I’ve written in the past about the benefits of having not only an explicit Scope of Work, but also a set of Exclusions from the Scope of Work, in your proposals and contract documents. Recently, this issue has come up again for me in the course of advising clients who are now facing litigation over whether or not a particular service was to have been part of their lump sum design fee.

Do you know what is in your Scope of Services?

The Scope of Services (and related Excluded services) should be as detailed as possible. Consider all of the typical issues that can derail a project, and address them upfront, such as:

• Additional Services: are they needed? How are they compensated?

• The Proposal v. the Contract Description—which prevails?

• Value engineering issues — does the designer share the credit?

• Extended construction: Is A/E paid for extended delays leading to additional on-site administration?

• Contingencies & Assumptions included in the design?

Please see full article below for more information.