February 10, 2012
By Catherine Brinkman
Let’s just get one thing out of the way: Most contractors that protest a bid or proposal award will lose. Why? Because the deck is stacked against them.
The public contracting process, initially developed as a fair, transparent basis for competition, sometimes lacks both fairness and transparency. Some agencies enact their own public contracting rules, which they interpret and execute with increasing subjectivity, and sometimes without much uniformity – even among different bids on the same procurement. Read More
February 8, 2012
It is February, the month of roses, chocolates and … uncomfortable blind dates. That got us at SWW thinking. Where do you meet up for a meal when you want to keep it brief?
As lawyers, our time is often not our own. Whether we are up against a deadline or a lunch with the in-laws, it is useful to have a restaurant or two in the “I’d love to have lunch but may need to leave in a hurry” category. Here are a few of our local favorites.
The conveyor-belt format and attentive wait staff at the downtown Blue C Sushi (1510 Seventh Ave., Seattle; 467-4022; bluecsushi.com) makes a quick and graceful exit from your meal easy to manage. On a Friday, Blue C was packed to the gills, but there was no wait if you were willing to sit at the counter.
We started with the sesame noodles, which were nicely chewy and not too salty. The spider roll startled, with a deep-fried antenna of some sort sticking out, but turned out to be crunchy and very nice. The star of the show was a fusion item: a sublime spicy-tuna taco, crispy on the outside and fiery on the inside. We were pleasantly full after 20 minutes.
The real test for a rapid exit at a sit-down joint, however, is how quickly you can get the attention of the waitress. Our waitress, Kaela, seemed to have telepathic powers. As soon as one of us spied her, she made eye contact and came over immediately. When all was said and done we enjoyed a delicious and economical meal and had settled up within 25 minutes. Hard to beat!
If you are looking to give an out-of-towner a taste of iconic Seattle without playing tour guide for an entire afternoon, we suggest Lowell’s in Pike Place Market (1519 Pike Place; 622-2036; eatatlowells.com). Patrons order at a counter near the entrance, take a number and wait for the meal to be delivered. It seemed like a strategic location for a meeting place where one might want a quick exit.
We did not find lunch at Lowell’s to be as quick as expected. But when we found an open spot on the third floor, which was buzzing with patrons, the view reminded us why Lowell’s has been around for almost 100 years (literally).
We tried the pulled-pork sandwich, seafood salad and Alaskan cod/seafood tacos. The seafood was fresh and the tacos were the standout. If the speed of the service did not allow us a quick exit, at least it would certainly have been easy to lose someone quickly after lunch in the crowds at the market.
Another obvious choice to try for this month’s column was the “express lunch” at 820 Pike Street. Not surprisingly located at 820 Pike Street (219-5555; 820pike.com), this SWW favorite is the successor to what was Bambuza Bistro. Ownership has changed and there has been a slight remodel, but the menu remains very similar.
We split the green papaya salad, the coconut chicken curry and bul-gogi beef. The food was fresh and flavorful, although not as spicy as we remembered. (We suspect that a request for additional spice would have been quickly accommodated.) We found the service for lunch quick, although not quite as express as the name would imply. We were seated and served, paid, and out the door in under an hour. This is a good choice when you want to get in and out in a snap.
What better way to control the length of your dining experience than to serve yourself? For an expedient and inexpensive meal, we think Indian restaurants serving lunchtime buffets are spot-on. This is a perfect spot for the lunch date with an old friend you haven’t seen in awhile and don’t have much in common with anymore.
Try Bengal Tiger (6510 Roosevelt Way NE; 985-0041; bengaltigerwa.com) or India Bistro (6417 Roosevelt Way NE; 517-4444; seattleindiabistro.com). Bengal Tiger has a vast selection of vegetarian items, including curries and paneer. On the weekends, Bengal Tiger has an even larger buffet with various soup selections. The buffet at India Bistro is smaller than its neighbor’s, but offers great butter chicken and naan made fresh for each customer. At either venue, you will enjoy the food and be in and out in a flash.
That brings us to our favorite spot for that potentially awkward blind date that took us down this path. We had heard about Potbelly Sandwich Shop (1429 Fourth Ave.; 623-0099; potbelly.com) and wanted to see what the buzz was all about during a quick lunch break from a recent deposition. With T-40 minutes until we needed to be back before the court reporter, we jumped into line.
We must warn you, your first foray into Potbelly can leave you feeling like a newbie. Before we could even peruse the sandwich offerings on the signboard in front of us, a young man with an electronic device approached demanding, albeit politely, a decision. “Ham and cheese,” we ordered.
Who were we to slow down the overly efficient process? See the opportunity this provides on a first date? The perfect excuse to avoid any small talk while deciding what to order (there is no time for such nonsense at Potbelly!), plus an impromptu test of wits to see what your date is made of.
We were at a counter watching our sandwiches spit out of the toaster within a minute. Industrial cans of Hershey’s chocolate syrup, jam and Potbelly peppers sat on shelves behind the counter, and a line of chipper staff rapidly assembled toppings onto melted cheese. From the register, only four minutes later, we watched a classic coffeehouse acoustic guitar player strum feverishly from his perch upon a stool. Loud conversations and the wails of the coffeehouse singer-songwriter dominated, creating a cacophony quite unusual in Seattle.
We shared a table with some other attorneys we met in line. Our sandwiches were tasty. We were jealous of the milkshakes our neighbors had the sense to order. And we did not find ourselves bored for one minute with new friends to chat with and a bustling, boisterous lunch crowd to survey.
The thing that secured Potbelly’s first-place finish as the best place to meet a stranger for a date is its location. Right downtown, in the Metro ride-free area, it’s easy to evacuate a disastrous date by walking out the door and right onto the next bus that pulls up in front of you. Hopefully you grabbed a milkshake to go.
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt is a multiservice, Northwest regional law firm with offices in Seattle, Vancouver, Portland and Bend. For comments on this article or to share your favorite places to eat or drink with the Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt attorneys, contact Farron Lennon at 206-407-1571 or flennon@schwabe.com; see also www.schwabe.com/dining_out.aspx.
Originally published in the February 2012 issue of the King County Bar Bulletin. Reprinted with permission of the King County Bar Association.
By Jeremy Vermilyea
All businesses want to save money. And they don’t want to spend money on lawyers if they don’t have to. But using your advisors is about more than the bill. There are a number of protections that come with making the call to your attorney. Those protections can turn out to be very important if a dispute gets bigger, or goes farther than the business originally anticipates. Here is a case in point:
A contractor’s sub has a jobsite accident that results in damage to a third party. The third party files an administrative claim with the state agency that oversees such matters. The claim leads to an investigation by the state agency. The agency issues a citation to the prime contractor.
Stop. Call your attorney.
In our story, the contractor does not call the attorney, because the contractor’s principal is certain the accident was not the contractor’s fault and therefore there can be no liability, so an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) is sure to overturn the citation. So the contractor decides to appeal – on its own – the citation by the agency. The principal undertakes an internal investigation, soliciting e-mails and other documents from the contractor’s employees as well as other external persons who may have knowledge about the accident. The principal conducts extensive research, takes voluminous notes, lays out a strategy for the conduct of the hearing on the citation, argues the matter to an ALJ, and loses.
The fact of losing the hearing is not that notable or unusual. Every case or claim has a winner and loser, and the outcome may not have been any different if an attorney had gotten involved at the beginning.
But the ALJ’s decision is not the end of our story, because the third party, who has received an award from the agency, has determined that the award is not sufficient to cover the damage she suffered. So the person sues the prime contractor and other subcontractors in court for the difference between what the person believes are her true damages and the amount that she was awarded by the state agency. Then, she demands copies of all the contractor’s records relating to the accident, including all notes, e-mails, diagrams, photos, post-its, and any other scintilla of information or data in the contractor’s possession relating to the work or the accident.
Remember all the strategizing the principal did? And all the questions he asked of his employees? And the answers those employees gave – some of which were very damaging to the contractor’s position? All of that information is discoverable, meaning it must be turned over to the other side.
“Why?” you may be asking. The answer is because the contractor did not engage its attorney at the beginning of the investigation, or at the latest when the contractor received the notice of the citation from the agency. Had the attorney been engaged in the investigation, the interviews of company employees, the internal document gathering, and the development of the strategy for the initial agency-level hearing, much of the information sought by the other party in the lawsuit would be protected by either the attorney-client privilege or the attorney work-product doctrine.
The attorney-client privilege is a legal concept that protects certain communications between a client and his or her attorney and keeps those communications confidential. That means that anything said to the attorney by the contractor, its principal or employees is generally confidential and cannot be discovered by the other side unless the privilege is waived.
The attorney work-product doctrine is similar to, but broader than, the attorney-client privilege. The work-product doctrine protects materials that are prepared in anticipation of litigation. So, internal communications that are in response to questions or requests from the attorney in the above scenario are likely protected from discovery. The “bad news” responses from the contractor’s employees are likely protected (although if the employees are deposed they must give accurate answers – the information or impression itself is not protected, only the communication about it to the attorney or at the attorney’s direction). The “road-map” to the hearing that the contractor prepared? Also protected by the work-product doctrine (assuming the contractor prepared such a document if he’d hired counsel), so long as it is prepared at the direction of the attorney.
So, the moral of the story is that what may appear at the outset to be a cost-effective way to approach a dispute could turn out to be disastrous strategy costing a great deal more in terms of potential damages than what the attorney’s fees might add up to. The point is not to suggest that you, the client, should not investigate and do everything you can to get at the truth of the matter. The point is to avail yourself of the protections the law provides so that you can get at that truth more fully and without handing the keys to the company to the other side.
There is an old adage in the law: “The attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client.” The same can be said of the contractor who represents himself. Contractors are very good at building things and at managing business risk. Lawyers (or at least most of us) are lousy at building things. Lawyers hire contractors to do remodels or build new homes for a reason – we trust that work to the experts. It is a wise contractor who understands that the reason he has a relationship with his attorney is to enable him to entrust his legal problems to someone better suited to addressing those problems and managing legal processes than is the contractor himself.
January 13, 2012
By Jeremy Vermiliyea
In 2011, the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 961, a partial ban on a requirement of subrogation waivers in construction contracts. Since the legislation became effective in June 2010, much confusion, overstatement, hand-wringing, and general angst has ensued.
Click here to read the full article as it appeared in the December 30, 2011 issue of the Daily Journal of Commerce.
Welcome to the first entry of Northwest Construction Zone, Schwabe’s blog about all things involving construction and government contracting that affect the Northwest. With this blog we hope to provide insights into current trends in the law affecting contractors, design professionals, and those doing business with local, state and federal government agencies. We will occasionally be in the position to forecast potential outcomes, regarding legislation affecting the construction and government contracting industries. We will use this space as a way to direct readers to other resources with valuable information about the state of the law, the construction economy, and other items of interest to the industry.
At the same time we are launching this blog, we are launching a monthly column in the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce called “Construction Zone.” Each month a member of Schwabe’s construction team will provide insight into a different area affecting the construction industry. This month’s column addresses a recent change to the law regarding contractual subrogation waivers, which was passed by the 2011 Oregon Legislature.
We hope you enjoy and get some value from this blog. We will be posting regularly, and we would love your feedback – what topics interest you, what are we missing, how can we make this a more valuable service for you? In the meantime, thanks for reading!
January 9, 2012
Because We Are at Our Favorite Spot
Doom: The perfect excuse for our annual happy hour issue. This year we are adding a few more favorite spots to help us forget the doom of the unknown – or of the evening traffic jam.
Go Swank
If the world was ending, it would be worth setting aside a few pre-apocalypse hours for a final get-together with your friends at a bar. Not just any bar, of course; this is the last happy hour of your life, presumably.
If you want that ultimate libation to be a statement of your insouciance in the face of impending incineration, of your dignity in dealing with doom, then let us suggest the chic Art Lounge on the ground floor of the Four Seasons (99 Union Street, Seattle; 749-7070; fourseasons.com/seattle/dining/art_lounge). You can have your drinks at the bar, in comfy armchairs or at tables by windows that overlook the old Seattle steam plant on Western, with Elliott Bay beyond.
On a Tuesday evening visit, the lounge was moderately crowded, but a window table was available. Our waitress was pleasant, prompt and professional. Notwithstanding the high ceiling, noise levels were reasonable and it was easy to carry on a conversation, although the background music was a bit on the loud side. The bar itself is a spectacular, modernist creation, creatively lit and minimally decorated.
Drinks and appetizers are on the pricey side, however, and not really very much cheaper during happy hour (5 to 7 p.m. daily). The cocktails are a bit on the frou-frou side, including a “Lusty Lady” (Absolut ruby red vodka, cranberry and prosecco) and a “Gelt-y Pleasure” (Absolut citron, frangelico, prosecco and gold sugar dust).
This reviewer had the $4 mini burger, which was pleasant but unexceptional. If you are a cheese lover, the unlimited access to the cheese and antipasto bar for $14 is really quite good. Bottom line: This lounge is a first-class choice to celebrate any important occasion with your friends or colleagues. With a good sunset view of Elliott Bay and an elegant ambience, it is a great choice for a last toast before the lights finally go out.
Stay Close to Home
No need to travel far to watch the world end if you live in West Seattle. Our new favorite local hangout is The Cask (2350 California Ave. SW, Seattle; 938-2275; thecaskseattle.com). We stumbled (not literally, of course) upon this place, and when we first walked in we knew we loved it. The atmosphere is cozy and relaxed; the bartenders are friendly and knowledgeable.
It is a great place to unwind after work or just chill on the weekend. It is mellow enough that you can actually have a conversation. This is definitely a “locals” place; you will not find the Alki tourist crowd.
What we really love about this place, besides its welcoming atmosphere, is its beer and ale selection. The Cask carries some mighty delicious ales, hard ciders and lagers from around the world. We recommend the Black Douglas ale, a dark, ruby ale from Scotland, or Brew Dog, a Storm Whisky IPA that has been aged in Islay Scotch whisky barrels.
If you want to stay close to home in Capitol Hill, there are many choices, but the eggplant fries entice us to choose Poppy (622 Broadway East, Seattle; 324-1108; poppyseattle.com). Words like eclectic and unique might be overused in food reviews, but Poppy truly deserves such descriptions.
A recent group outing resulted in more than one of us exclaiming more than once, “I have never tasted anything like this before.” Everyone wanted to come back. The cocktail list is creative. Try the “Loveless” for a complex gin drink. The wine list is well worth perusing.
Happy hour is from 5 to 7 p.m., with a late-night happy hour from 9 to 10 p.m. After a few of the specialty cocktails featured in the happy hour, you should be in a better mood to meet your doom.
Comfort Food
It is possible that some people might want to resort to comfort food as their last meal. For that, we feel fine sitting at the copper counter at Harvest Vine in the Madison Park area (2701 E. Madison, Seattle; 320-9771; harvestvine.com).
Chef Joey and his able crew serve wonderful Basque/Spanish-style pinxchos (tapas) and other delightful, locally sourced, small plates. Keeping with the theme, they sport a wonderful list of Spanish wines. The menu changes to accommodate what is in season.
For a wonderful “last meal” consider a bowlful of spicy, greasy and salty pardon peppers, the (definitive) gazpacho soup, (perhaps the best) beet salad (you have ever had), and either fish, seafood (try the scallops!), lamb or slices of the exquisite jambon. Of course, this would all be served with copious amounts of earthy Spanish rioja wine and Harvest Vine’s fine bread, and if there is still time before the doom, the flan by owner and pastry chef Carolin Messier will get you started on your heavenward journey.
Harvest Vine is open daily from 5 to 10 p.m. and for weekend brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Special, near-monthly dinners showcase interesting Basque/Spanish food and wine, and sell out quickly, especially if the end of the world is nigh.
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt is a multiservice, Northwest regional law firm with offices in Seattle, Vancouver, Portland and Bend. For comments on this article or to share your favorite places to eat or drink with the Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt attorneys, contact Christopher Howard at 206-407-1524 or at choward@schwabe.com; see also www.schwabe.com/dining_out.aspx.
Originally published in the January 2012 issue of the King County Bar Bulletin. Reprinted with permission of the King County Bar Association.
|
|
|
|
