CCP 411.35 (b) (1) requires that before filing a complaint or cross-complaint against a design professional for professional negligence, the lawyer representing the plaintiff and the lawyer(s) representing the cross-complainant(s) must serve a certificate declaring...
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS: The Risk of Paying More than Your Proportionate Share of Fault
Many design firms have faced the following scenario: A building, or series of buildings (e.g., college campus) has serious defect issues, e.g., water intrusion. The damages are catastrophic requiring reconstruction in the tens of millions of dollars. In the...
Managing Project Delays Amid a Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk that design professionals have always faced on their projects due to delays. It has been almost a year since WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. The pandemic has...
The Never-Ending Challenge of Job Site Safety
For decades, we have told design professionals to eliminate the word "supervise" from the owner/prime design consultant agreement, make it clear that safety on the job site is the sole responsibility of the general contractor, and no one will have an argument that...