Times are tough, and it’s important for your company to make smart economic decisions. Legal costs are clearly an area where businesses would like to scale back.

A legal budget is not like a marketing budget, where a business hopes to get a ROI.   In fact, the terms “legal expense” and “ROI” are rarely uttered together, and for good reason.   Legal expenses are usually a business’ “necessary evil.”

So in these tough economic times, what can those in the construction industry do to lower legal expenses?   A few solid ideas were published in the Portland Business Journal last week, among them:

• Handling more legal-related activities internally, rather than farming work out to law firms.
• Negotiating more cost-effective compensation structures with outside counsel, including contingency and incentive arrangements.
• Pursuing less risky and costly means of dispute resolution, such as arbitration and mediation, rather than litigation.

How Do These Apply to Construction Businesses?
When published in the Portland Business Journal last week, these ideas were intended to speak to businesses in general.   But how can these ideas be specifically used by a construction outfit?

It’s a cinch.

Get educated about collection practices, and bring your collections department in-house.    Incorporate arbitration and mediation provisions into your contracts, or agree to arbitrate or mediate existing disputes with your adversaries.   Contact your attorney and request alternative billing arrangements, including contingency and mixed-fee agreements.

You can even hire a consultant to help lower your attorneys fees.

In the end, there are proactive and reactive measures that can be taken to lower your attorneys fees, and even avoid the need for an attorney on many matters.