When it rains and the kids cannot go out to play, our house can get a little chaotic.  A few weeks ago, I lost my cool. One was screaming at the top of his lungs and chasing three other kids with a light-saber.  I yelled: "Time out! Everyone!"  They stopped dead in their tracks.

This kind of "time out" is occurring more and more frequently in the construction industry.  It is called the automatic stay and it can affect the entire construction project when one of the parties files for bankruptcy protection.

Sometime, parties attempt to get around the automatic stay of bankruptcy by including a waiver provision in their contracts, Matt DeVries of Best Practices Construction Law writes.

So can you – if not your kids – write your way out of a time out before it's called. That is not clear one way or the other. Courts have treated pre-petition waivers differently and inconsistently throughout the country.