Sneak Peek: Forward

Stay current on Washington Lien laws with key updates, practical guidance, and insights tailored to legal professionals and real estate and construction industry stakeholders.

The Construction Lien in Washington: A Legal Analysis for the Construction Industry has been updated for 2024 and is available now.  

Foreword  (2015)

For two decades, the standard analytic treatises on construction liens in Washington have been Brian A. Blum’s Mechanics’ and Construction Liens in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, and Michael F. Keyes’ Construction Lien Practice and Procedure Manual for the State of Washington.  Both books continue to repay study, but their latest editions appeared in the mid-1990s.  Since then, statutory changes and significant opinions from the Washington courts have created a need for a new summary of lien law.  Unfortunately, Professor Blum’s academic interests have changed, and Mr. Keyes is no longer alive.  The authors felt that the solid work of Blum and Keyes would provide a good foundation for a new lien treatise that would reflect legal developments since those works appeared.

With Professor Blum’s gracious permission, the authors relied heavily on his work in preparing this book.  The authors also consulted Mr. Keyes’ treatise, Professor Marjorie Dick Rombauer’s outline of lien law in 27 Washington Practice § 4.53 et seq., and the Lien and Bond Claims Handbook prepared by the legal affairs committee of the AGC. Although it relies heavily on these authorities, the current book is new both in organization and in its use of recent case law.

Before presenting this treatise to the public, the authors submitted it for review and comment by three leaders of the construction bar in Washington: John P. Ahlers of Ahlers & Cressman in Seattle, Robert H. Crick of the Robert Crick Law Firm in Spokane, and Kerry C. Lawrence of Schlemlein, Goetz, Fick & Scruggs in Kennewick.  This geographically diverse panel of experts provided very helpful comments, and their participation is gratefully acknowledged.

We are publishing this treatise electronically both to make it widely available and to allow for periodic updates without the confusion of replacement pages or pocket parts.  If any reader finds material errors or omissions in the work, they are welcome to contact the authors, who will make needed corrections.

Construction law is a rewarding field practiced by a large number of good lawyers in the state.  The authors hope that those lawyers will find this treatise helpful in their work.

Foreword (2024)

Evan A. Brown joins Bart Reed and Karl Oles in publishing this 2024 update. Evan has provided valuable assistance in updating the treatise, fixing some typos and adding references to significant lien cases published since the 2015 edition and the 2019 update appeared.