Neumann Sloat Arnold Architects LLP

My experience of Neumann Sloat was very mixed. We hired them to draft architectural plans to fix a leaky building, and they also said they would provide contract administration to make sure the general contractor fixed the building properly and properly implemented the plans they drew.
Neumann Sloat was quite helpful in identifying the problem (s) and helped to guide us through the contractor selection process.
But after the building started, the previously helpful and proactive Neumann Sloat was nowhere to be found. In my opinion, they simply stopped being proactive. To be fair, Neumann Sloat arrived to all meetings in a timely manner and was responsive to all emails.
However, they also became aware of multiple problems with our contractor that they failed to tell us about. We had no way of knowing about these problems and Neumann Sloat simply didn’t clue us in until we launched our own queries. These problems led to our project extending far beyond the scheduled timeframe, as well as a cascade of additional complications, not least of which was an almost doubling of Neumann Sloat’s administration fees.
When asked on multiple occasions why they failed to tell us about problems, Neumann Sloat’s response was usually to indicate that it wasn’t their responsibility.
For me, the refrain of, «that’s not my job» got very old very fast. This would have been a much easier pill to swallow had Neumann Sloat not left us with the impression that they would be there to guide and assist us. In my opinion, this turned out to be only partially true, because while they initially appeared to us to be helpful guides, they later appeared to me to be more concerned with the opposite.
In my opinion, the mark of a true professional is in extending one’s professionalism and looking out for clients’ interests. There are ways to do this that do not involve confrontation or the unproductive pointing of fingers. True professionals do these things diplomatically, proactively, and to the betterment of the projects that they lead. In my opinion, Neumann Sloat did none of these once the project was underway and when we needed them most.
If I had known these things in advance we may not have chosen these architects. I believe they turned out to not be the best match for our needs.
Having said all of this, if all we needed were some investigative work and architectural plans, then I suspect our experience would have been different because we would have expected much less.