Blaze Business & Legal is a Brisbane law practice providing Legal Services to construction businesses across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT and other jurisdictions. The practice covers two areas of law, Construction Law and Commercial Law, with every matter led personally by Rachelle Hare, an experienced Construction and Commercial Lawyer with 25+ years inside Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 construction contractors, top-tier private practice, Government and Defence, and six years as a Commercial Manager.
Legal work is delivered on a fixed-price basis agreed before any work starts, so Clients know the cost upfront. Every engagement follows the Queensland Law Society requirements for a Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement, and no junior handles substantive legal review, drafting or advice.
Construction businesses looking for Legal Services in Brisbane are typically served by one of two types of lawyer: a general commercial lawyer who has never worked in construction, or a Construction Lawyer who has only ever worked in law firms and has never run a Project, priced a tender, or sat through a variation meeting with a Superintendent. Rachelle has spent 25+ years doing the real work across Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 construction contractors, Defence and Government, and top-tier private practice, while also owning and running her own trading businesses on the side. That background shapes every piece of legal advice delivered by Blaze Business & Legal.
Having drafted Principal-side construction contracts for Tier 1 Head Contractors and sat on the Contractor side of tender Departures Schedules, Rachelle knows at a glance whether a particular clause reflects the standard industry position or whether the Principal has inserted a non-standard risk allocation on the Contractor. Legal advice prioritises the non-standard clauses where negotiation effort actually changes the commercial outcome, rather than ranking every clause in the contract equally.
Rachelle has owned and run her own trading businesses alongside her legal career, including bricks-and-mortar operations dealing with commercial leases, supplier agreements, staff, payment disputes and the cash flow pressures every small-to-mid-sized business deals with. Commercial Law advice at Blaze Business & Legal comes from someone who has signed the lease, negotiated with the landlord and worked through the employment contract issues herself.
Six years running the Commercial Manager function for Defence and a Tier 2 Construction and Technology provider means Rachelle has priced bids, run variation claims, argued Extension of Time with Superintendents and managed contract administration end-to-end. That gives Clients the commercial lens needed to identify which legal risk will actually hurt the business if the Project runs, and which is noise.
AS4000 and AS4300, AS2124 and AS4902, AS4901 and AS4903 for Subcontracts, ABIC, NEC4, FIDIC Red, Yellow and Silver Books, GC21 for NSW Government work, AUSDEFCON for Commonwealth Defence, and bespoke or heavily-amended standard forms (which are reviewed quite differently to vanilla forms, because the risk profile is fundamentally different). Rachelle has worked on all of them, across Queensland, New South Wales and other Australian jurisdictions.
Beyond her Tier 1 in-house roles at Thiess, Laing O'Rourke and Acciona, Rachelle has worked at Tier 2 and Tier 3 contractors including UGL and Golding. Legal advice is tailored to where the Client sits in the chain, because a Tier 1 Head Contractor, a Tier 2 Subcontractor on a major Project, and a Tier 3 specialist trade contractor each face different commercial pressures, different risk profiles and different leverage in negotiations.
No junior handles substantive review, drafting or legal advice on any matter Blaze Business & Legal is engaged on. The experienced Construction and Commercial Lawyer Clients engage is the same person who reads the contract, writes the advice, drafts the documents and supports the negotiations. Fixed pricing is quoted per matter so there are no surprises when the bill arrives.
The Legal Services practice at Blaze Business & Legal covers two complementary areas of law, both delivered personally by Rachelle Hare on a fixed-price basis. Construction businesses rarely have problems that sit neatly inside a single legal discipline, and keeping Construction Law and Commercial Law together under the one law practice means Clients can get the whole of their legal work done with a single experienced Lawyer who already understands their business, their industry, their contract forms and their commercial pressures.
The core of the Legal Services practice and the area where Rachelle has spent most of her career. Construction Law at Blaze Business & Legal covers construction contract drafting, contract review and contract negotiation, Project advice, Project Delivery Methods, contract management, construction claims and pre-litigation construction disputes, insurance and indemnity advice, contractual risk assessment, contract training, regulatory compliance, risk management, governance and retained External General Counsel work. Every matter is scoped for the realities of the Australian construction industry and the specific contract forms in use.
The commercial and corporate legal work construction businesses need alongside their project work. Commercial Law at Blaze Business & Legal covers commercial leasing, commercial contract drafting and review, contract negotiation, employment contracts and KPIs, supply and services agreements, joint ventures and Teaming Agreements, shareholder and director arrangements, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, business restructuring, business formation (alongside Shannon's Construction Business Structuring service), data protection and privacy, exit strategy planning, commercial dispute resolution, regulatory compliance, and general commercial advisory. Rachelle brings 25+ years of legal experience together with her own experience running trading businesses, which means Commercial Law advice is technically sound and commercially practical.
Beyond the two main practice areas, Blaze Business & Legal also provides general legal advice, contracting strategy across the whole business, legislative compliance advice, legal division setup, drafting of policies, procedures and templates for in-house legal teams, training and upskilling of staff on contract and legal skills, and short-term Senior Legal Counsel services for businesses covering a leave of absence or scaling an in-house legal function. These additional Legal Services are typically scoped as fixed-price or retained engagements depending on the need.
The Legal Services practice is designed for construction businesses with annual revenue between $5M and $100M, across residential, commercial, civil, infrastructure, mining services and defence sectors. Rachelle acts for Head Contractors and Principals, Subcontractors and specialist trade contractors, tenderers and bid teams, construction companies preparing Template Domestic Building Contracts, Clients who have already signed contracts and are now dealing with the consequences, and government and defence Clients with Commonwealth and state procurement work.
Every Legal Services engagement follows the same structured process. Clients know what they are getting, what it costs, and who is doing the work, before anything starts.
Clients send the documents, their role in the Project or transaction, and any specific concerns. Rachelle reviews the enquiry personally and confirms the scope and approach before anything else happens.
Rachelle provides a fixed-price quote for the scope agreed. No legal work begins until the quote is accepted, and pricing is set per matter rather than hourly, so Clients know their legal spend upfront rather than watching a bill build against a timesheet.
Blaze Business & Legal issues a Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement for signature, as required under Queensland Law Society rules. Scope, fees and deliverables are fully documented before the engagement formally begins.
Rachelle reviews the documents or prepares the drafting personally. No junior handles substantive legal work. On Legal Review engagements, the output is a detailed email with dot-point advice and recommendations, prioritised by materiality and tied to concrete action points.
Commercial Review, Statement of Departures and Risk Analysis are available alongside a Legal Review where the matter warrants them. Negotiation support, drafting follow-up and further legal advice are available as separately scoped fixed-fee engagements.
For construction businesses without in-house counsel, the External General Counsel service provides a retained legal function on a fixed monthly scope. Clients with intermittent needs return to the same Construction and Commercial Lawyer who already knows their business and their contract templates.
When I sat on the in-house side at a Tier 1 contractor, I watched good Subcontractors lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in unclaimed Extension of Time entitlements. The entitlement was there in the contract, but the Subcontractors had missed a 5 Business Day notice requirement that their lawyer had never flagged as commercially critical. The clause had been drafted correctly, the lawyer had done a technically competent review, and nobody had told the Subcontractor that this particular notice requirement was the single highest-risk time bar in the document and that the project team needed to build a process around it from day one.
That is what gets lost when a Construction Lawyer has only ever worked in a law firm. The legal advice can be technically correct and still commercially useless. Having spent years on both sides, I write every review, draft and piece of legal advice the way I would have wanted to receive it when I was running a commercial team on a live Project, priority-ranked around what will actually hurt the business if the Project runs, rather than around what looks tidy in a legal memo.
Blaze Business & Legal is based in Brisbane (Wavell Heights) and provides Legal Services to construction businesses across Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and other Australian jurisdictions. Clients who specifically want a Brisbane-based Construction or Commercial Lawyer can follow the links below.
For Construction Law enquiries, with local context on Queensland-specific legislation, QBCC licensing, the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017, Minimum Financial Requirements compliance, and Brisbane construction market conditions.
For Commercial Law enquiries, covering commercial leases, supply and services agreements, joint ventures, shareholder and director arrangements, employment contracts, corporate governance and the commercial documentation Brisbane construction businesses deal with.
Rachelle is a Construction Lawyer, Business Adviser and Commercial Manager with 25+ years of experience across Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 construction contractors, top-tier private practice, and six years as a Commercial Manager for Defence and a Tier 2 Construction and Technology provider.
Her senior in-house roles include Acting General Counsel at Thiess, Senior Legal Counsel at Laing O'Rourke and Senior Legal Counsel at Acciona. She has worked with UGL, Golding and Airservices, and through the Australian Government Solicitor, Defence Housing Australia and the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group. Her top-tier private practice experience was at Corrs Chambers Westgarth and McCullough Robertson, providing the formal legal training that sits alongside her in-house and Commercial Manager experience.
Rachelle has negotiated, drafted and advised on construction contracts and commercial contracts across Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and other jurisdictions, covering infrastructure, civil, commercial, defence, mining services and resources Projects. Alongside her legal career she has owned and run her own trading businesses, which informs her approach to Commercial Law advice for construction business owners navigating leases, supply arrangements, shareholder matters, employment contracts and the commercial decisions that sit around their project work.
Every matter is led personally by Rachelle, with a fixed-price quote before work starts, direct access and no junior handover, and Legal Services reflecting 25+ years inside the construction industry and a lifetime running businesses.
Blaze Business & Legal provides Legal Services across two practice areas: Construction Law and Commercial Law. Construction Law covers construction contracts, Project advice, construction disputes, compliance, risk, governance and retained External General Counsel work. Commercial Law covers commercial leases, employment contracts, supply and services agreements, joint ventures, shareholder and director arrangements, mergers and acquisitions, business restructuring, corporate governance, data protection, and commercial advisory. Additional Legal Services including legal division setup, policies and procedures drafting, staff training, and short-term Senior Legal Counsel work are available on request.
Yes. Blaze Business & Legal's Legal Services practice is built around construction businesses. Construction Law is the core area and Commercial Law is offered to the same Client base so construction businesses can keep their legal work with a single Construction and Commercial Lawyer who already understands their industry, their contract forms, their risk environment and their commercial pressures. Clients typically sit in the $5M to $100M revenue range, across residential, commercial, civil, infrastructure, mining services and defence sectors.
Yes. Blaze Business & Legal is based in Brisbane and provides Legal Services to construction businesses across Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and other Australian jurisdictions, covering infrastructure, civil, commercial, defence, mining services and resources Projects. Rachelle is familiar with the security of payment legislation, licensing regimes and procurement frameworks applying in each state and territory where Clients operate.
Every legal matter is quoted on a fixed-price basis before work starts, so Clients know the cost upfront. Fixed pricing covers Contract Reviews, drafting engagements, Risk Analyses, Statement of Departures, Commercial Reviews, lease reviews, corporate documentation, employment contracts, and standalone legal advice. Retained External General Counsel arrangements are offered on a fixed monthly retainer scoped to the business. There are no published dollar prices for Legal Services because pricing depends on the contract form, scope and complexity of the matter, which is why every enquiry starts with a quote.
Rachelle personally leads every Legal Services engagement. No junior handles substantive review, drafting or advice. The experienced Construction and Commercial Lawyer Clients engage is the same person who reads the contract, writes the advice, drafts the documents, and supports the negotiations end-to-end.
Every major Australian construction contract form plus international forms used in Australia. AS4000 (Construct Only) pairs with its Design and Construct partner AS4300, and AS2124 (Construct Only) pairs with AS4902 (Design and Construct, minor works), along with AS4901 and AS4903 Subcontract Conditions. Also ABIC suite contracts, NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract, FIDIC Red, Yellow and Silver Books, GC21 for NSW Government work, AUSDEFCON for Commonwealth Defence, and bespoke or heavily-amended standard forms, which are reviewed differently to vanilla forms because the risk profile is fundamentally different.
Yes. Employment contracts, KPI frameworks, role descriptions and associated policies and procedures are a part of the Commercial Law practice. This covers drafting and reviewing employment contracts, linking KPIs to performance management, and drafting policies and procedures governing staff performance, roles and responsibilities. Blaze Business & Legal does not provide broader workplace relations or industrial advice, which is typically handled by a dedicated employment law practice.
Blaze Business & Legal handles pre-litigation construction disputes, claims strategy, adjudication under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 in Queensland and the equivalent legislation in other jurisdictions, and early-stage dispute resolution. The focus is commercial resolution, rather than litigation. Where a dispute escalates to formal court proceedings, Blaze Business & Legal works with trusted litigation partners and stays involved as the Client's commercial and strategic adviser throughout.
Yes. The External General Counsel service is a retained legal function for construction businesses without in-house counsel, delivered on a fixed monthly retainer scoped to the business. It covers routine legal queries, contract review at volume, policy work, governance support and as-required deep-dive advice. Short-term Senior Legal Counsel arrangements are also available for businesses covering an in-house lawyer's leave of absence or scaling an existing in-house legal function. Clients who do not need a retainer can still return to Blaze Business & Legal for individual matters as they arise.
Queensland Law Society rules require a Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement at the start of every legal matter where fees are expected to exceed a prescribed threshold. The Disclosure Notice sets out scope, fees and deliverables, and the Costs Agreement is the formal engagement document between the Client and Blaze Business & Legal. Both are issued before substantive legal work begins, so Clients are never billed for work they did not agree to.
Yes. Alongside the Legal Services practice, Blaze Business & Legal offers a separate Business Advisory practice covering management accounting, fractional CFO services, construction business structuring, commercial advisory, operational advisory, and Brisbane 2032 Olympics contractor readiness. More detail is on the Business Advisory pages.
