Senior construction executives, trained as neutrals.
Every evaluation is performed by a senior construction professional under a defined Methodology — engineering-literate, contract-fluent, and independent of either party’s position.
How a Project Neutral® is selected
Project Neutral® Consultants are employees of the company — not a referral network — which is why the company controls quality, training, ethics, and confidentiality directly.
Ten-plus years at senior level
Consultants bring a decade or more of senior executive experience in engineering, architecture, or construction — people who have carried delivery responsibility, not observed it.
Trained in the Methodology
Every Consultant is trained and accredited in the copyrighted Project Neutral® Methodology, with continuing education. The Methodology is executed the same way on every engagement; what varies is the project, never the discipline.
Conflict-cleared, with alternates
Conflict checks precede every engagement. For formal pursuits, a proposed Lead Neutral comes with conflict-cleared alternates and a documented selection rationale.
Who you’ll work with
Ernest C. Brown, Esq., P.E. — Co-Founder
More than 3,000 complex disputes resolved over a 30-year career — through mediations, dispute review boards, arbitrations, and trials — across construction, infrastructure, government contracts, and aviation.
MIT, SB Civil & Environmental Engineering · UC Berkeley, MEng Engineering Management and Juris Doctor.
Full bio & direct scheduling →Where an issue turns on a specialized discipline, qualified independent technical specialists are integrated into the engagement under the same confidentiality framework.
What we evaluate
Design & engineering
Design responsibility, specification adequacy, differing site conditions, and the technical record behind them.
Contract administration
Notice, directives, submittals, approvals — how the contract was actually administered against how it reads.
Change-order management
Entitlement, pricing, and cumulative-impact questions — with draft change-order language as a standard deliverable.
Schedule impact
Critical-path analysis, concurrency, acceleration, and the honest allocation of delay.
Risk management
Risk identification and allocation across delivery methods — before contract, during delivery, and in dispute.
We wrote the books
Ernest C. Brown is the author of two books on infrastructure delivery and public-private partnerships, drawn from decades of California project experience.