Life Honorary Membership and President’s Medal

Our President Lord Justice Coulson, at the Annual Dinner, awarded three Life Honorary Memberships to Dame Judith Hackitt, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith and David Barry and the President’s Medal to The Rt Hon. the Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill.  Lady Chief Justice Carr the President of the Courts of England and Wales; Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales; and the first woman to hold this historic office. Sadly, the Lady Chief Justice was not able to attend the Dinner.  Happily, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith collected the Medal on behalf of the Lady Chief Justice as shown below:

Dame Judith was the Chair of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety which was commissioned by the Government following the Grenfell Tower fire. The Review's Interim Report was published in December 2017, and its final report, Building a Safer Future, was issued in May 2018 leading to enactment of the Building Safety Act 2022.

 The Honourable Mrs Justice Joanna Smith as Counsel was involved in many significant construction and technology cases, including Cavendish v Makdessi (the landmark case on the doctrine of penalties) heard in the Supreme Court and now sits in both the Chancery Division and the TCC.

David Barry has been the preeminent expert on construction delay for 30 years. His SCL Paper "Beware the Dark Arts! Delay Analysis and the Problems with Reliance on Technology" presented in January 2009 is seminal, as is his contribution to the Society’s Delay and Disruption Protocol - The 2nd edition of which is a leading authority on assessment of delay in construction.

Hamish Lal, Chairman