegals team up to assure that our clients receive excellent, prompt, efficient, and economical legal advice, whether they are owner/developers, design professionals, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, or sureties. Our construction law team is routinely involved in projects large (multi-million dollar lawsuits involving multi-use facilities) and small (reviewing kitchen remodeling contracts) and everything in between.
Construction Law Services:
- Drafting contracts customized and tailored to specific developments or projects
- Reviewing, analyzing and revising standard-from contracts (including AIA and ConsensusDocs forms)
- Negotiating and drafting agreements between owners, design professionals, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers
- Handling disputes arising from change orders (or lack thereof)
- Schedule related issues, including delay and acceleration
- Differing site condition claims, “Acts of God” and force majeure
- Design defect claims
- Bonding issues, including helping our clients obtain bonding, defend against bond claims, and occasionally bring claims against someone else’s bond
- Construction defects and failures
- Liquidated damage disputes
- Construction insurance and OCIP audit issues
- Creation, perfection and enforcement of construction liens
- Mediating and arbitrating construction disputes
- Analysis of and helping to draft new legislation impacting the construction industry
- Disputes involving the use and enforcement of non-competition and non-solicitation agreements in the construction industry
Recent Construction Law Representative Work:
- Drafted a standard form subcontract for a client to use when hiring subs on various jobs
- Helped a client negotiate and draft a contract to design and build a multi-million dollar manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo.
- Successfully defended a contractor against a multi-million claim resulting from a building’s partial collapse by exposing design defects
- Helped a homeowner whose contractor walked off the job without completing it collect treble damages and attorney fees under the Michigan Builders Trust Fund Act
- Successfully sued a general contractor who failed to pay its subcontractors
- Collected damages and attorney fees for a general contractor against a subcontractor whose negligence caused a toxic waste spill for which the general contractor had to pay
- Successfully acted as a mediator of a dispute where the parties began mediation $12 million apart
- Helped a church negotiate and draft contracts with its architect and general contractor for the renovation of its attached school building.
Construction Law Educational Programming:
We also work proactively to help our clients (and the construction industry in general) by providing publications, seminars, lectures. Recent topics include:
- Michigan’s Construction Lien Act: Introduction, Overview, and Recent Developments
- Construction Contracts Workshop – Common Contractual Terms to Know and Understand
- Surety Bonds: What are They, Why are They Important, and What are You Getting Yourself Into?
- Construction Dispute Resolution Methods: Litigation vs. Arbitration vs. Mediation
- Choosing the Appropriate Legal Entity for Your Construction Company
- Construction Cybersecurity Course: The Building Code to Protect Yourself from Risks, Hacks and Ransomware
- Using the Builders Trust Fund Act to Hold Bad Contractors Liable
- Human Resources 101 for Commercial Contractors
- Legislative Updates
Because Rhoades McKee is a fully integrated comprehensive law firm, our construction industry clients benefit from a collaborative and cost-effective team approach with legal matters in areas of employment law, real estate law, IT Law, information, cybersecurity and privacy law, and tax law, as well as corporate law and business succession planning.
