Newsletter
Information for members
July 2001

Previous issue: June 2001
Next issue: August 2001

Programme

The general meetings are free of charge to members and their guests. Booking is not required.

Dates for 2002

Honorary Members

A glaring omission in the last newsletter!

With apologies, we failed to report in the June newsletter that Sir Philip Otton announced at the Annual Dinner on 23rd May that, in recognition of their outstanding contribution, Lord Justice Dyson, Mr Justice Forbes, Frances Paterson and John Burgess had been made Honorary Members of the Society. Congratulations to them all for a well deserved honour.

SCL Hudson Prize

A flier is enclosed with this newsletter calling for entries for this year's SCL Hudson Prize. The closing date for entries is 31st December 2001. Further details can be obtained from Jackie Morris at the administration office, or from the SCL website.

Advocacy Training Course

Calling all solicitor advocates! Interested in the Autumn Advocacy course? As in previous years, the Advocacy Course will be presided over by His Honour Judge Humphrey Lloyd. The Course will be run in October/November. For more details, please contact Elaine Corne on 020 7300 4074.

Trying to find research done on a construction law topic?

It may help you to contact the Centre of Construction Law & Arbitration at King's College London. Since 1988 twelve groups of students have completed the MSc/Diploma in Construction Law & Arbitration, and every one has completed a dissertation. So the range of topics is very wide: one of them may already have investigated the area you're hoping to find out more on. Or a student may even be working on your area at the moment. The dissertations - completed and ongoing - are listed on a database, which can be interrogated by simple keywords. And copies of every dissertation are freely available for you to consult in the Library of the Centre in weekday office hours; you can copy any pages that interest you and some recent dissertations are even available on disk.

For more information, or to ask for help in discovering whether a King's student has done any work in a field you'd like to know more about, contact Sue Hart at the Centre, by phone on 020-7484 2643, fax on 020-7872 0210 or e-mail at susan.hart@kcl.ac.uk. This service is entirely free to SCL members, though you do have to pay for the cost of any photocopying you decide to do. Information about King's dissertations may soon be available on a web-site (assisted by the SCL), which will bring together information in one place on all construction law dissertations and theses across the whole of the UK and Ireland; until it is, talking to King's may be a useful starting-point.

"Contracted Mediation - Dispute Resolution for Project-based Industries"

Enclosed with this newsletter is a summary of the talk given by Patrick Green and Stephen Woodward at the National Liberal Club on 5th June 2001.

University Links

The Society is exploring ways of enhancing involvement with and between academic centres teaching construction law at or above Masters level. Initial intentions include:
1. identifying the locations of such centres;
2. increasing communications between each of them and the Society;
3. increasing access to construction law research (existing and new); and,
4. encouraging and prompting research into particular matters.

A sub-committee, consisting of John Burgess, Philip Britton, Jim Pragnell and Victoria Russell, has been established to develop this initiative. Preliminary 'fact-finding' groundwork is underway. The Society views this as an exciting opportunity to enhance knowledge and development of construction law, as well as a practical measure to assist Members and others seeking further education. A linked series of lectures or seminar are being considered.

SCL Hong Kong

The Society of Construction Law Hong Kong recently held its first annual general meeting following its creation in March last year. Membership has grown rapidly to around 250, reflecting an appreciation of an excellent series of meetings and talks. These have included HH Judge Humphrey Lloyd, John Powell QC, Professor John Uff QC and Keith Pickavance. It is hoped that further 'UK speakers' will continue this support.

A trio of speakers took on the task of reviewing the recently published 'Tang Report'. The Report makes around 130 recommendations aimed at lifting the quality and cost-effectiveness of the construction industry. It is understood that statutory adjudication was considered but not included amongst these.

James Niehorster has recently stepped down as Chairman. The UK Society extends its congratulations and thanks to James for all his work in helping to establish the Hong Kong society. We look forward to maintaining and developing links with SCL HK under the new chairmanship of Paul Starr. Paul can be contacted on telephone: 00852 2848 4600 - fax: 00852 2858 0124 - email: paul.starr@msj.com.au

The respective Societies are concluding arrangements regarding transfer of Membership and a discounted 'overseas membership' fee is also being considered.

Autumn Workshop: Dispute Avoidance and Resolution

The Society's first workshop meeting will be held on 11th September 2001 (see Programme). This will be led by John Burgess. A preliminary paper will be issued during August. The intention is that this should provide some framework information within (or without!) which those attending the workshop may discuss and advance their views.

SCL Papers

Members will recently have received a copy of the Paper given by Professor John Uff QC to the joint SCL/SCA meeting in London on 3rd July: Are we all in the wrong job? Reflections on Construction Dispute Resolution. It has also been put on SCL's website (address below).

Other recently published Papers are also now available on the web - including the winning 2000 and 2001 Hudson Prize Papers, and Victoria Russell's Paper: Trends and Developments in the Resolution of Construction Disputes.

A number of further Papers - some to be printed and put on the web and some just to go on the web - are in the pipeline. Members will be kept up to date through the Newsletter, but in the meantime a complete list of the 94 Papers published by SCL over the years is also available on the website, and back copies can be ordered.

SCL Web Site: http://www.scl.org.uk

For those new to the Society and/or to the WWW our web site is a constant source of new information. Items which have arrived too late to be published in a Newsletter, or details of meetings which have been arranged after the seasonal Diary has gone to print, will be posted on the website. It contains details of our future programme and contact details for university book grants.

New Members

Finally, we are pleased to welcome the following new members to the Society during June:

Membership/Administration
67 Newbury Street
Wantage, Oxon., OX12 8DJ
Tel: 01235 770606
Fax: 01235 770580
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