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EDUCATION SESSIONS
A meeting badge is required to enter the education sessions. Electronic tracking of session attendance is available to attendees.

Saturday, November 1
3:30pm-5:00pm

D5a
Making the Transition to Running Your Own Firm
Intermediate
Track: Your Tool Box

Starting your own firm is a challenge; structuring it to survive is a formidable task. Landscape architects contemplating crafting their own professional practices—as well as those who have created their firms recently—need to know the practical, professional, ethical, legal, and insurance issues that a new firm faces. This session examines the issues involved in getting started—including advantages and disadvantages, planning and financial considerations, legal form and insurance considerations, and client relations and professional service agreement negotiation—and in staying solvent.

The session will discuss the business, legal, and insurance context of practice as well as the considerations of professional integrity and client satisfaction and the resources available for the young practitioner and newly created firm available from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the AIA Trust. This highly interactive session provides the expertise of its speakers and valuable handout material to assist landscape architects in getting started and continuing their own practices. For more information regarding this session, please contact frank.d.musica@schinnerer.com.

Learning Outcomes:
1. Recognize and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of independent practice.
2. Analyze those concerns that should be addressed creating a professional practice.
3. Identify the keys to client relations and ethical practice.

Charles R. Heuer, FAIA, Esq, is an architect and an attorney as well as a nationally recognized expert on business and professional issues of practice. Heuer is the developer and president of LegaLine, the AIA Trust’s prepaid legal information service and advisory program. He was formerly staff director of the AIA Documents Program and was in-house counsel at The Architects Collaborative, Inc. He is the author of Means Legal Reference for Design and Construction, has authored chapters of The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice dealing with design and construction contracts, and has written the commentaries on the 1987 editions of the major AIA documents. As principal of The Heuer Law Group, he represents approximately 175 design professional firms. Frank D. Musica, Esq, is a risk management specialist with Victor O. Schinnerer & Company, Inc. He has more than 25 years’ experience in the management of design firms and has lectured extensively on behalf of design professional organizations. Since 1990, he has served as a risk management attorney providing practice management and educational information to landscape architects and other professional service firms.