By the Templateez Team · Licensed Attorney · June 2026

Construction Law Intake Forms: Capturing the Full Picture Before the Dispute Escalates

Construction disputes generate more paper than almost any other area of civil litigation. By the time a client walks into your office, there is a contract (or there should be), a stack of change orders, payment applications, daily logs, RFIs, inspection reports, lien waivers, and possibly correspondence from three different law firms representing three different parties on the same project. If your intake process does not systematically capture the key documents, deadlines, and relationships at the outset, you will spend the first month of representation reconstructing what you should have cataloged on day one.

A general law firm intake form handles conflicts, engagement terms, and basic matter classification. Construction law requires layers of detail on top of that foundation — details that drive strategy, preserve rights, and determine whether your client still has viable claims or defenses at all.

Why construction disputes demand a specialized intake

Most civil disputes involve two parties, one contract, and a relatively straightforward factual narrative. Construction disputes involve multiple tiers of contracting parties, overlapping scopes of work, payment chains where money flows through three or four entities before reaching the party that actually did the work, and statutory deadlines that vary by state and can extinguish an otherwise meritorious claim in 60 days. A personal injury intake asks who hit whom and what the injuries are. A construction intake asks who hired whom, who changed the scope, who failed to pay, who failed to perform, and what deadlines are about to expire.

The document volume alone sets construction apart. A mid-size commercial project generates hundreds of RFIs, dozens of change orders, monthly pay applications, daily field reports, submittal logs, and punch lists. These are not background materials — they are the evidence. A change order that was signed but never priced is a dispute. An RFI that went unanswered for 45 days is a delay claim. A pay application that was submitted on time but not certified within the contractually required period is a prompt payment violation. Your intake needs to identify which of these documents exist and where they are.

Mapping the parties: your client's role determines the case

The first structural question is who your client is in the project hierarchy. An owner who hired a general contractor has different claims and exposure than a subcontractor who was hired by that general contractor to install HVAC systems. Your intake form should identify your client's role — owner, developer, general contractor, subcontractor, sub-subcontractor, material supplier, design professional, or construction manager — and then map the other parties in the chain.

For each party, capture the entity name, the contract that governs the relationship, whether that contract was written or oral, and the party's current posture (are they cooperating, adverse, or somewhere in between). On a typical project dispute, the GC is adverse to the owner on payment but allied with the owner against a subcontractor on defective work. These relationships shift, and your intake should capture the landscape as it exists at the time the client retains you.

If you also handle matters from the contractor's operational perspective, you already know how much project detail gets lost when it is not captured at first contact. The legal intake builds on that same principle but adds the layers that litigation demands. For disputes that do not involve construction-specific statutes but still turn on contract performance and damages, a commercial litigation intake covers the general breach-of-contract and business tort framework.

Contract analysis at intake

You cannot evaluate a construction claim without reading the contract, and you cannot read the contract efficiently without knowing what to look for. Your intake should flag the contract type — fixed-price (lump sum), cost-plus, GMP (guaranteed maximum price), or time-and-materials — because each creates different risk profiles. A fixed-price subcontractor who encounters unforeseen conditions has a different path to recovery than a cost-plus contractor with the same problem.

Three contract provisions matter more than all others at intake. First, the dispute resolution clause: does the contract require mediation, then arbitration, or does it preserve the right to litigate? If there is a mandatory arbitration clause, you need to know before you draft a complaint. Second, notice requirements: most construction contracts require written notice of claims within a specific period — 7 days, 14 days, 21 days — and failure to give timely notice can waive the claim entirely. Has your client given notice? When? In what form? Third, the changes clause: how are change orders supposed to be authorized? Signed written change orders only, or does the contract permit constructive changes based on directives in the field?

Payment disputes and fund tracing

Payment disputes are the most common construction law matter, and your intake needs to capture the payment chain in detail. What has been billed? What has been paid? What is the retainage percentage, and how much retainage is being held? Is the retainage dispute about the amount or about the conditions for release? Does the contract contain a pay-when-paid clause (the GC pays the sub only when the owner pays the GC) or a pay-if-paid clause (the GC's obligation to pay the sub is conditioned on the GC actually receiving payment from the owner)?

The distinction between "when" and "if" is enormous. Pay-when-paid clauses are generally treated as timing mechanisms — the sub will be paid eventually. Pay-if-paid clauses shift the risk of owner nonpayment to the subcontractor, and many jurisdictions refuse to enforce them or require specific conspicuous language. Your intake needs to flag which version the contract uses so you can advise your client immediately on the strength of their payment claim.

If your client is owed money on a public project, the prompt payment act (federal or state) may impose mandatory interest penalties on late payments. Capture the payment application dates, the dates payment was due under the contract, and the dates payment was actually received. The delta between "due" and "received" determines whether statutory interest applies.

Mechanic's lien preservation: the deadline that kills claims

This is the single most time-sensitive issue in construction law intake. Mechanic's lien rights expire on a hard statutory deadline measured from the last date of furnishing labor or materials to the project. That deadline varies dramatically by state — 60 days in some jurisdictions, 90 days in others, 120 days in a few. Miss it by one day and the lien right is gone. There is no equitable tolling, no excusable neglect, no extension.

Your intake form must capture: the state where the project is located, the date your client last performed work or delivered materials, whether a preliminary notice was filed (required in many states as a prerequisite to lien rights), and whether a lien has already been filed. If the client calls you on day 55 of a 60-day lien period, that lien filing is your most urgent task — more urgent than the fee agreement, more urgent than the conflict check, more urgent than anything else on your desk that day. An intake form that buries the lien deadline question on page three is an intake form that will cost someone their lien rights.

Defective work and right-to-cure statutes

When the dispute involves allegedly defective construction, your intake needs to capture the nature of the defect, when it was discovered, when notice was given to the responsible party, and whether the responsible party has had an opportunity to inspect and cure. Most states have enacted right-to-cure or notice-of-claim statutes that require the owner to give the contractor written notice and an opportunity to inspect and offer to repair before filing suit. Filing a construction defect lawsuit without complying with these pre-suit requirements can result in dismissal or abatement.

Your intake should also document whether the defect is latent (hidden, discovered after completion) or patent (visible during construction), because statutes of limitation and repose treat them differently. A roof that leaks two years after completion due to improper flashing installation is a latent defect with a discovery-date trigger. A wall that was visibly out of plumb during framing and never corrected is a patent defect with an earlier accrual date.

Delay claims and schedule analysis

Delay claims require a different set of intake facts than payment or defect claims. You need to know: the original contract completion date, whether the project is still in progress or has been completed, what the current schedule status is, and who or what caused the delay. Construction delay analysis is built around the concept of the critical path — the longest sequence of dependent activities that determines the project's completion date. A delay to a critical-path activity pushes the completion date. A delay to a non-critical activity may not.

Your intake should capture whether the contract includes a liquidated damages provision (a per-day charge for late completion), whether force majeure events occurred (weather, pandemics, material shortages), and whether the owner or design team caused delays through late decisions, design changes, or failure to provide access. Each of these is a potential defense to a liquidated damages claim or an affirmative claim for additional time and compensation.

Bond claims: Miller Act and Little Miller Act

If the project is a public works project — federal, state, or municipal — mechanic's liens are unavailable because you cannot lien government property. Instead, the payment bond substitutes for lien rights. On federal projects, the Miller Act requires prime contractors to furnish payment and performance bonds. State equivalents (Little Miller Acts) impose similar requirements on state and local public projects.

Bond claim deadlines are strict and differ from lien deadlines. Under the federal Miller Act, a subcontractor or supplier who does not have a direct contract with the prime contractor must give written notice to the prime within 90 days of last furnishing labor or materials, and must file suit within one year. State deadlines vary. Your intake should identify whether the project is public or private, whether a payment bond exists, who the surety is, and whether your client has already given the required notice.

Insurance coverage mapping

Construction disputes involve multiple insurance policies, and your intake should identify all potentially applicable coverage. Commercial general liability (CGL) policies may cover third-party property damage and bodily injury claims arising from construction operations. Builder's risk policies cover damage to the work itself during construction. Professional liability policies cover design errors by architects and engineers. Contractor's pollution liability policies cover environmental claims — and if the dispute involves contamination, remediation obligations, or CERCLA liability, the intake needs to expand significantly (see our environmental law intake guide).

At intake, determine whether your client has tendered the claim to its insurer, whether a reservation of rights letter has been issued, and whether additional insured status is in play. On many projects, subcontractors are required to name the GC and owner as additional insureds on their CGL policies — meaning your client may have coverage under someone else's policy that they do not know about.

The document intake checklist

Your intake form should include a checklist of documents to request from the client, because construction clients rarely know which documents matter. At minimum: the prime contract and all subcontracts in the chain above and below your client, all executed change orders, all pending or disputed change orders, all payment applications (submitted and received), all lien waivers (conditional and unconditional), daily field reports for the relevant period, the project schedule (baseline and current updates), all RFIs and responses, inspection reports, correspondence with adverse parties, any notice letters already sent or received, and the bond (if the project is bonded).

Clients who are general contractors will usually have most of these organized. Clients who are subcontractors often have the documents scattered across email, a truck console, and a shoebox. Either way, your intake form should tell the client exactly what you need — not "bring your documents," but a specific enumerated list.

For practices that handle construction alongside other legal matters, the Legal Bundle includes construction law forms alongside 37 other practice-area sets, each built for the specific intake requirements of that area.