The Project Neutral® Methodology

A defined, documented, repeatable discipline for resolving construction disputes.

Every construction project is a one-off prototype. A large project assembles parties who may never have worked together, in an uncontrolled environment, under a contract that requires continuous interpretation. In an industry that puts more than $2 trillion of work in place each year in the United States, that structure produces disputes at an industrial rate. Contract disputes not resolved at the jobsite feed legal proceedings that can last a dozen years, and the collective litigation and expert fees often exceed the amount originally in dispute.

Large construction disputes almost always settle at mediation, years after completion. The facts and contract issues have not changed from those apparent during the project. The parties settle from exhaustion, on facts they had all along. Everyone agrees it is better to resolve disputes as they occur. The Methodology is a documented answer to how.

Standard ADR tools arrive too late.

Mediation, arbitration, and dispute review boards are reactive. They address a dispute only after it has significantly impacted the project, through a neutral who meets the project late and briefly. None puts a trained, independent construction executive on the problem while it can still be fixed cheaply.

  • How disputes get resolved. Eight defined methods, from fact finding to arbitration, selected by professional judgment rather than run as a mandatory sequence. [→ /how-disputes-get-resolved]

  • What a Neutral can and cannot decide. Advisory first. A binding decision exists only where all parties opt in, in writing, after the dispute has arisen. [→ /decision-authority]

  • How independence is protected. Joint retention, client selection from three candidates, even-handed distribution, and compensation never contingent on outcome. [→ /independence]

  • The standards every deliverable meets. FIRAC structure, full-contract reading, sourced assertions, and a cold read by a second senior Neutral. [→ /our-standards]