Construction contracts are a burden and a bore for three principal reasons: they are complex, paper-based and adversarial. This 30-minute Webinar focused on how we can improve accessibility with contract patterns (eg from the IACCM contract design pattern library), clarity and simplicity to build trust and help avoid disputes. Sarah Fox is a speaker, author and innovator who wants to help construction companies safeguard their business without annoying their clients. She is interested in legal design, digitalisation and plain language as means to making user-friendly contracts available to 1m SMEs and micro-enterprises in UK construction. For more about Sarah go to www.500words.co.uk. This talk was for IACCM Ask the Expert series and considered the UK perspective. The recording is available to members at https://www.iaccm.com/.

1. Construction contracts are a burden
and a bore: how can we change that?
7 November 2019

2. What’s wrong with contracts?

3. What’s wrong with contracts?
0 10000 20000 30000
JCT DB 2016
CIOB Complex
ACA PPC 2000
NEC4 Core
Schedules etc
Core Conditions

4. What’s wrong with contracts?

5. Burden and a bore
Complex & long simplify & shorten
Text only use contract patterns
Paper-based & wet-signed digitise
Adversarial collaborative
Legal tools project management tools
Bewildering choice contract hubs

6. Burden and a bore
© NBS National Construction Contracts and Law Report 2018

7. Accessibility: use contract patterns

8. Example: swim-lanes
© 500 Words Ltd 2019

9. Example:
term sheet
© Federation of Master Builders Ltd 2019

10. Example: chronological
© 500 Words Ltd 2019

11. Clarify: adopt simple language

12. © Federation of Master Builders Ltd 2019
Example: conversational language

13. Example: conversational language
© People Powered Retrofit 2019

14. Simplify: reduce content

15. Just 500 words?

16. Build trust: demonstrate change

17. Example: timeline
Prototype timeline© Sarah Fox

18. What should you do?
Ensure readability with visual interest
Create trust with simplicity
Minimise transaction costs with digital
Avoid disputes with collaboration
Build tools for managing projects

19. If 99% projects do not
end in legal disputes,
why do we write
contracts to suit the 1%
that do?