I often get notifications about upcoming mechanics lien law seminars and education opportunities. Here’s one in Massachusetts, and another in Ohio. These seminars probably occur everyday in some part of the United States, and they all promise to teach your company everything it needs to know about liens to protect its right to payment.
Except I believe that’s absolutely impossible 
.
Some time ago, I met with a potential client about having Zlien manage their preliminary notice work. The client ushered me out of the door because “they do it themselves,” and had just sent their controller to a mechanics lien seminar to learn everything there was to know about mechanics liens. Except, as it turned out, the lien seminar only taught them how to handle private projects in one state. Whenever they crossed a state’s lines, or did work on a state, county or federal project…they were clueless.
Not to mention the man hours they spent chasing preliminary notice mailings, trying to organize mail returns, and the like. And, of course, pinning all of their preliminary notice compliance on this one employee’s knowledge.
It’s not surprising that I recently got a phone call from this same client who informed me that the preliminary notice compliance management in-house was a mess, the controller who went to the seminar was no longer with the company, and they resigned themselves to needing outside help.
Mechanics lien seminars and education opportunities are fantastic to provide you with background information and general knowledge about liens and bond claims. However, you can’t expect to master the laws with a single (or multiple) seminars. The landscape is really complex, and even if you do master the laws, the volume of data that needs to be tracked requires you to get software or a service anyway. So, you might as well start there.
Bottom line: Mechanics lien seminars are great, but don’t think they are going to fix your receivable problems.
