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Attorney Roger Lenneberg believes the construction industry is suffering from a malady that could easily be cured.

The problem, the Jordan Ramis shareholder says, is that the industry isn’t currently graced with a culture or the skills set to stop and handle disputes and disagreements when they arise. As a result, conflicts on a project may fester or continue to grow until they become unwieldy or threaten to stop work cold.

鈥淪mall problems turn big, and big problems are delayed, which ultimately hurts everybody,鈥� Lenneberg said.

He isn’t just advocating for companies in the building industry to turn to mediation and other alternatives to solve disputes that arise on projects. He’s on a mission to take the idea of dispute resolution one step further.

More and more companies in the building industry are including mediation and arbitration clauses for handling large disputes being included in project contracts. But Lenneberg thinks those clauses might not need to be called into action if companies would include in contracts a requirement that conflicts be address as soon as they arise.

鈥淧rovisions that require arbitration and mediation for claims and disputes, you see that in contracts,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut none force it to the forefront. None make it a continuous resolution process.

鈥淚 believe the answer is to take a progressive approach to dispute resolution, building in a mechanism where those disputes have to get resolved as you go along.鈥�

Lenneberg already has created one such mechanism. He started a website called Best Offer Arbitration, where parties involved in a dispute could each submit what they considered a fair resolution. An arbitrator provided through the site would then pick one of the resolutions. The entire process took a maximum of 45 days and cost each party involved $750.

Even if a project had several disputes that needed to be resolved, the cost of using Best Offer’s services would be far less than becoming tangled in an overblown lawsuit down the road, Lenneberg said. There was just one problem with the site.

鈥淲e couldn’t get anyone to use it,鈥� Lenneberg said.

He’s not giving up on the idea that site like Best Offer might someday become a tool that the construction industry taps into, though. He sees the industry’s current approach to conflicts on projects as being similar to the industry’s view of safety more than two decades ago.

鈥淭wenty five years ago, safety was not an issue that companies dealt with; it was a plague that did not get addressed,鈥� Lenneberg said. 鈥淭hen there was a shift. People realized safety impacts everything, and now that’s an accepted part of the culture.

鈥淐onflict and bad dispute resolution practices are the plague of the industry now.鈥�

Lenneberg first began doing mediation back in the 1990s as part of a pilot program that was being tested in Multnomah County’s small claims court. He not only found the approach to be interesting, he saw a real value in mediation as a way to avoid the complications and costs of lawsuits and courtrooms.

In addition to earning a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School, he studied at Pepperdine University’s Strause Institute for Dispute Resolution. He spent time as an in-house counsel for a specialty contractor before joining Jordan Ramis, and also spent five years as a mediator and arbitrator.

鈥淥ver the course of the years, after watching people spend a lot of money with very little to show,鈥� Lenneberg said, 鈥淚 became more and more convinced there was a better way and it involved the notion that if we can’t agree, then we have a third party tell us what to do.鈥�

He’s come to learn that when it comes to finding solutions for disputes, one size doesn’t fit all. Instead, he strives to develop a unique approach for each situation.

鈥淥ne of the benefits we hear about alternative dispute resolution (is that) you can build it any way you want,鈥� Lenneberg said. 鈥淚t opens up a whole world and a whole conversation.鈥�

The hardest part of that conversation for the construction industry, though, is getting it started.

鈥淭he future of alternative dispute resolution (in construction) is in the same mode as safety was,鈥� Lenneberg said. 鈥淲e had to educate (about safety), create awareness and provide new tools. That’s exactly what we’re faced with now with alternative dispute resolution.鈥�