Being Aware of Legal Pitfalls is the First Step Toward Protecting Your Design Firm: It’s Good Business | 591 | Andrew McBride and Carter Pope of Adams & Reese

Convo By Design®

I imagine you and I are similar in many ways. When creating my editorial calendar, I try to craft a broader narrative of the design and architecture industry. I view this show as a time capsule being both created and consumed in real time. But if you go back and listen to episodes from 2013 when this podcast was started until now, you will discover an illustrative exposition that both narrates in real time and looking forward to demonstrate where the industry is going by examining where we are. It’s a futuristic approach to the built environment. To be transparent with you, that is the part I enjoy most. Every now and then, like the impact of a meteor, something happens to make us all think about the industry as we know it. As we approach the work. These days, it feels like we are experiencing an unending barrage of meteor strikes which is turning our industry upside down. And, believe it or not, I’m not even talking about tariffs, government chaos, wildfires or the supply chain!

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Pacific Sales Kitchen and Home. Where excellence meets expertise.

Design Hardware – A stunning and vast collection of jewelry for the home!

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TimberTech – Real wood beauty without the upkeep

We will be reviewing all of these, but not today. In 2018, you might have heard a conversation I published from the LA Design Festival on the topic of intellectual property rights, IP law and how it was affecting the industry. In the following episode, I will be introducing you to Andrew McBride, Partner @ Adams & Reese and Carter Pope, Associate @ Adams & Reese. I found Andrew and Carter while on a journey of exploration, there is a case moving it’s way through the legal system called Aaron and Samantha Judge v. Drew Designs, LLC. This is a case about a design relationship gone wrong rife with communication issues, contract issues and a litany of other things that make for a messy professional relationship that winds up in the courts. McBride and Pope authored an article called, “Hidden Ball Trick” – Yankees’ Aaron Judge Case Involving Deception Carries Lessons for Contractors. I’ve added a link in the show notes and I highly recommend this for contractors, architects and designers. The following conversation covers a number of issues that led to both parties winding up in court and as you are going to hear, much if not all of this could have been avoided. In addition to this case, we also explore, the Judd Foundation v. Clements Design, Inc. in a case that will surely affect the future of dupes as well as another case winding it’s way through the courts like a medieval knight moving through the digestive tract of a money guzzling dragon, Gifford v. Sheil. Perhaps the metaphor is too graphic, I’ll rethink that one. But it fits. The law is a complicated knot of ideas and it seems to me the best way to avoid legal entanglements is to do good business in the first place and when disagreements come up, and they will, you work hard to find common ground and squash it. And this is why. You will hear the whole conversation with Andrew McBride and Carter Pope of Adams & Reese, right after this.

Thank you, Andrew and Carter. Enlightening. Thank you to my incredible partner sponsors, TimberTech, Pacific Sales, and Design Hardware. Amazing companies and great friends to the trade so please give them an opportunity for your next project. Thank you for listening, subscribing to the show and sharing with your colleagues. If not already subscribing, please consider that so you receive every new episode automatically to your podcast feed.

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Until next week, thank you for sharing this time together, until the next episode, be well, stay focused and now that it has arrived in earnest, try to rise above the chaos. – CXD