The Interview | Susan Francombe, Adjudication Society

Adjudication benefits engineers and engineers can benefit adjudication

By Claire Smith

I might be doing myself out of a job but I am passionate about wanting to make the construction and building industry better by removing issues that cause disputes,” says independent adjudicator and civil engineer Susan Francombe. “But, when they do occur, I’d like to get the industry to the point where they are resolved more quickly.”

Francombe is set to take up the role of chair of the Adjudication Society – as the first woman and first civil engineer to hold the post – putting her in a good position to deliver on her passions.

SUSAN FRANCOMBE

This year marks 25 years since the UK construction sector started to use adjudication for dispute resolution and it is now firmly established in the sector.

However, Francombe believes that more engineers would benefit from understanding the process and that the process itself would also benefit from having more civil engineers as adjudicators.

Adjudication is a “fast track” binding method of dispute resolution introduced by section 108 of the Housing Grants, Construction & Regeneration Act 1996 which was formally adopted two years later. Adjudication is available under all relevant construction contracts and disputes are decided by an independent and impartial adjudicator who is agreed on by both parties.

It can be a very inexpensive method of resolving disputes on construction projects, avoiding the need to resort to lengthy and expensive court procedures.

With adjudication newly introduced, the Adjudication Society came into being two years later in 2000 with the aim of spreading knowledge about the process. Its members are a mix of construction lawyers, claims consultants, engineers, architects and quantity surveyors. “Generally anyone involved in the construction industry,” Francombe explains.

“It’s for anyone who’s interested in learning more about adjudication and how it could work for them.”

In her new role as the society’s chair, which she takes on for a two-year tenure from 30 November, Francombe is determined to ensure the sector improves its understanding of the process.

“There there’s a whole world out there of different ways of resolving disputes, which can often be better than going to court“‘I’m going to go to court’ seems to be the only thing that people know, whereas there is a whole arc of other alternatives to going to court available,” she says. “So you’ve got mediation, you’ve got negotiation, you’ve got expert determination, you’ve got adjudication. There’s a whole world out there of different ways of resolving disputes, which can often be better than going to court.”

According to Francombe, the process resolves disputes more quickly and can also be done while the work is in progress, getting everyone back to delivering it faster.

She adds that the process is often better value than court proceedings.

According to Francombe, it is the fast pace of adjudication that means that civil engineers need to understand the process better.

“If you’re working on a project and somebody says ‘we’ve got an adjudication coming in’, if you don’t know anything about adjudication, you’re in trouble because you may only have seven days to respond to a referral,” she explains. “So it’s very important that people understand what adjudication is because it’s not something you have to consent to.”

While Francombe has clear views about the role of adjudication in modern construction law, as well as how to further improve it, she didn’t set out to become a civil engineering legal expert. She nearly missed out on becoming a civil engineer altogether after starting a degree in mathematics at Swansea University. But after a housemate shared details of his civil engineering lectures, she decided to switch courses at the end of her first year and start again.

On graduating, Francombe joined Mouchel, now part of WSP, and worked on a diverse range of projects from designing a bridge for camels in Qatar to the M25 services on an old landfill site at Thurrock in Essex. Although her element of the work was not involved, it was the legal disputes over the methane gas and settlement on the Thurrock project that sparked her interest in contract law.

Francombe’s move into dealing with contracts in detail came when she worked on the Jubilee Line Extension while working at Transport for London as a contracts engineer.

“I spent three years there working on the Waterloo civil works package, dealing with the contract issues and claims, which was absolutely fascinating and gave me the chance to work on what I think at the time was, the biggest construction project in Europe,” she says.

It was then that she sat her ICE contracts claims exams. “I never set out to be a lawyer, but I wanted to know more,” she adds.

Working as a contracts engineer on the Jubilee Line Extension at Waterloo encouraged Francombe to learn more about the legal side of construction

She then took a diploma in law and sat her bar exams. These qualifications led her to work for City law firm Hammond Suddards, then as an in-house lawyer for an insurance firm and an architect before joining Laing O’Rourke as its in-house counsel for 10 years. Since leaving Laing O’Rourke, she has worked as an independent consultant and she believes that puts her in a good position as she becomes the chair of the Adjudication Society.

Francombe says that working as an independent consultant and adjudicator, she is reliant on the network she has built. She believes that being able to network effectively will be key to success in her role as chair. She adds that she has also worked with large and small firms and has good insight into how they all work.

She relishes supporting the society in its ambition to bring more women adjudicators into the industry following the launch of its Women in Adjudication initiative in spring this year. She also wants to demystify the process of becoming an adjudicator to attract more people into the field.

“You don’t need legal training, you need a good understanding of contracts and complex issues along with the ability to pull together lots of information,” she says. “It is the same skill set we use to be engineers.”

Francombe’s main ambition is to make the construction industry better by preventing disputes.

“Disputes show that something has gone wrong,” she says. “I think 90% of disputes could be avoided by setting things up differently or thinking ahead.” Until new approaches emerge that mean those things are more commonplace, Francombe urges civil engineers to join the Adjudication Society and learn how to resolve disputes more quickly.