Module · Experience requirements
Experience requirements as a barrier
A disparity study examines the barriers that keep capable firms out of public work. One of the most documented is the firm-experience requirement: a gate that scores firms on accumulated prior-study counts and can lock out qualified teams. This module sets out what it measures, the federal and disparity-study precedent for crediting the experience of a firm's people, and a scan of how often procurements actually allow it. Frederick has a live precedent of its own. When the City advertised the 2021 study, five firms responded, and the one Maryland-based respondent was eliminated for lacking disparity-study experience. The City applied its criteria as written; the question worth asking is what the criteria measure. As the City's forthcoming RFP (draft under review) takes shape, the principle here is simple: evaluate the named team's record, not the letterhead.
What a firm-experience requirement actually measures
A firm-experience requirement screens on a track record that accumulates through relationships, referrals, and the access to win a first contract. Economists call that social capital, and it is distinct from the human capital, the talent, that performs the work. Glenn Loury's distinction in The Anatomy of Racial Inequality is the frame: discrimination in contract, the formal denial of opportunity, is largely unlawful and largely addressed; discrimination in contact, the informal networks that decide who gets the first chance, is the durable barrier. A no-substitute firm-experience rule imports that contact barrier into the procurement itself. The City of Frederick has already lived one version of this choice: when it advertised the 2021 study, five firms responded, and the one Maryland-based respondent was eliminated for lacking disparity-study experience. The City applied its criteria as written, and nothing here questions that application. The question this module raises is what the criteria measure. As the City finalizes its forthcoming RFP (draft under review), it can hold the same bar while evaluating the named team's record rather than the letterhead.
The formal, codified denial of opportunity in market transactions. Civil-rights law now reaches most of it.
The informal, legal networks that decide who is introduced, mentored, and given the first chance to build a record.
Glenn Loury, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (2002).
The precedent
Crediting personnel experience is established practice
The idea that an individual's experience, including experience earned at other firms, should count toward a firm's qualification is not novel. In two areas of federal law it is already binding, and the disparity-study field recommends it directly.
When a small-business joint venture bids, the agency must consider the experience held individually by each partner and may not require the small member to meet the full corporate-experience bar alone. GAO enforced this in AttainX, Inc. (B-421216, 2023).
SourceA small firm lacking its own prime record may use the past performance it earned as a joint-venture member or first-tier subcontractor, and the contracting officer must consider it. Congress and SBA adopted the premise that capable firms are blocked for lack of a prime track record.
SourceEvaluations should take into account the experience of key personnel and predecessor firms, and a firm with no past-performance record may not be rated unfavorably for lacking one (the neutral rating).
SourceWhere a solicitation evaluates the offeror's experience and does not prohibit it, the agency may credit the experience of proposed individual personnel, because such experience predicts future performance.
SourceThe author of the national-standard methodology recommends reviewing experience requirements to reduce them to the lowest level necessary, including by recognizing work performed for other governments and private-sector clients. Courts treat firm experience as an outcome of discrimination, not neutral merit (Concrete Works v. Denver, 321 F.3d 950, 983).
SourceThe federal DBE rule lists race-neutral means agencies must use, and courts reciting the menu name excessive experience requirements alongside bonding and restrictive specifications as canonical barriers to remove.
SourceA working model clause
New York City Department of Design and ConstructionConstruction prequalification (PQL)
“In the event the Applicant is an entity which was formed within the last consecutive five years, the DDC may, in determining compliance with the special experience requirements, consider prior projects completed by the principal(s) of the firm while such principals were affiliated with another entity.”
The clause carries ownership-percentage conditions (a controlling principal must hold a 51% interest), the integrity safeguard that lets a new firm credit its people's outside experience without letting a shell firm rent a resume.
How often procurements allow it
Hand-classified sample of 21 solicitations, by whether personnel experience may satisfy firm experience
Source: Federal Acquisition Regulation; U.S. Small Business Administration (13 C.F.R. parts 124, 125); U.S. Government Accountability Office bid-protest decisions; King County Disparity Study 2024 (Colette Holt & Associates); NYC DDC prequalification; 49 C.F.R. part 26. Hand-classified sample of peer-jurisdiction solicitations compiled June 2026; the scan predates and is independent of the Frederick pursuit.
Why it belongs in this study
The federal DBE rule and the leading disparity-study methodology both name excessive experience requirements as a barrier addressable by race-neutral means. Measuring that barrier, and recommending a proportionate fix, is core disparity-study work, not an aside. We first fielded this argument in our July 2026 Fairfax County proposal; it applies with equal force to the City of Frederick's forthcoming RFP, and to the 2020 screening precedent in the City's own procurement history.