Synopses & Reviews
Easy access to crucial business information for design professionals
Find the concise, practical business information you need right now in the Architects Essentials of Professional Practice Series. These authoritative guides quickly make you an instant expert on the best business practices crucial for success in todays design and construction professions. Each portable, affordable, user-friendly volume gives you:
- Authoritative advice from leading national figures
- Flip-and-find access to critical business information
- Bulleted lists and callout boxes for quick reference
- Clear, insightful explanations of complex business topics
Architects Essentials of Contract Negotiation demystifies the complex aspects of contract negotiation for todays design professionals. Breaking the entire process into a series of simple steps, it presents a flexible array of options and methods for reaching a well-negotiated contract. The book also discusses how to be an expert long-term negotiatorinvaluable advice given the long life of most architectural contracts.
Complete with guidance to help you find an effective personal negotiation style, this candid, practical guide is an indispensable resource for architects, landscape architects, interior designers, their clients, and others who need to master the skills of contract negotiation.
Review
"We would not suggest that Ava change a single word of the text. Instead, we invite her to write an engineers' edition, a contractors' edition, and an owners' edition. We do not think it will be necessary for Ava to draft a separate lawyers edition. Even experience construction lawyers can learn about communicating and negotiating with and for their clients just by reading The Architect's Essentials of Contract Negotiation." (
Construction Lawyer, May 02)
Every construction law library should have this book in its arsenal. Ava provides valuable insight into the elements of successful negotiations. It is easy to read and follow, yet offers so much to anyone involved in a construction practice. Although the title of Ava Abramowitz's book would lead one to believe that it was written exclusively for architects, that would be a wrong conclusion. If you are an owner, a contractor, an engineer, a project manager, an acquisition specialist, a lwawyer, or involved in almost any other activity pertaining to development or construction you can get valuable insights from this book written by a world-class negotiator and teacher. (C. Allen Gibson, Jr., Buist, Moore, Smythe & McGee, PA)
"After reading Architect's Essentials of Contract Negotiation, I now realize that my extensive library was lacking." (AeproNet, April 2003)
Synopsis
This is an essential guide for architects who need professional legal advice on negotations, primarily with agreements and fees. This new edition offers updated insights related to negotiation, with references to the AIA Contract Documents, communication, and handling disputes, change, and claims.
Synopsis
For architects, negotiation is explicit in every aspect of practice, just as it is implicit in every aspect of design. And now you can develop or refine the negotiation skills you need with the help of this concise, easy-to-follow guide. Written by an acknowledged expert in the field, this volume in the Professional Practice Series offers accessible, practical coverage of contract negotiation essentials related to growth, expansion, new management, internal transitions, mergers, acquisitions, liquidations, retirement, and more. Also, like all the books in this series, the information you'll find here is expressly tailored to the needs of the design professional.
About the Author
AVA J. ABRAMOWITZ, Esq., Hon. AIA, has a mediation and partnering practice and teaches negotiation to architects and lawyers across the country. She has been serving as a mediator for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for over ten years. She is a former deputy general counsel of The American Institute of Architects, and has lectured on legal aspects of architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.
Table of Contents
Foreword.
Introduction.
1 Why You Want to Read This Book.
How to Use This Book.
2 Front-End Alignment.
The Study.
How to Use Front-End Alignmentin Practice.
3 The Purpose of Contracts.
The Difference between Contracts and Torts.
How Liable Are You?
The Purpose of Design and ConstructionContracts.
Liability.
4 Power and Leverage:How to Get It and Keep It.
Negotiation: What Is It?
Why Architects Fear Negotiation.
Two Ways to Negotiate: Hard and Soft.
Another Way of Negotiating: Principled.
How to Negotiate on the Merits.
There You Have It: Principled Negotiation.
5 Preparation Tips.
Who Prepares More?
Negotiating Fees.
Fees as Grease: An Operational Theory.
Defining Your Value.
Making the Pie Bigger.
Ava s Preparation Cheat Sheet.
6 Power and Leverage Redux:The Skills of ExpertNegotiators.
The Three Classes of CommunicationBehaviors.
Whom Do You Trust? Who Trusts You?
What Expert Negotiators Don t Do.
7 How to Say Yes,How to Say No.
Ava s Rules of Contract Interpretation.
Applying the Rules.
Putting the Rules to Work.
8 When the Best Laid Plans...
Recognizing Disputes.
Handling Confrontations.
Managing Change.
Managing Claims.
9 Pulling It All Together.
Appendix: Buildinga Support System.
On Selecting Your Lawyer.
A Word to My Legal Colleagues.
If You Want to Learn More.
Index.