Services

Legal support for every phase of the project.

From contract execution to dispute resolution — we handle the legal side so you can focus on the work.

Fractional GC Retainer

Your attorney on retainer — for a fraction of the cost.

A fractional General Counsel arrangement gives you ongoing access to senior legal counsel without carrying a full-time salary. We agree on a monthly scope — typically a set number of hours — covering contract reviews, day-to-day legal questions, proactive risk identification, and anything else that comes through the door. You get consistent, informed legal support from someone who knows your business.

Retainer clients get priority response and a flat monthly rate. No surprise invoices. No explaining your project every time you call.

  • Monthly flat-rate billing with defined scope
  • Priority response — typically same business day
  • Covers contracts, quick-turnaround questions, and ongoing risk management
  • Scales up or down as project volume changes
Contract Review & Negotiation

Read it before you sign it.

We review prime contracts, subcontracts, owner-architect agreements, design-build arrangements, MSAs, and task orders. Our review is not a checklist — it is a substantive legal analysis focused on what will hurt you when something goes wrong: risk allocation, indemnity chains, notice requirements, payment terms, dispute resolution clauses, and change order scope.

We redline what needs to change, explain why, and give you a negotiating strategy that reflects the commercial reality of the deal. Sometimes the contract is fine. Sometimes a single clause is a deal-breaker. We tell you the difference.

  • Full contract review with written redline and comment
  • Risk summary written for your project team, not just legal files
  • Negotiation support and fallback positions
  • Subcontract flow-down analysis for prime-to-sub alignment
Lien Rights & Payment Enforcement

Colorado lien law is short on deadlines and long on consequences.

The Colorado Mechanics' Lien statute gives contractors powerful remedies — but only if you act within the window. Original contractors have four months from last work. Subcontractors and suppliers have two. For residential projects, a Notice of Intent to File a Lien must be served on the owner at least ten days before you file. Miss the deadline, and the remedy is gone.

We manage lien rights proactively for retainer clients and handle discrete lien matters for project-specific engagements. We also advise on Colorado's Prompt Payment statutes — both public (C.R.S. § 24-91-103) and private — and enforce them when owners or GCs are using slow payment as leverage.

  • Lien deadline tracking and calendar management
  • Preliminary notice and Notice of Intent drafting
  • Lien preparation and filing in the correct county
  • Lien enforcement and foreclosure strategy
  • Prompt payment demand letters and enforcement
Claims & Dispute Strategy

Know your position before the other side does.

Construction disputes almost always start with a contract that was signed without enough attention to the dispute resolution clause, followed by months of undocumented field problems, followed by a demand that is too late and too thin to stick. We help you build the record from day one — and we give you a realistic strategy when things go sideways.

Our approach is direct: what is the entitlement, what is the exposure, what does it cost to fight, and what is the settlement range? We present options with commercial context, not legal opinions divorced from project reality.

  • Change order strategy and documentation
  • Notice of claim drafting and delivery
  • Contemporaneous documentation guidance
  • Mediation preparation and representation
  • Expert coordination (schedule, quantum, delay)
  • Litigation referral when warranted
Subcontracts & Supplier Agreements

Protect your scope. Protect your schedule. Protect your right to be paid.

Subcontract drafting and review is where GCs consistently leave themselves exposed. Pay-if-paid and pay-when-paid clauses, back-charge provisions, termination for convenience, differing site conditions, and indemnity obligations all need careful attention before the sub mobilizes. We review subcontracts as the GC issuing them and as the sub receiving them.

  • Subcontract template drafting and review
  • Pay-if-paid and pay-when-paid clause analysis under Colorado law
  • Back-charge defense and documentation
  • Scope gap identification and boundary-of-work analysis
  • Supplier and material purchase agreements
Project Setup & Risk Management

The best time for legal work is before the problem exists.

For GCs taking on a new project — especially a large, complex, or public project — a pre-construction legal review can identify the exposure before it is baked into the schedule. We review the contract, the subcontractor lineup, the insurance and bonding structure, and the notice requirements, and give you a project-specific risk summary your team can act on.

  • Pre-construction contract and risk review
  • Notice requirement calendaring
  • Insurance and bonding adequacy review
  • Public project compliance (prevailing wage, certified payroll, bonding)
  • Joint venture and teaming agreement review
AI Tools & Implementation

Build the internal systems your business is missing.

GC Counsel operates lean in part because we use AI as a genuine productivity tool. That same capability is available to your business. We evaluate, configure, and help deploy AI tools for contract management, obligation tracking, deadline alerts, and workflow automation — built around your actual operations, not a generic software demo.

This is not a technology project. It is a business improvement project with a legal foundation. If your team is spending hours on tasks that AI can handle in minutes, we can show you how to close that gap and build systems your people will actually use.

  • AI tool evaluation and selection for legal and operations functions
  • Contract management and deadline tracking system setup
  • Workflow automation for notice, documentation, and compliance
  • Integration with existing project management tools
Contract & Operations Training

Teach your team to think like the contract says.

The companies that win disputes are the ones whose project managers built the right record months before the dispute started. That is not a legal function — it is an operations discipline. We train estimators, project managers, and field supervisors on how to read contracts, identify risk provisions, price scope gaps, and document correctly from day one.

For smaller companies without in-house counsel, this raises the floor for the entire organization. Your people learn to account for legal risk the way they account for labor and materials — as a line item, not a surprise. We also provide formal training on AI tools: how to use them effectively, where they have limits, and how to build adoption across a team.

  • Contract literacy workshops for project and operations teams
  • Risk pricing and scope gap identification training
  • Notice requirement and documentation protocol training
  • AI tools training and internal adoption support
Financial Modeling & Analysis

When the legal strategy and the financial analysis need to speak the same language.

GC Counsel works in close partnership with Simply Spreadsheets, a financial modeling and analysis firm built for small-to-mid-size businesses. On complex matters — damages calculations, multi-year reconciliations, litigation support, or internal performance evaluation — we coordinate legal strategy with financial analysis from the start rather than scrambling to reconcile them at the end.

  • Damages modeling for construction disputes and claims
  • Complex AP/AR reconciliation for payment disputes
  • Financial modeling for growth decisions and business evaluation
  • Internal reporting systems and KPI dashboards
  • Litigation support — financial analysis and expert coordination
Evictions & Landlord Representation

Colorado evictions, handled on a flat-fee basis.

For Colorado landlords, GC Counsel handles the full Forcible Entry and Detainer process on a published flat-fee scope: Demand for Compliance, FED filing, return-date appearance, and writ of restitution. Most uncontested matters reach a writ within 14–28 days of filing. If a tenant answers and the matter becomes contested, the engagement converts to hourly with full credit for the flat fee already paid.

This is a separate practice line from our contractor-side work. It is built for residential and small-commercial landlords who want predictable scope and direct attorney handling, not a paralegal-driven volume operation.

  • Demand for Compliance through writ of restitution — flat-fee scope
  • Statewide Colorado county court coverage
  • FED Timeline Calculator and forms library (free resources)
  • Honest scope conversion if the matter becomes contested
  • Pass-through costs billed at our cost — never marked up

See the full eviction practice page →

Predictable. Transparent. Honest.

“You can’t spend another party’s money without providing timely notice first.”

— The first thing every contractor should know about change order law. It also happens to be how we run our billing.

Contractors know the rule cold: before you can pursue a change order, you have to give notice. You can't perform extra work, hand the owner a surprise invoice three months later, and expect to get paid. The obligation to notify comes first. We hold ourselves to the same standard.

Before we expand scope, we tell you what it costs and why — in writing, before the work begins. Retainer clients pay a flat monthly rate for defined scope. Project-based work is priced on a fixed-fee or unit basis for defined deliverables. No hourly billing, no running clock, no invoice that arrives before the conversation does.

We also do not charge for short calls from clients who need a quick answer. If you are on a retainer and you have a question, ask it. That is what the retainer is for.

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