To the ACEC Community: What sets ACEC apart from other groups in the built environment is our primary mission to advocate on behalf of America’s engineering and design industry. We are the business voice of engineering and as that voice, our job is to empower our member firms with unique tools and resources to protect and grow their businesses. In this week’s letter, I want to bring two new resources to your attention that are now available to help our Member Organizations and our member firms educate policymakers and clients about two critically important aspects of professional service contracts – indemnification and the duty to defend. During our regular meetings with M.O. executives and in regional reports from our Executive Committee, these two aspects of contract law always top the list of state issues that pose a threat to our industry. In response, the Council turned to its Minuteman Fund, ACEC’s legal and legislative war chest for state advocacy issues to fund the production of two new informational videos on indemnification and duty to defend which are now available on our YouTube channel and have been delivered to each of our 51 Member Organizations. I encourage you to use these videos to educate your state legislators and your clients on the dangers that broad-form indemnification and duty to defend contract provisions pose to engineering contracts. Along with the videos, we have two useful infographics on these issues that can be accessed through your M.O. executive. You can watch both videos below:
The response we have received so far on these two videos has been extremely positive. This success is a testament to the power of the Minuteman Fund to address legal and legislative issues at the state level. I want to thank everyone involved in expediting the grant request that funded these videos and recognize the close coordination between NAECE and the Executive Committee that enabled the Council to move from concept to delivery quickly and in time to meet state legislative schedules. I also want to thank the many individuals, including national and M.O. leaders, members, attorneys, and insurance experts who helped to produce the videos themselves.