Susan Lindsey
- Date of Call: 1997
- Email: lindsey@crownofficechambers.com
General Information
Called to the Bar in 1997.
Chartered architect.
Chartered arbitrator.
Practice
Susan's practice is focused on building and engineering related matters. Before coming to the Bar Susan qualified and practised as an architect. Her architectural experience mainly comprised medium to large-scale commercial projects, in particular hotels and retail, and included being both office and site based. She has practical experience of acting as a certifying architect in traditional contracting arrangements, of design and build procurement acting for employers, and a developer/contractor joint venture converting commercial offices to residential. She finds her experience of the construction industry of particular assistance in dealing with expert evidence on technical matters.
Construction, related professional negligence and other technical work.
Susan has experience of a wide spectrum of construction and engineering contract claims, including defects, delay and final account claims, under both standard and bespoke contract forms. A substantial part of her practice comprises negligence claims against construction professionals, and she regularly acts for both claimants and defendants. She has also acted in fee recovery claims made by engineers, architects, surveyors and adjudicators. Susan appears mainly in the Technology and Construction Court, in both the High Court and County Court. She also has defended criminal proceedings for breach of Building Regulations, appeared in the Land Tribunals and has been instructed in the preparation of professional conduct proceedings.
Susan undertakes building and land related work in other areas, in particular where there is a need for technical expert evidence. She has a particular interest in tree root encroachment. She appeared at first instance in Loftus-Brigham v Ealing (the Court of Appeal's judgment in which was subsequently reported (2004) 20 Const. L.J. 82). She also recently successfully defended a claim for an injunction to remove a tree despite the defendant having admitted causation of damage.
Susan has been instructed in relation to wide and varied technical matters, many of them subterranean and several of which are the subject of statutory regimes. The common theme is that all have involved complex technical evidence, including:
- Flooding and drainage failures;
- Coal mining subsidence;
- Cable breaks and severance;
- Alleged land failure in relation to maintenance of inland waterways;
- Slope failures;
- Liability in relation to Japanese knotweed incursion;
- Failure of temporary support during construction operations;
- Subsidence on landfilled sites;
- Tree root subsidence;
- Provision of mechanical handling equipment and logistics services;
- Acting for a local authority seeking to establish rights in respect of cabling attached to its buildings that threatened the authority's tower block recladding programme;
- Failure of cob structure (a traditional mud and straw form of construction);
- Claims in respect of asbestos management services;
- Failure of an underground pumping station and drains constructed in sand subject to tidal variations in ground water level;
- Failure of deep piled excavations;
- Oil spills and remediation;
- Fire claims.
Adjudication
Susan is an accredited adjudicator (Technology and Construction Bar Association) and is on the RIBA adjudication panel. She has undertaken appointments to act as adjudicator from both. Susan also has extensive experience of acting as party representative at the adjudication stage, and is regularly instructed to draft notices, referrals and responses, and advise in respect of evidence to be presented to the adjudicator. She has acted in summary enforcement proceedings in the High Court on many occasions. Her adjudication enforcement experience includes Pring & St Hill Ltd v C H Hafner (2004) 20 Const.L.J.402 and giving preliminary advice in Grovedeck Ltd v Capital Demolition Ltd [2000] BLR 181.
Arbitration
Susan's arbitration experience includes M&E disputes and fees and other professional disputes. She was instructed as a Treasury Junior defending a very large final account claim brought against the Ministry of Defence for in excess of £80M that encompassed numerous separately pleaded sub claims. She is a chartered arbitrator.
Mediation
Susan has been instructed several times to act as party representative in mediations. She has found that both her technical background and experience within the construction industry, and that she has successfully undertaken training as an accredited mediator, of significant benefit in this forum when acting on behalf of a party. Susan recently acted in the High Court in Nigel Witham Ltd v Smith & Issacs [2008] TCLR 3 in which the Court ruled on the costs effect of a party declining to engage in mediation at a particular stage of a dispute.
EDUCATION, TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS
1987 BSc Architecture - University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture
1990 Diploma in Architecture - University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture
- Awarded the Owings Travel Scholarship
1992 Chartered architect
1994 MSc Construction Law and Arbitration - Kings College London
- Awarded Bickerdike-Allen Prize
1999 Inner Temple Pegasus Scholarship to Hong Kong
PUBLICATIONS AND SEMINARS
Susan contributes a chapter to Emden's Construction Law on the subject of variations. She is a case note editor the Construction Law Journal, and regularly writes the Journal's editorial.
Susan has given seminars to other practitioners on subjects within her field of practice. She occasionally leads professional conduct teaching sessions at the Inns of Court School of Law, and regularly speaks about architects' liabilities to student architects undergoing their professional practice training. She also acts as an external tutor to students undertaking the MSc in Construction Law and Arbitration at Kings College London.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators
- Chartered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects
- Technology and Construction Bar Association
- Professional Negligence Bar Association
PERSONAL
Susan is a member of the Inner Temple Estates Committee, and its Disabled Access Sub-Committee. The Committee is responsible for the upkeep and development of the Inn's buildings.
