What does construction law entail?

Construction law deals with matters relating to building construction, engineering and related fields. It typically falls into two main categories: non-contentious and contentious.

On the non-contentious side, lawyers are involved in helping clients at the procurement stage, pulling together all the contractual relationships prior to building work. On the other hand, construction law becomes contentious when something is amiss and lawyers are involved with resolving the disputes. Common construction-related legal disputes include workplace injuries and accidents, construction defects, contract issues, and problems with obtaining the proper planning or building permits. The contracts drawn up at the procurement stage will set out how disputes should be dealt with and in an effort to minimize costs, they are usually resolved through adjudication or arbitration.

Clients typically include developers, contractors, engineers, architects, surveyors, insurance companies and investors.

The work of a construction lawyer/trainee

Construction projects involve a wide variety of people and organisations and construction lawyers will therefore work with those initiating the project, those financing the project, those designing the building, those doing the actual construction and so on.

The procurement stage occurs before the actual construction work begins. Lawyers are involved in negotiating and agreeing terms with all the relevant parties. If the client is investing in land as well as undertaking a building project, construction lawyers will work in conjunction with property lawyers. Together, they will seek to obtain the necessary planning consents and local authority certifications. Construction lawyers will also continue to be involved throughout the duration, making site visits and liaising with all parties to ensure that the project is developing according to plan.

When there is a dispute, construction lawyers are required to assess their client’s position, giving advice on the strength or weaknesses and gathering the necessary paperwork and evidence, extracting important detail from large volumes of technical documents. They will have to follow the resolution methods set out in the contracts between the parties and where a settlement is impossible, they will have to prepare for and attend proceedings.

Trainees are an important part of the construction team in a law firm. When dealing with a lot of disclosure, trainees are responsible for going through documents, putting them into order and listing them, while identifying anything that may be of concern. In addition to document review, they carry out legal research and may be required to make site visits and interview project managers to gather the facts of a dispute, where there is one. Hence, there is a significant amount of responsibility and client contact. They attend conferences with experts, counsel, clients and insurers to take notes of the development of a project or case. They also have the responsibility of ensuring that third parties have their rights adequately protected by way of collateral warranty of third party rights. Furthermore, trainees are able to develop their internal firm network by working closely with different departments such as the Planning and Finance teams, Real Estate team, Energy & Infrastructure team, amongst others.