Happy Fourth of July!
I wanted to take a moment and thank all of the Green Building Law Update readers. You all have been blowing my minds the last few weeks. There has been a surge in comments and discussions that take place after my original post. Many times, these comments and discussions are much more important than the post itself.
Don't believe me? Go back and look at the comments after last weeks post on the USGBC's decision to no longer make CIRs public.
- Eli S. made a great point that without public CIRs, the USGBC and GBCI may be limiting their liability.
- Rich C. followed up on Eli's comment with the point that the USGBC may face less liability, but internal disputes among project teams may actually increase.
- Christopher Hill argued that one possible solution is to build more CIRs into any contract. I agree.
- Tim Hughes made a fantastic point - someone is likely to set up a third party website or clearinghouse where projects still share CIRs. Who is going to start this?
- Finally, Robert Newcomer pointed out that my case law analogy may have been flawed because facts are never identical from case to case or CIR to CIR.
Why am I highlighting these comments? Two reasons.
First, if you aren't reading the comments and, more importantly, taking part in the discussions after the blog posts, you are missing out.
Second, the comments above are proof that attorneys can, in fact, contribute to the green building industry. Each of the commenters is a construction attorney.
Of course, we always value non-legal contributors too.
Have a great Fourth of July.
Thanks for the props! I appreciate your thought provoking posts that I hope lead to more discussion on and off line.
Chris,
Keep up the fantastic work! It is very easy to become involved in conversation with such thought provoking posts. I appreciate everything you have done for me personally and the industry as a whole.
Happy to chime in!
As a ps on the third party site, there is an interestnig case study repository on McGraw-Hill Construction Greensource page, it is very easy to see CIR discussion fitting here and elsewhere:
http://greensource.construction.com/MediaDataAccess/cs/CaseStudies.aspx
Chris, Rich, Tim - thanks as always.
Tim - I would be very surprised if McGraw-Hill sponsored the CIR resource we are talking about. I see the website being setup by a rogue third party.