Our constructor clients manage the day-to-day risk of delivering projects on tight schedules, often with thin profit margins, and under challenging conditions. They carry many responsibilities, from matters of cost and schedule, to ensuring site safety, to delivering a quality product, to dealing with callback and warranty issues. Builders usually have no choice but to ‘extend credit’ – doing work before they get paid, something which is lost on many project owners, who may not appreciate that money is the lifeblood of each project.
Our contractors lawyer helps general contractors, construction managers, trade and specialty contractors, and design-builders to negotiate agreements, manage risk, secure payment through mechanics liens and other strategies, and to resolve disputes early and efficiently, litigating only when necessary – so our clients and their projects can move forward to win-win outcomes, good work for a fair price, happy clients, and repeat work.
We regularly draft and negotiate contracts with stipulated sum, cost-plus and guaranteed maximum price (GMP) pricing arrangements, often with phased project delivery systems.
Our work for general contractors on single-family homes also includes contracts with hard construction costs of around $2 million, $2.5 million, $3.4 million, $4 million, $4.2 million, a $4.6 million contract under AIA Document A105–2017, Standard Short Form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor, and a $5 million two-phase owner-contractor cost-plus GMP delivery framework where a the owner and contractor signed a GMP amendment to lock in construction price and schedule after the owner’s design team completed their work.
We negotiated a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) contract exceeding $5.5 million under AIA Document A104–2017, Abbreviated Form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor, addressing religious work restrictions requested by the institutional project owner, with a heavily modified exhibit defining the Cost of the Work, and a faith-based arbitration clause with carve-outs to preserve mechanics lien rights, claims involving third parties, and potential insurance coverage claims – disputes which must be resolved in court.
We guided negotiations for a multi-million dollar renovation in a 25-story high-rise with about 145 occupied units and over 130,000 sq ft, where unit pricing, resident disruption, accessibility responsibilities, indemnity, consequential damages, delay allocation, builder’s risk insurance, and contract termination standards were central. Our firm has structured phased work contracts for commercial core, shell, and interior construction under AIA Document A104–2017, Abbreviated Form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor. And, we have negotiated an owner-contractor agreement for a $3 million industrial facility conversion of about 20,000 sq. ft.
Beyond individual deals, we build contracting playbooks and templates for repeat use. For general contractors, we have developed comprehensive AIA and non-AIA contract document template sets with insurance requirements, Mechanics Lien Act compliance, and statutory disclosures. This enables our clients’ non-attorney staff to handle all routine contract negotiations and subcontracting, reserving our lawyers’ direct involvement for complex or high-stakes issues. We also supply contractors with documents to safely allow them and subcontractors to fast-track initial or long lead-time work, whether it is civil, or demolition, or sitework, or early procurement under simple letter agreements or work authorizations.
Getting contractors paid is central to our practice.
We record mechanics liens to secure contractor claims for payment, including a $1.1 million lien that Jeremy Baker filed for a specialty façade contractor on a suspended commercial project, a mechanics lien of about $1 million for a building component fabricator supplying wall panels and trusses, and a mechanics lien of more than $400,000 for a general contractor on a commercial property with multiple stakeholders.
When subcontractor mechanics liens are recorded, if payment is unwarranted, we bond them off or substitute security to keep projects on track while we defeat them. We have obtained common-law bond solutions when statutory bonding under Section 38.1 of the Mechanics Lien Act was unavailable due to a subcontractor’s bankruptcy, coordinating with sureties and title companies. We also defend against opportunistic subcontractor mechanics lien and quasi-contract claims in litigation, including on a large adaptive reuse matter where we bonded off a subcontractor’s lien under Section 38.1 and resolved all claims at just 4% of the asserted value.
We also prosecute payment disputes across the spectrum for our constructor clients: aggressive litigation coupled with tactical mediation in a townhome development led to a favorable settlement for our client, a designer and fabricator of trusses and wall panel systems, after the owner demanded suit under Section 34 of the Illinois Mechanics Lien Act to try to bluff our client out of its claim. For another general contractor, a title company’s demand for return of a properly earned progress payment was rejected based on the escrow agreement and industry practice – neither of which motivated us to advise our client to return any money.
We resolve subcontractor performance problems with targeted notices and demands for cure plans, avoiding termination of subcontracts where compliance and performance can be restored. We also leverage relationships to resolve disputes quickly and amicably, including a subcontractor nonpayment dispute with a general contractor resolved without litigation.
Our dispute work spans mediation, arbitration, and litigation. We led a defense and counterclaim strategy through mediation and arbitration when the project owner asserted breach of contract, negligence, and consumer fraud claims against our contractor client, as we simultaneously prosecuted a nonpayment counterclaim, brought the architect into the process to engage its professional liability coverage, and activated a defense under our client’s commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policy, while maintaining strategic control of the overall dispute.
We defended a contractor in a COVID-19-impacted project by documenting owner-driven changes, market disruptions, and subcontractor abandonment, restructuring past due payments to our client and close-out around missing design information and scope alignment, insisting on additional change order compensation.
In another matter where insurance coverage was contested, we targeted commercial general liability (CGL) coverage deliberately and with careful intent to help our constructor client – including addressing the familiar “your work” and “that particular part” exclusions used by its insurer to deny coverage, and framing “rip-and-tear” and “damage to adjacent work” fact patterns to trigger full coverage for upstream project owner claims – protecting our contractor client from recalcitrant insurers that wished to deny it coverage.
General Counsel and Ongoing Advice
Contractors rely on us for day-to-day counsel across projects and operations.
We prepare talking points and behind-the-scenes assistance when project owners prefer attorney-free direct negotiations with our contractor clients. We address licensing, procurement, and government-related issues. And, we have helped to handle regulatory matters such as Department of Transportation (DOT) temporary parking restriction signage violations where mistaken identity helped us clear our client from a DOT citation. We assist our clients to comply with subpoenas to limit their burden and legal exposure, we advise modular builders on fixed-price risks in volatile markets and on future pricing models, and we help manage sensitive labor and licensing errors that can draw government and union attention. We also address responsibilities for adjacent property protections by contract, including the Illinois Adjacent Landowner Excavation Protection Act and Chicago Municipal Code Chapter 13-32, when excavation near property lines at depth below grade is in scope.
Representative Work Across Sectors
Our contractor work includes multifamily renovations in occupied high-rises with tight timeframes and liquidated damages, institutional and religious projects with unique arbitration and work-restriction requirements, office and retail build-outs, industrial conversions, and a wide range of single-family and ultra high-end residential projects. We also handle proposal responses and award negotiations for projects exceeding $5 million, and we structure agreements with condominium associations, real estate management companies, and public and nonprofit owners on behalf of our constructor clients.
Protecting Contractors Where They Build
Every contract and project embodies risk and every delay threatens schedule, relationships, and cash flow. Our role is to secure workable contracts, protect payment rights, and resolve disputes pragmatically – through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, litigation, mechanics lien strategy, or insurance coverage – so contractors can build profitably and with confidence.
To learn more, contact our contractors lawyer at Baker Law Group LLC today.
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