CASE #4

You are a project manager at Abbott Architect employed by a general contractor and find yourself working with two different and difficult architectural project managers from the same firm on different projects. Abbott Architect has a very good relationship with the architectural firm. Your Team Lead has told you to "deal with it" and not to damage Abbott Architect's reputation, and at the same time make a fair profit. Assuming that you cannot change these professionals' personalities and you have three months to go to finish each project.

• Architect A is young and has a very strong personality. They develop and distribute their own copies of meeting notes. They publish their own RFI, submittal, and change order proposal logs. They refuse to address your logs or notes in the meetings. Their records consistently slant in their favor with respect to content, responsibility, and dates. They chair any meeting they attend and demand that they sit at the head of the table. Change order proposals that you originate do not show up on their logs. They authored your contract, and your AIA change orders. Many of your "issues" continue to be sidestepped.
• Architect B is pleasant to be around and very experienced but appears at times to be afraid to step-up and avoids confrontation. They appear to be tired and overworked. They do not take any notes during meetings and continues to show up unprepared, forgetting their copies to important documents. They leave meetings early for "prior commitments." They lose RFIs, submittals, and pay requests. They do not recall verbal or phone conversations and does not acknowledge receipt of emails.

Questions:

(NOTE: Explain Your Answers in Detail.

Think Outside the box i.e. subsequent damages, countersuits)Use legal terminology and case law citations as much as possible. Please provide example of a connection to textbook case with citation

• How do you deal with Architect A?
• How do you deal with Architect B?
• Do you have legal justifications or a contract to support your actions?