Managing SOPA Responses Without Disrupting Delivery
Managing SOPA Responses Without Disrupting Delivery
In SOPA claims, time is tight and there’s little margin for error – the response can’t come at the expense of delivery.
For contractors, one of the most frustrating aspects of a SOPA claim isn’t just the claim itself. It’s what happens next. Project teams are pulled into document gathering, emails start flying and engineers, commercial managers and project controls teams are diverted away from delivery at critical stages of the program.
SOPA is fast, document-driven and unforgiving. Once a claim is on foot, there’s little opportunity to refine arguments or locate missing material. Outcomes are determined by what can be assembled and presented within a very short timeframe.
And for the lawyers engaged, delayed access to data means time and budget are spent chasing documents and interrupting the delivery team rather than testing and refining the position.
Success therefore often turns less on the underlying merits and more on whether the supporting evidence can be pulled together coherently and quickly – particularly when preparing SOPA responses under strict statutory timeframes.
The key challenges are threefold:
- Disparate data sources: Legislation assumes project records are readily accessible and well organised. In reality, they rarely are, with documents spread across document management systems (e.g. Aconex), email, shared drives and site records.
- Project teams are focused on delivery: Engineers, commercial managers and project controls teams hold valuable knowledge and context, but they’re typically operating under program pressure. Diverting them risks disrupting progress at critical stages.
- Timelines: With many states imposing only a five-business-day period to respond to an adjudication application, every part of this process is against the clock. Responses are shaped as much by what can be found in time as by the underlying merits.
This creates a familiar problem: time is spent finding documents and reconstructing events rather than assessing the claim.
This article looks at how that process typically plays out, and how a more structured, technology-enabled approach (including eDiscovery construction workflows) can shift the focus back to analysing the claim without disrupting delivery.
SOPA Response – Two Different Approaches
While the respondent’s reasons for withholding payment are ordinarily framed through the payment schedule, the adjudication response is often the first point at which those positions must be fully evidenced, tested and presented coherently.
Take a typical scenario: an adjudication application lands late on a Thursday afternoon, just as the team is pushing to hit a key program milestone. The claim is detailed, runs to hundreds of pages and covers a mix of variations, delay and disruption.
What follows is familiar. Now consider how the same scenario plays out under two different approaches.
|
|
TRADITIONAL WORKFLOW |
TECH-FORWARD WORKFLOW |
|
Day 1 - 2 |
The Scramble
The claim is circulated internally and external lawyers are engaged. Requests start going out to the project team: ‘Can you pull all documents relating to this variation?’ ‘Do we have the instruction for this?’ ‘Where are the relevant program updates?’ Time that should be spent progressing works is instead spent searching systems and reconstructing events. Engineers step away from site, procurement pauses and project controls teams are diverted from program updates. |
Structured, Centralised Approach
Legal and project leads define the scope of relevant data by source (e.g. Aconex, emails, shared drive folders), often in an hour or two. Data is extracted centrally, with initial datasets available the following day and the balance within 24 to 48 hours. |
|
Day 3 - 4 |
Documents Trickle In; Gaps Emerge
Material begins coming through, but it’s fragmented: emails without attachments, drawings without context, references to conversations that aren’t recorded. Lawyers begin reviewing what they have, but without a complete picture. As the response starts to take shape, gaps emerge, including missing instructions, unclear approvals and conflicting accounts of events. More requests go back to the project team, often requiring people to stop what they’re doing and revisit issues under pressure, and search again for material that should already be accessible. Key Docs Found; Response Begins
Ingest data into early case assessment (ECA) or insight tools. Use targeted searches and AI-assisted review to surface relevant documents, grouped by issue. Create first draft chronologies in minutes, providing a structured view of how events unfolded. Key themes and connections between documents are quickly identified, allowing the team to understand the shape of the claim early. |
Key Docs Found; Response Begins
Ingest data into early case assessment (ECA) or insight tools. Use targeted searches and AI-assisted review to surface relevant documents, grouped by issue. Create first draft chronologies in minutes, providing a structured view of how events unfolded. Key themes and connections between documents are quickly identified, allowing the team to understand the shape of the claim early. |
|
Day 5 |
Response pulled together under pressure
With the deadline approaching, the focus shifts to getting a compliant response out the door, with limited opportunity to properly assess merits, identify concessions or refine a clear and coherent narrative. The result:
Most importantly, a significant portion of the available time is spent finding documents rather than assessing the claim and crafting the response.
|
Response Refined, Verified and Submitted
The final day is spent sharpening arguments, ensuring consistency and making strategic decisions, including where concessions may be appropriate. The response is prepared within the same timeframe, but the time is used very differently, resulting in:
|
In the first scenario, the project team becomes the system. In the second, the system supports the project team.
What this means in practice
SOPA claims may turn on the merits, but in practice, outcomes are often driven by whether the supporting evidence can be pulled together coherently within the time available.
In a process where the clock is unforgiving, the real question is how that time is used. If it’s spent searching for documents and reconstructing events, SOPA responses become reactive, opportunities to take a considered position are lost, and, critically, project teams are pulled away from delivery at the worst possible time.
Where data is structured and accessible, that same window can be used differently, with the focus on analysing the claim, refining the narrative and making better decisions – without the same level of disruption to the project.
The real value isn’t just efficiency. It’s protecting delivery and keeping project teams focused on progressing the works while a stronger, more defensible response is developed in parallel.
In SOPA, time is fixed. How it’s used is not.
SOPA timelines leave little room for inefficiency. Connect with TransPerfect Legal’s Construction Disputes Practice Group to discuss faster, more defensible response strategies.