In today’s world, more than ever, high quality legal advice is essential to business. Unfortunately, many lawyers providing advice to construction firms have little training in the construction field and even less experience in the industry. Often, it is difficult for construction lawyers to communicate well with their clients and build the trust necessary to effectively represent them. A Subject Matter Expert with extensive legal experience, like Mr. Dean, principal of Integrative Business Solutions, LLC, can help facilitate that communication in both directions.
The discovery process can also benefit from the experience of a Subject Matter Expert with a thorough knowledge of construction law. Often inexperienced lawyers and construction professionals perform the painstaking effort of reviewing documents and preparing for, taking, and analyzing depositions. A Subject Matter Expert knows what to look for and what is important. This kind of assistance during the discovery phase of a dispute can increase the efficiency of the discovery process while simultaneously increasing the quality of the results.
As the dispute resolution process moves forward, whether in mediation, arbitration, or litigation, the advice of a skilled Subject Matter Expert can help focus the team on technical and business issues critical to the outcome of the case. A highly-skilled Subject Matter Expert, like Mr. Dean, with extensive business and dispute resolution experience, has the ability to distill, digest, organize and summarize large amounts of technical information and then effectively communicate the most relevant information to business executives, as well as all members of the legal team involved.
Ultimately, if the dispute cannot get resolved outside a courtroom, a knowledgeable Subject Matter Expert with the necessary credentials and effective communication skills, like Mr. Dean, can provide expert opinions on evidence critical to disputed technical and business issues. Mr. Dean’s experience and education make him an expert in both general contracting and construction management.
While a Subject Matter Expert can be hired directly by businesses who need their expertise, given his extensive problem-solving and dispute resolution experience, Mr. Dean also works effectively with outside counsel, in-house counsel, sureties, insurance carriers, and claims consultants of all kinds, to provide them the support they need to better serve their clients.