Stop 7 of 9 · Daily
Correspondence
Notice letters, responses to rejections and the RFI that closes a hole, written to preserve rights without giving the other side a reason to dig in.
Three letters, one shape
Karim writes the same three letters most weeks. Each has a fixed shape, and a draft either follows it or is not a letter yet. The shape is not style. It is the set of things that have to be on the page for the letter to do its job on a contract with a notice clock running.
| Letter | The shape |
|---|---|
| Notice | The clause invoked, the event and date, what is affected, that impact is being evaluated, the reservation |
| Response to a rejection | Each stated reason answered in their order with a reference, then the reservation |
| Request for information | The document and detail in question, why the answer is needed, the date it is needed by, the effect of not having it stated as a fact |
Tone is a function of who reads it
The resident engineer sees the letter first and is the person who will still be on the job in a year. The construction manager is protecting a position. Counsel wants facts and clause references with nothing softened. The subcontractor needs a date and a request, not a lecture. Same facts, four registers, and Claude will produce all four from one set of facts if you say who is reading.
The rule underneath all of them is the same. State what happened, cite what governs it, say what you require and by when, and reserve. Nothing about intent, nothing about competence, nothing about what the other side must have known.
[paste the event facts and the date I learned of them] Draft the notice letter for Contract C-1149 to the resident engineer. Use the notice clause from the contract in this Project, cite it by number, and state the deadline it produces and the date of this letter against it. Set out the event, when we learned of it, the activities affected by ID, and that the schedule impact is being evaluated and will follow. End with our reservation sentence. One page. No estimate of days and no statement of responsibility.
[paste the agency's rejection letter] List their stated reasons as numbered points first so I can confirm I read them the same way you did. Then draft our response answering each in their order, using only documents and clauses in this Project, with a reference against every answer. Where a reason is one we cannot answer from the record, say so in the draft and tell me which document would answer it. Keep the tone flat. End with the reservation sentence.
Draft the RFI on the north headwall detail. State the drawing and detail reference, the question in one sentence, what we understand today, and the date we need the answer by, tied to the activity it holds and its early start from the current update. State the schedule consequence as a fact about the activity, not as a claim.