Construction Contracts.
HLP attorneys negotiate, draft, and allocate risk under construction contracts for owners, developers, contractors, and design firms across the Southeast.
HLP attorneys negotiate, draft, and structure the contracts that drive construction projects across the Southeast, with a trial-tested perspective on how those terms actually perform when a project goes sideways.
The contracts practice serves the same construction-industry roster as HLP's disputes practice: project owners, developers, general contractors, design professionals, and specialty and trade contractors. HLP works fluently in the AIA, ConsensusDocs, and EJCDC contract families, as well as owner-drafted forms, federal prime and subcontract documents, and bespoke agreements for complex or multi-party projects.
Engagements typically involve prime contracts and subcontracts, design and consultant agreements, surety and bonding documents, joint-venture and teaming agreements, change-order and claims-preservation provisions, indemnity and insurance allocations, and dispute-resolution clauses. HLP advises on risk allocation up front — limitation-of-liability provisions, delay and consequential-damages waivers, scope and flow-down language, lien and bond rights, notice and documentation requirements, and termination remedies — so that the contract reflects the commercial deal the parties actually intend.
Because HLP attorneys try construction cases, the drafting work is informed by where contracts fail in litigation and arbitration. Friction points around scheduling, scope changes, differing site conditions, payment, and default get attention before signing, not after a claim arises. That perspective shapes both the negotiation strategy and the practical edits HLP recommends to clients on the owner, contractor, and design sides of a project.