California Infrastructure Projects

Legal Aspects of Building in the Golden State

Clarion Rating: 4 out of 5

California Infrastructure Projects is a diligent, in-depth manual for tapping into the billions of dollars that California spends each year on its highways, transit systems, and other projects for the public.

Ernest C. Brown’s expansive text California Infrastructure Projects covers the technical, practical, and legal aspects of construction work in the Golden State.

Brown, a lawyer with a civil engineering degree, has more than forty years of experience with advising clients who design and build infrastructure in California. His comprehensive guidebook draws on that background to argue that California is an ideal location for the construction sector to thrive. Proposing a blueprint for “turning civic dreams into reality,” the book suggests ways to navigate public investment in communities through roads, rails, parks, and wide-reaching internet access.

This detailed road map for construction professionals covers the process of evaluating, bidding on, and carrying out infrastructure projects. It also anticipates and answers questions that could arise along the way, as about submitting bids that government agencies will respond to and about what to do about third-party lawsuits. A chapter on dispute resolution covers types of arbitration, mediation, and methods of working through impasses in a careful way. Supplementary materials at the book’s end, including glossaries, end notes, and explanations of the acronyms encountered while working with state agencies, make the project more useful.

As it covers its subjects, the book breaks its material into short, self-contained segments to make its information easy to absorb. Detailed bullet points in these subsections result in clear ideas of what makes the most sense in different situations, as when the book outlines all of the information that contractors must provide in response to bid packets, and all of the ways that they can respond to change orders outside of the scope of their original contracts. Case studies and citations at the end of each chapter bolster the book’s credibility.

The text is exhaustive in showing what construction professionals can expect every step of the way, examining a full range of possible contingencies, including damages, dispute resolutions, and payment remedies. The result is a specific and easy-to-use reference tool that ably shows what it takes to succeed when it comes to seeing infrastructure projects through to fruition, even on time and under budget.

California Infrastructure Projects is a diligent, in-depth manual for tapping into the billions of dollars that California spends each year on its highways, transit systems, and other projects for the public.

Reviewed by Joseph S. Pete

Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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