Coronavirus Pandemic – Need More Toilet Paper?

By Timothy J. Corbett, SmartRisk From Disneyland to the U.S. Supreme Court, from Wall Street to Dodgers Stadium, nearly every facet of American life fell into turmoil with the coronavirus outbreak causing sweeping closures and economic disruption. Restaurants in major...

Is Code Compliance Enough to Meet the Standard of Care?

By Mark Jackson, JCJ Insurance Agency Design professionals are expected to perform their services consistent with the standard of care for their profession. What is the standard of care? When a negligence claim is made against a design professional, this is a typical...

Managing Scope Creep

By Andrew Mendelson, FAIA Senior Vice President, Chief Risk Management Officer, Berkley Design Professional Scope creep is the bane of profitability for design firms if not properly managed from the outset of contract negotiations. Once the actual project begins, it’s...

WHAT THE DESIGN PROFESSIONAL NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN

By Lee J. Sacket, Esq. The construction industry has traditionally been slow on change. Despite meteoric advances in technology, many construction project files are still paper based and disorganized, leading to inefficiencies, redundancies and sometimes, mistakes in...

Beware of Redesign Obligations

By Mark Jackson, JCJ Insurance What are the design firm’s responsibilities when the construction bids exceed the owner’s budget? What about when construction costs are over budget due to change orders? The answer is… “it depends”. It depends on what your contract...