Attorneys
Stephen L. Moses is Senior Litigation Counsel at Bay Legal PC. He has handled construction claims since 1998 — payment disputes, mechanics liens, payment bond claims, bid protests, defect claims, and contractor licensing questions — and he drafts the agreements those disputes come from. He has also served as in-house counsel to a heavy civil and engineering contractor, writing the company’s standard forms and supporting its public-contract bidding.
Attorneys
Construction claims and contracting, on both the transactional and the litigation side. Payment disputes on unfinished or contested work. Mechanics liens and payment bond claims under the Civil Code sections 8000 through 9566 scheme. Defect claims, including matters governed by the Right to Repair Act at Civil Code section 895 and following. Bid protests on public work. And contractor licensing questions under the Contractors State License Law, including the section 7031 payment bar and the home improvement contract requirements at section 7159.
He also drafts and negotiates the agreements those disputes come from — prime contracts, subcontracts, home improvement contracts, change-order procedures, and scope and payment terms. The practical value of that combination is that the lawyer who wrote the agreement is the one who litigates it when it fails.
Stephen has served as in-house counsel to a heavy civil and engineering contractor. In that role he wrote the company’s standard contract forms and supported its public-contract bidding.
That is an unusual credential on a construction bench and it matters for a specific reason. A contractor’s exposure is usually built into documents drafted long before a dispute — the change order procedure, the indemnity clause, the payment schedule, the scope exhibit. Someone who has written those forms from inside a contractor’s business reads them differently from someone who only ever sees them in litigation.
Public work runs on a different track. A mechanics lien generally does not attach to public property, so the remedies are the payment bond and the stop payment notice against undisbursed funds. Civil Code section 9550 requires a direct contractor awarded a public works contract in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars to give a payment bond before commencement, and section 9554 requires it to be not less than one hundred percent of the contract amount.
Bid protests are a separate capability again, and one with very short timelines. Stephen has handled both.
Stephen holds a mediation certificate from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and has mediated litigated construction, technology, and business disputes since 2012.
That experience is relevant to contractors for a practical reason rather than a credentialing one. Many construction contracts require mediation before anyone can file, and on some contracts a party who skips a required mediation step can lose the right to recover attorney fees even after prevailing. Counsel who has sat in the mediator’s chair prepares a case for that session differently.
Juris Doctor, Syracuse University College of Law, 1997, with an International Law Certificate. Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Legislation and Policy, 1996 to 1997.
Bachelor of Arts in international studies, University of Washington, 1994.
Admitted in California, State Bar No. 196030, and in New York. Licence status and any disciplinary history can be checked directly on the State Bar’s public licensee search.
Admitted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Mediation Certificate, Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University, 2012.
He appears in California superior courts including Contra Costa, Alameda, and Santa Clara Counties, and in California federal district court.
Before you ask
Yes. He is a licensee of the State Bar of California, and is also admitted in New York. He is admitted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Ninth Circuit’s counterpart for New York matters, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Licence status can be confirmed on the State Bar’s public licensee search.
Payment disputes, mechanics liens and payment bond claims under Civil Code sections 8000 through 9566, defect claims including Right to Repair Act matters under Civil Code section 895 and following, bid protests on public work, and contractor licensing questions under the Contractors State License Law. He also drafts and negotiates prime contracts, subcontracts, home improvement contracts, and change-order procedures.
Yes. He has served as in-house counsel to a heavy civil and engineering contractor, where he wrote the company’s standard contract forms and supported its public-contract bidding. That is directly relevant because a contractor’s exposure is usually built into documents drafted long before any dispute arises.
Yes, including bid protests and payment bond claims. On public work a mechanics lien generally does not attach, so the remedies are the payment bond required by Civil Code section 9550 on contracts in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars and the stop payment notice against undisbursed funds.
He holds a mediation certificate from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and has mediated litigated construction, technology, and business disputes since 2012. In his Bay Legal work he more often appears as counsel at mediation, including the mediations many construction contracts require before a party can file.
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Payment, liens, bonds
Payment bond claims
Defect claims
Contract drafting
Mediation and forum selection
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Inline first mention: bid protest, payment bond, direct contractor, mediation
If this describes your situation, an attorney affiliated with Bay Legal PC, CA Bar No. 332479, can review it with you.