Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Lawyers as Facilitators

In many ways, law and development can add a different role for a lawyer. Lawyers in this field of law in many ways act as facilitators between the many people that your client must work with to develop a piece of property. In any project, we must facilitate between our client and the governing bodies (whether it be ADEM, the federal government, or various commitees in charge of zoning or historical districts). As attorneys we would help our client to negotiating with these groups so that we can insure the most positive result for our client, grow or maintain a relationship with these governing bodies for future projects, and possibly furthering the valid interests of each agency.

Next, we must also facilitate between our client and the different laws. More than working with agencies, we must also work under the laws that the agencies must follow. This could include submiting the proper forms, noticing when our client wants something that will require extra formalities (and insuring that we do so), and insuring that the professionals that we hire to develop the land also abide by these rules.

Finally, we must facilitate between the professionals that we have hired to do a specific task and our client. In working with these professionals, we should negotiate to limit any potential liability of our client to these or other individuals. Moreover, we will also have to facilitate between the professionals in creating their contracts to ensure that each person can effectively work together to get the project finished. For instance, if we do not ensure that the architect or engineers draw up plans that are in compliance of the law in a reasonable amount of time, the builders cannot build the plans up to code or cannot finish the project in time to complete his or her own contract.

If, as attorneys, we do not facilitate between governing bodies, the law, and the professionals that we hire then there can never be a completed project, and this certainly does not help our client.

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