Paradoxes

For the past six months or so, I've been using ConsensusDOCS agreement forms wherever I can reasonably do so ---- meaning that I'm using them for projects on which there is not an owner or architect who insists on using AIA documents. I usually represent owners, have used many AIA standard form agreements over the years (with modifications) and continue to use them.



But where there is not a vested interest in staying with AIA forms, I have tried to use ConsensusDOCS, because my twenty-plus years of experience as a construction lawyer has demonstrated that the premise on which they are based is valid --- a collaborative rather than an adversarial relationship among project participants will, without fail, result in more successful projects.



It is distressing, then, to say the least, to read in a recent Engineering News Record (June 29, 2009) that slow pay has now become a huge issue for contractors and subcontractors throughout the construction sector and in all parts of the country. Pay cycles for contractors have stretched from the customary 30 days, to 45 or 60 days. For subcontractors, pay cycles of 90 days are common. In addition, contractors and subs report that retainages are being held beyond any reasonable time frames, and change orders for indisputably changed work are more frequently being withheld by owners.



It is truly paradoxical that while the ConsensusDOCS are being endorsed by many and varied industry participants (including owners, contractors and subcontractors), the reality is that the economic straits in which we exist make it all but impossible to forge the collaborative relationship the documents contemplate and on which they are based. (This entry published by Karen Estelle Carey, a construction attorney and member of Womble Carlyle's construction group.)