Construction Advice and Litigation

To facilitate the success of a project from its beginning, Lozano Smith coordinates with public agencies to ensure that project planning, financing, environmental review (CEQA) and delivery method selection comply with current and complex legal requirements. Every project is different, and our CAL attorneys can help your agency choose from the various project alternatives that exist to best meet project goals. Lozano Smith regularly advises clients about advantages and disadvantages of the delivery methods being considered by public agencies in California today.

Effective planning at the outset of a project, along with a thorough understanding of the associated legal, economic and political challenges, provides an agency with the best opportunity to deliver a project successfully without legal conflict at its conclusion.

Lozano Smith has special experience addressing issues unique to our school district clients. We often assist school districts with legal issues ranging from state funding to obtaining site approvals for new schools, helping them navigate the channels of the State Allocation Board, Office of Public School Construction and California Department of Education. Our CAL attorneys have expertise negotiating financing agreements with developers and helping school districts collect developer fees for new school construction. (To request your copy of our developer fee handbook, click here.) A select group of attorneys also serve as bond counsel to school districts.

After determining your delivery method, nothing is more critical to the success of your project than solid contracts to govern your relationships with your construction team members, including architects, engineers, construction managers, inspectors and contractors. Lozano Smith draws on its vast experience in reviewing and litigating contracts to develop contract documents for our clients that emphasize clarity and strong protection of our clients' rights. We draft contracts to help maximize the chances of finishing the project on time and on budget, while protecting the public agency owner from frivolous claims. In addition to review of a public agency's current documents, we also offer sets of form contracts and related documents ready for a public agency's immediate use. These sets are updated annually to reflect changes in the law and the industry.

During the bidding stage, our CAL attorneys have assisted public agencies with pre-qualification procedures, bid protests relating to bid responsiveness and contractor responsibility, and bid withdrawals. Despite other delivery methods that may be available, competitive bidding remains the predominate method of awarding local public agency contracts in California. Lozano Smith's wealth of experience with competitive bidding guarantees that our clients receive quick and accurate advice when issues arise.

Lozano Smith collaborates with public agencies, and their construction professionals to provide sound legal advice when a dispute arises during a project. By understanding the key factors of each dispute, our attorneys can efficiently advise clients on the immediate legal issues at hand, while at the same time preserving rights and evidence for later claims. We believe that open lines of communication between all members of the construction team and maintenance of good working relationships with contractors and consultants, while simultaneously protecting our client's interests, can help prevent expensive litigation at the end of the project and help ensure timely completion of the project.

Our CAL attorneys have handled disputes with contractors, subcontractors, construction managers, sureties, architects and engineers during projects. For those occasions when contractors refuse to perform work, we have significant experience helping agencies get the project back on track - usually by convincing the contractors to return to work, but if necessary by terminating the contractor and finishing the project with the surety or others. We also have experience in handling contractor defaults and bankruptcies, and we can get your project out of the bankruptcy court as quickly as possible. Our mission is to do everything possible to permit our client to complete its project as quickly as reasonably possible, thus minimizing the claims remaining for resolution after completion.

For completion of the work and final payment, as well as stop notices, our CAL attorneys help public agencies negotiate the maze of statutory requirements to avoid late payment penalties and other pitfalls. We advise public agencies on the delicate matters of withholding payments to protect an agency's interests, while not jeopardizing expeditious completion of the project.

At the end of a project, public agencies typically look to our firm to help resolve any remaining disputes and claims as quickly as possible, but on reasonable and acceptable terms. Lozano Smith assists public agencies in meeting this goal by guiding them during a project toward a position of strength for closeout negotiations. For these negotiations, we evaluate our clients' options, the relative merit of the claims, and the cost of litigation, in order to develop a dispute resolution plan tailored to our clients' goals.

We also understand the unique challenges facing our school district clients that can prevent timely completion of a project or jeopardize state financing. We are experienced in working with construction professionals to ensure that each project receives Division of State Architect close-out. Furthermore, our attorneys have advised countless school districts on post-construction Office of Public School Construction audits to ensure that State Funding is not revoked after the project is completed.

Few industries rely as heavily on Alternative Dispute Resolution as the construction industry does. Lozano Smith leads the way with extensive ADR experience during construction, closeout, and litigation. Our CAL attorneys have mediated hundreds of disputes and claims - not only after closeout, but even during construction in an effort to keep the project on track. Even if no settlement is reached, our attorneys will learn more about the other party's positions that will help litigation strategy and later ADR efforts. In addition, we have arbitrated many disputes in an effort to quickly and less expensively resolve disputes with finality.

If your goals include minimizing legal expense, let our CAL attorneys explore the possibilities of ADR with you and your agency.