Overview

This book breaks the complex arena of government contract law into its three most basic parts: 

1.  Part I: The parties to a government contract—for example, a business with a government contract and a government contracting officer/contract specialist;

2.  Part II: The government contract itself—the different forms a government contract can take, the way its terms are different from commercial contracts and how ambiguous contract terms are interpreted; and

3.  Part III: The lawsuits the two parties get into over the government contract—protests and claims—and how these lawsuits are simi- lar to lawsuits in which you and I might get involved as well as how they are different from these types of lawsuits.

Part I discusses the legal roles of the contracting officer and the gov- ernment contractor. Chapters 1–4 deal with a contracting officer’s four roles: (1) being a judge, (2) being a watchdog or sheriff, (3) being sued and therefore being a defendant in a lawsuit over an action the contracting officer did or did not take, and (4) being a plaintiff in a whistleblowing lawsuit.
 
Part II turns the book’s focus to the other party on a government contract: the government contractor. Chapter 5 discusses the most important and perhaps difficult part of a contractor’s work: ensuring that any commitments from the government’s side come from the government employee with the appropriate authority. This is usually the contracting officer, but there are exceptions. Chapter 5 also discusses ways the contractor might commit fraud against the government. Chapter 6 deals next with trying to understand the almost-inexhaustible variety of legal agreements the government uses to buy the goods and services it needs—agreements, concession contracts, procurement contracts, task and delivery orders, and blanket purchase agreements, to name a few. Chapter 7 considers two sticky problems: (1) the difficulty in writing a contract that is perfectly clear and (2) the guidelines for interpreting an ambiguous contract. Chapter 8 reviews the way in which government contracts are distinctly different from business-to-business (B2B) contracts.

Part III reviews lawsuits over government contracts. Chapter 9 sets the stage by describing the typical lawsuit—one between neighbors, one between businesses, or one between a government contractor and the government.  Chapter 10 discusses  the  government-contract  lawsuit called a protest. This involves a lawsuit brought by a vendor against the government agency that denied the vendor a winning contract. Chapter 11 explains the other type of government-contract lawsuit: typically, a “claim” involving a vendor who is suing the government, usually for more money during performance of the government contract. Chapter 12 examines the availability of attorneys’ fees after contractors successfully sue the government.