Construction
Contentious construction work involves the resolution of disputes by way of litigation, mediation, adjudication or arbitration. Non-contentious work involves drafting and negotiating contracts and advising on projects, insurance, health and safety, environmental matters and insolvency. Clients range from industry associations, insurers, contractors, architects, engineers, public authorities and government bodies to major companies and partnerships. When her first set didn’t take her on as a tenant after pupillage, Katie Lee took the route of many junior barristers and moved across to a new chambers to do a third six. This time, tenancy followed and she set about developing her practice. Within a couple of years, she was headhunted by Hardwicke, a leading London set specialising in construction and commercial work, as well as related fields such as insurance and property law. Today Katie is growing in seniority and her practice consists of around 80% construction law and 20% general commercial work. “In construction, the nature of your practice depends on your level of seniority, as well as the chambers you are at,” she explains. “When I was starting out at my first chambers, a large proportion of my work was in teams led by senior barristers on large international arbitrations and domestic cases. At my next chambers, I did a lot of my own small cases, which was good because I was able to make my own early successes – and mistakes. You develop an understanding of the courts, the judges and how it all works, and gain experience of cross-examination much earlier than you would by working on larger cases as a junior. I was a bit more senior by the point that I moved across to Hardwicke; now I am in court around once a month and spend much more time on paper-based advices and pleadings. There is a large amount of adjudication, for example, which is a specialist construction dispute
resolution procedure that operates almost exclusively on paper.”
Varied clients Many construction cases can broadly be categorised into disputes over defects and regulatory work, as she illustrates: “In the former category, my recent cases have been about electrifying power lines and defective compaction of ground on housing developments. On the regulatory side, I recently had a toilet case about the compliance of pans and cisterns with water regulations – I think I must have read six different definitions of what toilets are for, when most people would say their purpose is quite obvious,” she laughs. In any construction project, there is a chain of people involved, as Katie explains: “At the top of the chain are often the developers financing the project, for example, a 20-storey hotel. This requires a development agreement, which is then essentially subcontracted out, perhaps to a person or organisation with an interest in the land who then becomes the employer on the project. The employer typically hires a main contractor to design and build the project and the contractor, in turn, will engage architects. Works will then be further subcontracted to specialists who provide plumbing, heating, electrics and all the other elements of the development. With so many contractual levels and parties involved in any given project, there is high potential for disputes to arise.” Despite the complexity of the contractual arrangements needed to bring projects to fruition, Katie says the causes of disputes are often more prosaic: “Often what happens is that someone involved at the bottom has messed up and the matter gets passed up and up the chain. This can be a serious problem because there is often a deadline for completion in construction works, so any dispute which causes a delay can cause
For more chambers that work in this practice area, please use the “Pupillage index” starting on p519.
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