By Marilyn Della-Badia Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) recently released a discussion draft of a bill entitled the Stop Unworthy Spending or SUSPEND Act. The bill would set up a Board of Civilian Suspension and Debarment to consolidate more than 40 civilian suspension and debarment offices under a single set of regulations, and in Issa’s view,...
Month: March 2013
Lawyers for Utilities Contractors: An Underused Asset? (Part 2)
By Carol L. O’Riordan In an earlier post, I discussed several good reasons why a utility contractor might wish to rely on a lawyer for a wide variety of tasks. Lawyers, after all, are trained in the skills of observation, questioning, problem solving, and communicating. Here are some specific ways in which lawyers can...
Lawyers for Utilities Contractors: An Underused Asset?
By Carol L. O’Riordan Utility contractors know that they need a lawyer, just as they know that they need an accountant, a banker, and insurance and bonding agent. And most know that the lawyer should be knowledgeable about the utilities industry so that he or she can address issues that are likely to arise in the industry,...
VA Tries to Simplify Process of Qualifying as Veteran-Owned Small Business
By Carol L. O’Riordan Businesses often complain about the minutiae involved with the federal requirements for qualifying as veteran-owned small businesses (VOSBs). Now, the federal government is making the whole process a bit simpler and more straightforward. As a recent article by Jill Aitoro in the Washington Business Journal points out, contractors applying to the...
Design-Build Arrangements Require Careful Preparation, Legal Thought
By Carol L. O’Riordan In response to a current discussion on the ConstructionPro Network about fixed-price design-build contracts, today I wrote that no matter how well-prepared an owner and a contractor may be when such a contract is being created, they are well-advised to ensure that adequate documentation, reflective of the design-build relationship, is in...
Role of Outside Counsel to a Corporation: An Appraisal (Part 2)
By Carol L. O’Riordan In a recent post, I discussed the role of a small firm like ours in representing a corporation that has in-house counsel who work for it. Today I will discuss how a firm operates when its client does not have in-house counsel. The scenarios are quite different, although there are some...
Role of Outside Counsel to a Corporation: An Appraisal (Part 1)
By Carol L. O’Riordan I recently had the occasion to do some thinking about the role of a boutique law firm such as ours, which represents a wide variety of companies, large and small. We serve as outside counsel for many clients that have a well-established in-house capacity, and we work with their in-house lawyers....