Seventh Commandment Of Government Contracting: Thou Shalt Avoid Hostility

(This article is part of a 10-part series for the blog of Public Contracting Institute called, "A Government Contractor's Ten Commandments.")

For someone coming into Government contracting for the first time, one of the most difficult things to understand is the role that protests and disputes play in the Government contracting world. In the commercial sector, the thought of suing a customer or a prospective customer is simply absurd; after all, how can you expect to develop or maintain a good business relationship with someone you are litigating against? Isn't the customer always right?

In Government contracting, one quickly learns about a "contract of adhesion," that is, a contract that does not result from two evenly-matched parties negotiating a deal from scratch, but one that is created as a result of a procurement process in which the customer, a Federal agency, dictates the rules of the road from start to finish. Sometimes this customer makes mistakes, and