jasonh Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 An earlier posting to this discussion asked for "subcontract templates," and the responses indicated that this is a bad idea. However, most federal subcontracts that I receive are not well written. They are confusing, overly long and tend to have glaring errors. For instance, many agencies issuing federal subcontracts don't appear to read the FAR clauses that they flow down. Seemingly they operate under the assumption that "since it's federal, it all flows down." They then produce a subcontract that has their exact list of clauses incorporated by reference. Yet the clauses often provide specific instructions for flow down (i.e. patent rights remain with the government, not the prime contractor; some clauses instruct flow down without a particular paragraph, etc.). As well, unless stated, all of the clauses aren't required to flow down. Because of these frequent errors, when I negotiate a federal subcontract, it is more laborious than writing the subcontract myself. To that end, can anyone refer me to some examples of clean, concise and well crafted federal subcontracts? Not as templates but rather as examples of effective formats and techniques. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outsidelegalguy Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 The ABA Public Contract Law Section has published guides to fixed price supply and services subcontracts. Go to http://www.abanet.org/contract/pubs.html to check them out. Both are somewhat dated and are in the process of being updated, but those updates aren't done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Vern Edwards Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 They are confusing, overly long and tend to have glaring errors. OMG, they are just like prime contracts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
br549 Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 One can find subcontract terms and conditions used by various government prime contractors on their web sites - including how they handle FAR flowdowns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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