Sarah Carson combines passion for justice
with logical approach to construction law
Staff writer
North Carolina Construction News
special feature
Appreciating the logical,
black and white nature of
construction law and hav-
ing a passionate desire to
see justice done may seem
like two opposing views,
but for Sarah Carson,
they’re a natural fit.

Holding the title of of-
counsel with Smith, Currie
& Hancock LLP—a firm that only
does construction law work—Car-
son has handled cases worth mil-
lions of dollars (including one where
she represented a contractor in ar-
bitration with the owner concerning
a $15 million roofing installation
contract and one where she negoti-
ated contracts and litigated actions
on behalf of owner regarding a
mixed-use apartment community
valued at $81 million), but the size
of the case doesn’t matter to her.

The facts of the case do.

“In terms of righting wrongs, I’ll
help somebody with a
$25,000 claim. Nobody
should be taken advan-
tage of regarding the
amount of the claim.

That’s the reason why I
became a lawyer: to
right those wrongs re-
gardless of the amount
at issue. If you negoti-
ated for a certain result and sud-
denly a subcontractor disappears,
it’s not fair for anyone regardless of
the size of the company to have to
absorb those costs,” says Carson.

That drive to right wrongs has
been with Carson throughout her
career. While working at her first
firm after law school, she says she
encountered a lot of situations
where people tried to take advan-
10 — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019 — The North Carolina Construction News
tage of government contracting
rules. “Too often, private contractors
try to take advantage of the federal
government or of state govern-
ments by lying about the amount of
women-owned small businesses so
they can get a contract. I can’t tell
you the number of ‘women-owned
small businesses,’ where the
woman is just on paper. It’s some-
one’s wife who has absolutely noth-
ing to do with it. And those
businesses are taking away oppor-
tunities from another company or
contractor that truly is qualified.

And that was frustrating and
brought out in me the need to fight
and right the wrongs that so often
happen in government contracts
and in private contracts.”
Carson says that construction
law offers all parties involved the
benefit of being clear cut with de-
fined goals.