My father used to make me wash the family cars every weekend . . . rain or shine. The nice thing about washing a car in the rain is that you don't need to dry it. Once, while sudsing up one of the family cars in the rain I spotted a couple of Jehovah Witnesses making house calls along our street. As they approached our house, they looked at me, said something to one another, and decided membership probably wasn't right for our family. If my dad saw that he probably would have thought that was...

Happy New Year! Hope the holidays were enjoyable for you.  During the first session of the California Legislature’s 2025-2026 legislative session, 2,350 bills were introduced, of which 917 bills made it to the Governor’s desk, and of which 794 bills were signed into law. For the design and construction industry the most important bills are a new claims resolution procedure for private works projects, a 5% retention cap on certain private works projects, and a number of changes to home...

Contractors working on public works projects are likely familiar with the statutory claims resolution process under Public Contract Code section 9204. Section 9204, which went into effect in 2017 , and which has been amended a couple of times since, provides a claims resolution process for public works projects with the goal of resolving claims before litigation. Section 9204, which currently expires on January 1, 2027 (it has been extended once so far), provides for a three-step process: (1)...