My colleague Steven Koprince and I will be providing a Government Contracts Legal Update 2021 in cooperation with The University of Texas at San Antonio Institute for Economic Development PTAC. We will provide a comprehensive update on the most important government contracting legal changes of late 2020 and the first months of 2021.
The event will take place on April 13 from 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM (CDT). Be sure to check out the registration link if you are interested!
If you’re setting up your first joint venture under the SBA’s rules, you may be tempted to download the SBA’s template joint venture agreement and use it as-is.
But, as of the date of this post, the SBA’s template joint venture agreement is outdated–and it also has some other quirks and potential problems you should know about. If you’re planning to use the SBA’s joint venture template, read this first.
Continue reading…Hard to believe it, but March has come and gone and now we’re one quarter of the way through 2021! As you try and figure out where the year has gone this weekend, peruse these government contracting updates that reflect on what has occurred and what could happen during the rest of 2021.
Some of the key stories this week included a DOD review of CMMC, the PPP Extension Act, and an extension on for expiring SAM.gov registrations.
Continue reading…Koprince Law LLC, a boutique federal government contracts firm in Lawrence, KS, is pleased to announce that that Nicole Pottroff has now been elevated to partner status with the firm!
Nicole’s legal practice focuses exclusively on representing federal government contractors. Among her many professional accomplishments, Nicole recently co-authored the totally revamped “Koprince Law LLC GovCon Handbook Volume 4: Second Edition – The 8(a) Program.” She is as comfortable with 8(a) narratives as complex subcontracts. And she is a fierce advocate for her clients in thorny contracting situations and protests.
This step is a recognition of the legal excellence, client-focused mindset, and attention to detail that has made Nicole an outstanding counselor in the field of government contracting. Congratulations to Nicole!
Nicole Pottroff can be reached at npottroff@koprince.com.
For companies trying to break into the government market for the first time, past performance can seem a bit like the old chicken-and-egg conundrum. Sometimes it can appear like a company can’t win a government contract without a strong record of past performance–but can’t build a past performance record without contracts! And with the government’s continued movement away from lowest-price, technically acceptable evaluations, past performance seems increasingly important.
But that doesn’t mean the government always has to consider past performance as an evaluation factor. Instead, as a recent GAO bid protest decision confirms, procuring agencies have broad discretion to omit past performance in appropriate cases.
Continue reading…Our hometown Jayhawks basketball team didn’t fare so well in the NCAA tournament. That’s alright; spring is right around the corner. And with it some nice weather across the country. Hope you are able to enjoy the outdoors this weekend.
But before the weekend arrives, this week brought some interesting updates in government contracting, including the details on the regulatory freeze from the Biden administration, IT modernization developments, and preparing for a CMMC assessment.
Continue reading…The ostensible subcontractor rule says that, for a small business or socioeconomic set-aside such as 8(a), the small business prime contractor must perform the primary and vital parts of the contract and can’t be unduly reliant on a subcontractor. If the small business is found to violate the rule, the size of the small prime contractor and the large subcontractor are grouped for size purposes, which can result in loss of award. But the ostensible subcontractor rule is different from SBA’s joint venture rules, because SBA rules (and other federal law) distinguish between a prime-sub team and a joint venture. In a recent decision, OHA reversed a determination that a small business prime was affiliated with a subcontractor where the Area Office mixed up the analysis of the ostensible subcontractor rule and the joint venture rules.
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