Hot off the press: Trent Cotney’s new book!

By Emma Peterson.

Trent’s fourth book covers the basics of roofing law, for contractors not lawyers.  

Independently published on December 21, 2024, Roofing Law: Contracts is the product of a year of hard work from Trent Cotney. If you haven’t heard of Trent, he is a leading partner at Adams and Reese, which is one of the largest construction legal practices in the country. This 148-page book was designed to be a quick read for contractors to help roofing professionals work through their everyday legal questions and scenarios.  

Using his decades of experience in the roofing world, Trent uses this book to focus on the challenges of contracts. He writes, “Roofing contractors across the country face a number of difficulties, beginning during contract negotiation and often ending with disputes or warranty claims on projects.” This is an issue he has seen firsthand as he has spoken to contractors across the country about insurance premiums, state/federal regulations and labor shortages.  

This book aims to help contractors resolve some of their common friction points with tips for negotiating and understanding contracts for roofing products. Trent explained, “Getting payment from customers has always been an issue, but the need for contracts and written documents was not as important [20 years ago] as it is today. I always say that roofers’ policies, procedures and contracts are like wills; they don’t want to look at them until it’s too late.”

The book also includes over 60 contract provisions that can be used as examples. This is just one way that Trent has worked to make this book accessible for the folks out in the field every day. He explained, “Most law books require a tremendous amount of patience and easy access to an online dictionary... My goal [with this book] was not to bore readers with citations to case law (although there are a few) — the book is written for contractors, not lawyers.”

The books is available in both hardcover and Kindle formats on Amazon! Make sure to grab a copy today and brush up on your roofing contract knowledge.