Cost "Reimbursement Contracting": Another Look at the Second EditionCost Reimbursement Contracting (Second Edition) by John Cibinic,; Ralph C. Nash,Review by: James F. NaglePublic Contract Law Journal, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Spring 1994), pp. 443-445Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25754143 .

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Book Review Cost Reimbursement Contracting: Another Look at the Second Edition

Reviewed by James F. Nagle*

Cost Reimbursement Contracting (Second Edition)

John Cibinic,Jr. and Ralph C. Nash, Jr. 1993 The George Washington University Government

Contracts Program $90 1245 pages

Reviewing the second edition of one of the classic Nash & Cibinic

texts is like reviewing the most recent edition of Wigmore on Evidence.

How do you review texts which have become the standard by which

all other works in that subject are measured? The only appropriate test is whether the new edition meets the exacting standards for

which the previous texts have been so acclaimed. Definitely this book

does and not a moment too soon. The first edition of Cost Reimburse

ment Contracting sorely needed updating. That 1981 version was pre

Competition in Contracting Act and pre-Federal Acquisition Regu lation. While still useful, it required a great deal of updating. This new version is remarkably current. The preface is dated October

1993, and many of the cases and other references in the text are also

from the year 1993.

Besides being current, a textbook should have four other qualifi cations. It should be: comprehensive, analytical, objective, and for

the truly greats, authoritative.

Comprehensive

The book is as comprehensive as we have come to expect from Nash

& Cibinic. Its 1245 pages cover cost reimbursement contracting from

A to Z. It discusses when cost reimbursement contracts are used, the

various types, how they are negotiated and awarded, the fundamen

tals of cost accounting and allowability of costs (that chapter alone is

over 300 pages), how the contracts are administered, audited and

*James F. Nagle is with the firm of Oles, Morrison & Rinker in Seattle, Wash

ington. This review was edited by Herman D. Levy of Falls Church, Virginia.

443

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Public Contract Law Journal

paid, and finally, the disputes process. For easier research, the book

frequently references the other Nash & Cibinic texts such as those on

formation and administration. As is typical with a Nash & Cibinic

text, the book has undergone a rigorous two-tiered "scrubbing" pro cess before publication. The staff at The George Washington Univer

sity Government Contracts Program painstakingly checked all refer ences and filled all gaps. Simultaneously, earlier drafts of the book were used as the texts at the GWU short course on cost reimburse ment contracting. (I used one draft of the book for a GWU cost reim

bursement course I taught in early 1992). Comments from the stu

dents and teachers from those short courses were incorporated into

this final version to ensure a quality product.

Analytical

A classic textbook must also provide incisive and thought-provoking

analysis. Otherwise, a book of this length might just be a laundry list

of citations for numerous fundamentals. Nash & Cibinic give an anal

ysis of all the topics that really can only come from the perspective of

people who have worked in the process for forty years. As members

of the Public Contract Law Section know, their experience is not sim

ply limited to the classroom. They have consulted, testified in court rooms and before Congress, and served on numerous commissions

involving the procurement process. All that preparation allows them to provide meaningful overviews from a historical and practical view

point for all that they elucidate.

Objective

Clearly, Nash & Cibinic meet that test. Certainly, from their years of involvement at all levels of the process, they have distinct opinions on

innumerable subjects in this field. Any reader of The Nash & Cibinic

Reportknows that they don't hesitate to share their opinions, candidly and even bluntly, with their readers. But it is their own unique opin ion?it may be pro-government on one issue and pro-contractor on

another. It stems solely from what they view as in the overall best interest of the process and the best long-range view of the nation. As an aside, those of you who are used to the blunt comments in The Nash & Cibinic Report will find that their personal views, while still

unquestioningly unbiased, have been toned down considerably in this scholarly volume.

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Book Review: Cost Reimbursement Contracting

Authoritative

John Doe could have written this same book (given many helpers and years of preparation time), but the practical result would not be

the same. Citing John Doe to opposing counsel, to the General

Accounting Office, or to a judge simply does not have the impact that comes from saying

4 4 as Nash & Cibinic state on page 945 of their

text on Cost Reimbursement Contracting, (2d ed.)." In our field, Nash &

Cibinic are the Wigmore, the Corbin, or the Willis ton. Run a LEXIS

search sometime and you will discover that Nash & Cibinic texts have

been cited over 200 times by courts, boards and the GAO.

There are other improvements over the original version, not the

least of which is that the book comes with an index, sorely lacking in

the earlier versions of the Nash & Cibinic texts, and it is available in

both soft- and hard-cover editions.

Accolade

Perhaps the highest praise that I can give this book is that in the sev

eral months that I have had it, besides reading it, I have used it innu

merable times. In fact, I have used it in many cases which have not

involved cost-reimbursement contracts, in addition to many that

have. Many of the sections apply equally well to fixed-price or other

types of contracts. For example, I have used the sections on disputes,

protests, competitive proposals, and source selection. The section on

cost principles has been especially useful in pricing modifications or

in preparing termination settlement proposals of a fixed-price contract.

This book deserves a very prominent place in any public contracts

library.

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