Navigating the legal side of landscaping

By Emma Peterson. 

Common challenges for outdoor professionals and how to overcome them. 

In a recent episode of From the Ground Up™, Karol Weyman sat down with Trent Cotney, partner and construction law leader of Adams and Reese. Trent has over 30 years of legal experience in the field of law and a wealth of knowledge when it comes to construction. In this episode, Trent shares his expertise and insights for handling the three most common legal challenges he sees outdoor professionals struggle with and how to overcome them. 

The challenges 

The first legal challenge that Trent brought up was “scope creep” and deliverable definition. He explained, “What I mean by that is where a professional has a scope that doesn't clearly identify the rights of way. It doesn't talk about trim cycles or the specific species of vegetation that might be needed, clearance distances, all those types of things.” This often results in what Trent calls “change order battles” where clients keep asking for more from the contractor at the same price point. 

Another big challenge he sees is regulatory navigation. Trent shared, “Oftentimes you've got local, state and federal environmental laws that deal with everything from nesting rights of certain animals to waterways and herbicide rules. In a similar vein, access, permitting and quality standards can be hard to navigate.” And last but not least, he sees responsibility for damages come up a lot. He shared, “Things like who's responsible for progress planning or overspray.” 

The solution 

So, how can you overcome these challenges? Communication and clear contracts. Trent elaborated, “Make sure you’ve thought about the milestones of a project and what might happen in the field that changes the progress towards those milestones. In other words, make sure that you have measurable specifications and a clear change order pathway. Because as we know in any project, you're going to have a change or an extra. I can't think of many that haven't had one. So, making sure that's streamlined and easy to understand is key.”  

Additionally, you must be proactive. Trent explained, “The majority of problems that I see on these types of projects result from not responding quickly enough. There's this tendency to handle everything with oral communications and customer service, which you should, but you must balance that with legal support. So, if it's good for you, put it in writing. If it's bad for you, pick up the phone. And if you respond aggressively, you're going to at least mitigate your problems...An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 

Listen to the whole episode or Watch the recording with Trent to get more legal insights into things like OSHA and W-2s.