I found Alan Harris’ concerns that adjudicators rarely seek advice from specialists on matters of law or programming interesting (11 February, page 25).

Although the Scheme makes provision for an adjudicator to “appoint experts, assessors and legal advisers”, the decision must be that of the adjudicator and not any such assistant.

Having undertaken many adjudications, most issues of law concern the law of contract, with which adjudicators (whether lawyers or not) should be competent.

So far as programming issues are concerned, you don’t have to be a programming expert to deal with the disputes that normally arise. Furthermore, and as Lord Macfadyen found, in the recent case of City Inn vs Shepherd Construction, practical experience and common sense can be preferable to formal critical path analysis.

Steve Rudd

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