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Not to brag, but I know a lot about Illinois lien law.

(Norm, you just bragged)

(No I didn’t, I’m just stating a fact)

(Yeah, but it sounds like bragging)

(Get over it)

(*sulk*)

Anyway, as I pointed out to one of my other selves … yeah, I need therapy… I know about the lien law. What parts benefit me, which parts don’t. I’ve used it over and over again as leverage to obtain payment from people who sometimes hire poo-poo heads (attorneys) to attempt to pay me less than I have coming or not at all. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve copied sections of the lien law, and sent it to opposing poo-poo head to prove my liens trumped his client’s position.

I’m not an attorney. There weren’t a lot of available classes. So how I learn about it?

I read it.

What a cool concept. Learning by reading? Learning by researching? Educating oneself? Yep, that’s what happened. I’ve read the lien statutes many times, and discussed portions of it at length with my own attorney (who is not a poo-poo head …cuz he’s on my side).

Why did I do this? Well, perhaps for the same reason you’re reading this article (good on you!). In order to do my job well, I need to know everything I can about my business. Am I an expert on Letters of Credit? No. Foreign trade? No. Women? Definitely not (no man is, except maybe that Most Interesting Man in the World from the beer commercials).

But if I were to leave the construction field and work for an international firm, I would research L/C’s, credit insurance, international law. I would expect in a short time to achieve the same competency in that field that I reached in my present field.

So it’s surprising to me when I give construction seminars and I ask dozens of experienced credit managers if they’ve read the lien law, and so far, only one person raised his hand. Ever. And I’ve given a lot of seminars.

And here’s the worst part. I’ve given out copies of the lien law at every single seminar. Then later, when giving another seminar, I’d ask the question again, and still no raised hands, even when some of the same people were in attendance.

I get it though. The lien statutes are not a quick read. There are long, rambling sentences, no dialogue, misspelled words and oftentimes it’s self-contradictory But what do you expect from something written by poo-poo heads?

That was what prompted me to begin writing these articles in the first place, explaining the lien law section by section. It’s why I bring in one or several sections of the lien law to our Electrical Distributors Credit group, pass it around and talk about what it says and what it means.

If you are in an industry credit group, I suggest you do the same. Go to this website: Illinois Compiled Statutes (770 ILCS 60) Mechanics Lien Act

Save it as a bookmark. Make a goal of reading a section each morning while drinking your first cup of coffee. Well, don’t do it on your first cup. Do it during your second, because you’re going to need to be at least slightly caffeinated to make it through it. Or assign it as a learning experience for your entire credit department. Take turns having a person research a section and explain it to the entire department.

If you read a section a day, you’re done in 39 days or less.

The whole lien law is just 13,000 words. That’s about the size of a short story. My shortest book is 50,000 words and my longest is 100,000.

Speaking of which, yes, I’m an author, with six humor/fantasy books, both for adult and for not-yet adult. My social satire gets compared by reviewers to that of Dave Barry and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. After Borders Books went out of business, I’ve moved my books so they are most quickly available on Amazon, and they are all available for Kindle as well.

Anyway, Toodles, and get cracking on the lien law.

Norm
visit me at www.normcowie.com