Construction Projects – Legal & Commercial Help Brisbane | Senior Construction Lawyer & Commercial Manager

Help Across the Whole Project, Not Just One Document

Most Construction Lawyers will only look at your Contract before you sign it.

Blaze Business & Legal works with you across the whole Project. From the day the Contract is signed, through delivery, all the way to Practical Completion.

That covers the Notices that have to go out, the Variations that need to be claimed properly, the Extension of Time entitlements you need to protect, the payment claims that have to comply with the Building Industry Fairness Act, and the Superintendent decisions that need pushing back on.

You get one senior Construction Lawyer across all of it.

When Most Contractors Call Us

Most Contractors who call about a live Project are at one of five points.

Just before the Works start. The Contract is signed but you haven’t mobilised yet. This is the best time to call. We set up your Notices, Variation tracking and EOT process from day one, so you’re not playing catch-up later.

The first Variation gets pushed back. How you handle the first Variation sets the tone for every Variation after it. Get this one right and the rest get easier.

The first delay event hits. Most Contracts have strict time bars on Notices for Extension of Time. Miss the time bar and you can lose the entitlement, even if the delay was the Principal’s fault. Get advice when the first delay happens, not three months later.

A payment claim gets rejected. The Building Industry Fairness Act has tight timing rules. If a payment claim has been knocked back, getting legal advice straight away is very different from getting it three months later when your cash flow is already tight.

The relationship has gone sour. When the Principal, Head Contractor or Superintendent has stopped being cooperative, you need your communications, Notices and contract administration repositioned for what’s likely heading toward a dispute, while the Project is still running.

What’s Covered in a Project Engagement

A Project engagement covers the legal side of running the Project. The scope is set in the engagement letter and adjusted as the Project moves on.

The standard scope includes a pre-mobilisation review of the signed Contract and Special Conditions, so you know the Notice obligations and time bars cold from day one.

It includes setting up your Variation, EOT and payment claim processes, so the entitlements get protected as a matter of routine, not crisis response.

And it includes ongoing legal advice across delivery on what to put in Notices, how to handle Variations, whether you’ve got an EOT entitlement, how to position payment claims, scope disputes, and Superintendent decisions that need pushing back on.

Where We Step In Further

Some Contractors already have a Contract Manager or Project Manager doing the day-to-day contract administration. Others don’t, and they’re trying to run the Project off the side of the desk.

If you’ve got those people internally, Blaze Business & Legal works as the senior legal escalation point on the issues your team can’t resolve.

If you don’t have those people, Blaze Business & Legal can step in further. We act as the Commercial Manager and Contract Manager function on a retainer basis. We draft and issue the Notices, respond to Principal and Superintendent correspondence, prepare Variation submissions and run the contract administration directly.

How Engagements Are Priced

Defined-scope engagements are quoted as a fixed fee. The fee is confirmed in writing before any work starts.

Engagements that run for the life of the Project are usually delivered on a monthly retainer. The retainer is sized to the Project and the level of legal input you need.

Either way, you get the price up front, with no hourly billing and no junior lawyers on your matter.

The Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement issued at the start of every matter sets out the scope, fees and deliverables in writing, in line with Queensland Law Society client care rules.

Contract Forms We Work With

Blaze Business & Legal advises on Construction Projects across every major Contract used in the Australian Construction Industry.

That includes AS 4000 (Construct Only) and AS 4300 (Design and Construct), AS 2124 and AS 4902, the AS 4901 and AS 4903 Subcontract Conditions, ABIC, NEC4, FIDIC (Red, Yellow and Silver Books), GC21 for NSW Government work, and AUSDEFCON for Commonwealth Defence Projects.

Bespoke and heavily-amended Contracts are advised on differently to standard form Contracts. The Special Conditions in a bespoke Contract usually shift the risk onto you in ways the General Conditions don’t, so the legal advice on contract administration has to reflect that.

Project Delivery Methods We Work With

The Project Delivery Method changes how the legal advice runs.

We advise on Construct Only, Design and Construct, Early Contractor Involvement that turns into a Lump Sum, Managing Contractor arrangements, Public Private Partnerships, Alliance Contracts and EPC structures.

Each one allocates the risk differently. Each one needs contract administration run differently. The legal advice is calibrated to the model you’re working under.

Why Construction Businesses Choose Blaze Business & Legal

Most Construction Lawyers have only ever worked in law firms. They’ve advised Contractors from the outside, never from inside the Project.

Rachelle Hare is different. She’s worked inside the Tier 1 in-house legal teams that draft and run Principal-side Contracts (Thiess, Laing O’Rourke, Acciona). She’s spent six years as Senior Commercial Manager running contract administration from the Contractor side, on Defence Projects and at a Tier 2 Construction and Technology provider. And she’s spent more than 25 years working alongside Construction Businesses across Tiers 1, 2 and 3.

That mix of in-house, Commercial Manager and private practice experience matters. Doing Project legal advisory well needs you to understand how Contract Managers, Project Managers and Superintendents actually run contract administration day to day, how Principal-side decisions on Variations and EOT get made, and what commercial outcomes are realistic at each stage of the Project.

You can’t get that from technical legal training alone.

How a Project Engagement Runs

It starts with a quick chat about your Project, the Contract form, your role in the contractual chain (Head Contractor, Subcontractor, Specialist Trade Contractor or Principal), how far into delivery you are, and the legal issues you’ve spotted or expect to face.

Once the scope is clear, Blaze Business & Legal sends you a written fixed-price quote covering either a defined-scope engagement or a monthly retainer. The quote sets out the scope, the fee, the deliverables and the engagement period.

Work starts once the quote is accepted and the Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement is signed.

Rachelle reviews the signed Contract, the Special Conditions, the Annexure, the General Conditions and any Subcontracts in scope. From that, you get a contract administration summary covering the Notice obligations, time bars, Variation mechanics, EOT mechanics, payment claim mechanics and dispute resolution rules you need to operate against.

That summary is the foundation document for the engagement.

From there, advice is delivered as Project events come up. Notices get drafted or reviewed before they go out. Variation positions get analysed before they’re submitted. EOT entitlements get assessed at the time of the delay event, while the evidence is fresh. Payment claim mechanics get reviewed in real time.

At Practical Completion, a close-out pass picks up any outstanding entitlements (final Variation claims, residual EOT entitlement, retention release positioning) and any commercial loose ends to sort out before the Project closes.

From Rachelle’s Experience

The Projects where I’ve added the most value, across more than 25 years, haven’t been the ones where the Contractor came to me with a single legal question after the damage was done. They’ve been the Projects where I was engaged early, set up the contract administration framework properly from the start, and stayed across delivery as the senior legal escalation point.

The legal questions that come up on a live Project are rarely the textbook questions. They’re commercial decisions with legal consequences. The legal advice has to be calibrated to what the Contractor is actually trying to achieve on the Project, not to a clause-by-clause analysis that ignores the commercial reality.

That’s why I deliver every Project engagement personally. No junior lawyers learning on your matter.

Frequently Asked Questions