There are over 121,000 licensed architects in the United States - yet only 1 in 4 are women.
A licensure candidate in the United States must pass six divisions of the Architectural Registration Exam to earn their license, which can be notoriously difficult. In 2024, the pass rate for the Project Management division was 60%, and 48% for the Practice Management Division. Despite these daunting numbers, the Practice Management and Project Management divisions are often the starting point for licensure candidates, and rely heavily on an understanding of key AIA contract documents. This is where Michael Hanahan comes in, unofficially.
If you’re studying to become a licensed architect, Michael Hanahan has become somewhat of a household name. As a Construction Law Attorney with a Bachelor of Architecture, Hanahan has been lecturing about Construction and Contract Law since 2012 at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Architecture. With a 35-year legal career and the “gift of gab,” as he calls it, he may be better known as the voice behind the “Schiff Hardin Lectures.”
When I began studying in California, a friend of a friend shared a copy of the Schiff Hardin Lectures with me. Approaching my Practice Management exam, these lengthy lectures had become my most important resources for the AIA B101, Owner Architect Agreement, and A201, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction, along with my well-loved, annotated copies of the contracts. Listening in my car, sometimes the audio would die out when a faraway student asked “is this going to be on the exam?” Thankfully, I was one of the 40% of candidates who passed the Practice Management division that year.
The lectures were originally named for Hanahan’s former position at Schiff Hardin, though he’s now continued his career as a Partner at Perkins Coie LLP. With that said, it may be time for us to consider a rebrand to the “Mike Hanahan Lectures.”
Now studying in Colorado, the Mike Hanahan lectures have accompanied me on my way to work and strolls with my dog, Mac, who has enjoyed longer outings with my marked-up B101. When I reached out to Michael Hanahan for the AWA+D blog, he was enthusiastic about meeting for an interview, and that there is an organization for women in the design field. These lectures have inadvertently become a crucial, accessible resource for licensure candidates, and I was excited for the opportunity to shed light on them.
Michael Hanahan always begins his first lecture of his Professional Practice course with his backstory, and admittedly it was one of the first things I asked him as well. When Hanahan was growing up in Detroit, Michael Brady - the father of the Brady Bunch - was the most famous architect in America. At the age of 7, Hanahan had sketched the world’s tallest building, and knew then that he wanted to be an architect. His mother kept the drawing and gifted it to him when he graduated from the University of Notre Dame with his Bachelor of Architecture. In his teen years, Hanahan was on a fishing trip with his father and his colleagues on Lake Erie. One of his father’s guests was the senior chief designer at General Motors, Larry Yinger, who approached him and asked “what do you want to do when you grow up?” Hanahan had a passion for architecture, but his friends told him he should be a lawyer since he was good at arguing. To this, Yinger responded “Architects need lawyers, too,” and at the age of 13 Michael Hanahan knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.
After earning his B. Arch., Hanahan continued his education at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Later in his career, Hanahan’s office at Schiff Hardin was located in the Sears Tower, which was coincidentally the world’s tallest building at the time. Hanahan let me know that his design was cooler than the Sears Tower, though, because it had rockets and could fly.
Today, the large majority of Michael Hanahan’s clients at Perkins Coie are owners, but his career began in insurance defense working primarily with architects and engineers. Hanahan brings the unique perspective of an education and lifelong passion for architecture that aligned with his career in construction law, and it shines through in his lectures.
The Professional Practice lectures at UIC began in the mid-80’s by a previous partner at Schiff Hardin, Mark Friedlander. Michael Hanahan took over the course in 2012, and Friedlander suggested that he record the lectures and post them online since the class seemed to be poorly attended by architecture students - typical.
Around 2015, Hanahan received a postcard from a newly-licensed architect in Hawaii thanking him for his lecture content. This is the first time that he learned that people outside of UIC were using his lectures as a study tool for the Architect Registration Examination, but assumed this was a rarity. A few years later, he received an invitation from a Lieutenant Colonel to speak to the Army Corp of Engineers. On an active military base, Hanahan stood in front of over 2,000 engineers and high-ranking officials to lecture on the content that he had been teaching to roughly twenty students each semester; this is when he started to put together that his lectures were being used more widely.
Through the Professional Practice lectures, Hanahan makes a point to provide examples from his own career. These case studies include a range of project types and scale, including his work on Chicago’s Navy Pier, power plants, a Haribo factory, and high, high-end residential projects. Surprisingly, Hanahan never pursued architectural licensure - he went straight to law school, since he had already decided so at 13. I asked Hanahan if he’s ever opened an ARE Practice Exam - “never.” And yet, his content seems tailored to the exams, translating contracts into clear language and memorable examples with a cast of gummy bears and courtrooms. Hanahan has been encouraged to monetize his content, to which he responded “the lectures are already out there;” of course, it also helps to have recently-licensed architects know your name. He has been approached by Amber Books and Black Spectacles for his expertise, and is lauded as the authority on AIA Contracts by Hyperfine.
For those like myself who are too junior to know better or to deal with the paperwork, Hanahan explains that around 70% of construction projects in the United States are based on the AIA contracts, or “the back of it.” These contracts date back to 1888, and the AIA updates them every ten years with input from professionals and lessons learned. Hanahan predicts that the 2027 AIA contracts may begin to address artificial intelligence, but with baby steps. To put this into perspective, he explains that sustainability was first introduced in the 1987 AIA contract documents as a mention of “green,” whereas the actual term “sustainability” wasn’t included until 2007. Today, the B101 incorporates a separate Sustainable Projects Exhibit entirely, the E204. While the introduction of sustainability wasn’t necessarily informing the design process, artificial intelligence may be heading in a different direction.
Hanahan describes a design and construction landscape introducing AI as the “wild west.” In a design field in the nascent stages of incorporating AI, how does this affect an architect’s Standard of Care, or fault? Hanahan gives an example of AI "hallucinations" in the legal profession, where there have been examples of lawyers who have submitted arguments citing precedent cases that don’t exist, with details completely fabricated by AI. In this situation, the lawyer is fined, their client loses the case, and they have committed malpractice. In the design realm, Hanahan elaborates:
“AI is – as we all know – new in the field to everyone. And, to date I have not had any cases where AI is a legal issue, nor have the agreements I am drafting yet require additional language, but it is coming – both for claims and transactional work.
On the architectural side, I imagine the risks are as great or even greater. If AI is used in the design process for engineering solutions, what happens when there is a failure of the design? If a structural support fails, or if the concrete is unable to support the loads, or defective HVAC – what liability is assigned to the designer involved in those solutions? More importantly, what happens if AI is used in the design AND it is used in construction techniques developed by AI? What is the standard of care for an entirely new methodology?
I have argued “state of the art” cases in my career, which creates a different analysis of the standard of care than a tried and true design/construction solution. But, AI takes the concept of “state of the art” to an entirely new level. Especially when the field itself is developing on an exponential basis. Training a live human on how to ask/phrase the right questions to input for an AI solution is one element, determining which AI platform to use is another. Back-checking the solution provided is still yet another.
For none of these issues and hundreds more – I have no answers. Some thoughts and ideas, yes. But certainly no answers.”
In his lectures, Professor Hanahan insists to his students that there are no silly questions. Some of my questions felt silly, but I’ll be sure to send him a postcard when I become a licensed architect - or if I’m being sued.
Special thanks to Michael Hanahan for dedicating time to meet with me, and for providing a deeply valuable resource to licensure candidates through his lecture content. You can access the Mike Hanahan lectures and accompanying presentation slides here.
Looking for more study resources? AWA+D hosts a bi-weekly Licensure Study Accountability Group, which is $5 for non-members, and FREE for members. Members also have access to a library of ARE and design resources at their disposal that they may check out at their convenience. Library titles include ARE 5 Review Manual, Building Codes Illustrated, and The Professional Practice of Landscape Architecture, and more! Reach out to Ashley at Lewis | Schoeplein Architects (ashley@lewisschoeplein.com) for a full list of books and to schedule a library check-out!
Aryana Leland is a designer and licensure candidate based in Denver, Colorado. She studied Architecture + Art History at Cal Poly Pomona, and her current interests are the hobbies she neglected while studying for her Project Management exam (which she just passed).
All opinions are my own.