We prep your claim from day one. We're paid only from what you recover — no recovery, no fee.
The agency rarely beats you on the facts. They beat you on the procedure — the deadline you didn't calendar, the recipient you didn't know about, the daily report you wrote for project management instead of for a board. Every one of these is preventable. None of them gets fixed at closeout.
The quotes below are illustrative composites of common contractor situations — not client testimonials.
NY agency windows run 5–15 calendar days. PANYNJ aviation work tightens to 5. The clock starts the day of the event — not the day someone realizes there's a claim.
Cost: complete bar to recovery — a mid-six-figure claim can be lost entirely for a notice filed days late.Your supers write daily reports for project management, not claims preservation. "Mechanical crew on site" misses the punch. "12-man mechanical crew on standby, day 47 of 14-day review period" can be worth on the order of $25K/day in extended overhead.
Cost: on the order of $25K per missed entry — recoverable only if it was written.NYSDOT §109 / §105-14 treats acceptance of final payment as waiver. So does every NY public-works contract with similar language. Closeout is run by accounting, not by the claims team. Treasurers see a check and deposit it.
Cost: claims worth millions, lost at the bank counter.NY enforces no-damages-for-delay clauses broadly. Corinno Civetta v. NYC carved four exceptions — bad faith, uncontemplated delay, abandonment, fundamental breach — but you have to structure your record to fit one.
Cost: your entire delay damages claim. Common on NY public works.Without a Constructive Change Directive letter within 24-48 hours of informal direction, the board treats the work as voluntary. The cumulative pile of small "we'll work it out" items adds up to six figures with no paper.
Cost: every $3,000 verbal direction, gone. Multiply across the project.Average North America construction dispute: $30.1M, 16.7 months. The contractor finances the agency's mistakes until resolution. Big-firm hourly fees ($300-$650/hr) front-load $200K-$1M against an uncertain recovery.
Cost: forced settlements at cents on the dollar to free up working capital.A claim prepared from the day of the event is ten times stronger than the same claim reconstructed two years later. Five stages, every engagement.
Compute the agency-specific notice deadline within 24 hours of your first call. Draft and send the notice the same day if needed. Belt-and-suspenders statutory filings (GML §50-e, etc.).
Audit your existing record. Set up segregated cost codes. Train supers on claim-grade daily report language. Build the engagement file structure that survives 5 years of dispute.
Master narrative tying entitlement to quantum to time impact. CCD letters, acceleration protests, and TIA fragnets generated as events occur — not at closeout.
I represent on technical and factual matters. Your counsel handles legal posture. Settlements and CO decisions structured to preserve protective filings if litigation becomes necessary.
Without-prejudice endorsements on every check. Carve-outs on every release. Post-claim debrief feeds the next engagement.
Ten doctrine playbooks. Six NY agency notice procedures. Six claim templates. A 154-case database queryable by agency, claim type, and outcome. The structural inventory that lets us spot which doctrine applies before you finish describing the dispute.
Agency-furnished design fails. You followed it exactly, documented your objection, let it fail. US v. Spearin, 248 U.S. 132 (1918).
Contract said clay; you hit rock. Stop, photograph, notify, invite inspection — preserves six-figure recovery in four hours of stop-work.
22-month agency review while your crew sat on standby. Contemporaneous TIAs and segregated cost codes turn it into recoverable extended overhead.
Verbal direction outside contract scope. CCD letter within 48 hours establishes the "extra work + government caused + not voluntary" three-part test.
Time-extension denied → forced overtime → the protest letter that bridges denial to action and preserves recovery on the productivity loss.
Changes so drastic they exceed the contract's general scope. Refuse them or treat as breach. Structured documentation is the entire claim.
Pattern of arbitrary submittal rejections, weaponized inspections. Documented in real time, not at closeout. Metcalf v. US, 742 F.3d 984.
Agency knew something vital you couldn't have discovered, and didn't tell you. Helene Curtis, Hardeman-Monier-Hutcherson.
Routine CO signature does not release unidentified claims — but only with proper reservation language. Fulford, ASBCA 2143 (1955).
Every contractor in public works has the same shortlist when a claim hits — a national forensic consultancy or a construction lawyer. Both carry the same structural gaps for a mid-size contractor. Here's the structure of each.
The national forensic consultancies bill $300 to $650 an hour with six-figure minimums — senior names sell the work, junior staff do it.
They typically engage after the dispute is already mature, bill for months reconstructing what the daily reports never captured, and are paid in full whether or not you recover.
Engagement letters commonly cap liability at fees paid. Hourly billing means time spent is revenue earned, regardless of your recovery. A testifying-expert practice can pull toward a narrative hedged for cross-examination.
Different, not necessarily better. Generalist counsel knows your business but not the agency's notice clock. Specialty firms at $600 to $1,200 an hour often engage too late to fix the documentation problem the claim depends on.
Contingency counsel are selective by economics — a smaller claim that's vital to your business may not clear their case-selection threshold.
Those who take it commonly seek 35 percent plus costs off the top. Net of costs and counsel hours, that can run higher than a success-fee structure.
Same claim, four different ways to pursue it. The structural differences below are why mid-size contractors keep choosing the wrong option and ending up with cents on the dollar.
| Dimension | ConClaimsThis is us | Forensic Consulting FirmHourly, post-dispute | Construction LawyerHourly specialty firm | Contingency LawyerPlaintiff-side construction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fee structure | 15-25% of recovery, success only | $300-$650/hr senior; $150-$250/hr junior; $150-$300K minimum | $600-$1,200/hr senior; $25-$50K retainer | 25-40% of gross + costs off the top |
| Cash flow impact | Zero up-front. Pay only on collected dollars. | $200K-$1M out-of-pocket before any recovery | Six figures of running invoices; trust replenishment | Zero up-front but largest fee on big wins |
| Engagement timing | NTP / day-of-event | Post-dispute, 18-30 months in | Post-dispute, when stakes justify $600/hr | Post-dispute, when claim is mature enough to evaluate |
| Agency-specific knowledge (DDC · MTA · SCA · PA · DASNY · NYSDOT) |
Built-in. Agency procedure files maintained per project. | Variable by partner. Institutional knowledge in heads. | Specialty firms strong; generalist GC counsel weak | Highly variable; mostly civil-court generalists |
| Documentation discipline (daily reports, CCDs, cost codes) |
Day-zero coaching. Field-level integration. | Diagnostic only after the fact | Diagnostic only; post-dispute reconstruction | Diagnostic only; post-dispute reconstruction |
| Alignment of interest | Total — same dollar moves both meters | None — paid hourly regardless of outcome | None — paid hourly regardless of outcome | Partial — premium captures large wins |
| Time to first deliverable | Days. Notice template ready in 24h. | Weeks-months (kickoff, conflict-check, partner review) | Weeks (intake, conflict-check, retainer-funding) | Weeks-months (intake, case eval, fee agreement) |
| Independence / advocacy posture | Pure advocacy. No testifying-expert role. | Independent — testifying-expert duty bleeds into prep work | Advocate within ethical limits | Advocate; aligned by fee structure |
| Conflicts of interest | Pure contractor-side. No agency-side work. | Common — large firms advise agencies on other matters | Possible at multi-line firms | Less common — pure plaintiff side |
| Engagement-letter terms | Plain-English. Aligned interest. | One-sided, liability-capped, mandatory arbitration | Standard one-sided | Standard one-sided + cost-recovery clause |
| Total fee on a $1M recovery | $150K – $250K | $300K – $1M (hourly run-up) | $400K – $800K (hourly run-up) | $250K – $400K + $100K – $300K costs |
Estimates reflect published industry fee ranges for forensic construction consultancies and construction-litigation counsel, and plaintiff-side contingency-fee disclosures. Figures are general category estimates, not firm-specific; actual fees vary by claim complexity, jurisdiction, and engagement scope.
National forensic consultancies bill $300–$650 per hour, regardless of what you collect. That's $200K–$1M of front-loaded fees against a recovery that may take two years and may settle for cents on the dollar. When you're already carrying the agency's costs for 14 months, hourly fees aren't a service — they're another cash-flow problem on top of the one you already have.
I work on a 15-25% success fee. No retainer. No hourly. No invoice until the agency settles or the board awards. You get the same forensic schedule analysis, the same doctrine fluency, the same agency-procedure precision — without the working-capital hit.
If we don't recover, you owe me nothing. That's the alignment. No outcome is guaranteed — every matter is different.
I do not testify as expert witness — that preserves the success-fee structure under the relevant ethics rules. If your matter goes to ASBCA, CBCA, or NY Court of Claims and an expert is needed, I'll refer you to a separate testifying expert and continue the claims-prep work in support. The handoff is clean.
I prepare claims. I don't litigate them, and I don't testify. That's deliberate — the success-fee structure relies on it.
My background is construction operations on NYC public works. I know what a daily report from a real superintendent looks like. I know which RFIs hit the desk of which agency reviewer. I know which spec sections trigger which doctrine. I built ConClaims because mid-size contractors — the ones doing $30M to $300M of public-works revenue — are the ones who get hurt the worst on these claims and have the fewest options to fix it.
The big consulting firms won't take your engagement on contingency. The plaintiff-side construction attorneys come in too late. The boutique consultancies still bill hourly. That gap is what ConClaims fills.
A 30-minute confidential review. No fee. We discuss the dispute, the contract, the deadline I think you're working against, and whether there's a viable claim. If there is, we talk about the engagement. If there isn't, you'll know where you stand.