Introduction - Construction Claims and Responses: Effective Writing and Presentation - page 7

submission or response. In a later part of my somewhat varied career, I
had the good fortune to work for the Knowles group as a consultant and
in those days, the main purpose of my life was to either prepare claims
on behalf of contractors and subcontractorsor to review claims and advise
on determinations on behalf of employers. I have to say that because I
was doing this type of work on a day-in, day-out basis, I developed effi cient
ways of doing things due entirely to constant practice and the consequent
economies of scale. I would not say that it became a production line
exactly, but repetition certainly improved my ability to produce the work
effi ciently and effectively. Having come to this job from various project-
management or commercial-management roles, I also found that it was a
luxury to be able to sit down without the phone ringing every fi ve minutes
or people constantly popping into my offi ce needing something attending
to yesterday. In short, in those days I was able to concentrate fully on the
task in hand, which is often not something that most project personnel are
able to do.
One other advantage of bringing in an 'outsider', whether from company
resources or through the services of a consultant, is that because the
project personnel live and breathe the project on a day-to-day basis, it
becomes very personal to them. Personalities consequently tend to come
into play and emotions tend to surface and it is sometimes therefore dif-
fi cult to view a situation in a detached and objective manner. In my experi-
ence the 'outsider' will often be able to take a few steps back when
examining a situation and he will consequently be able to give a more
dispassionate opinion on the merits of the claim and possibly cut right to
the bare bones of the matter to produce a more balanced and less emotive
submission than might otherwise have been the case.
The Form of Contract Used in the Examples
As we progress through the topic and discuss the process of building up
and writing claims, it will be necessary to refer to various conditions of
contract. There are many standard forms of contract in use internationally
and it not the purpose of this topic to examine such contracts, but rather
to explain how to use a typical contract in the context of claims.
Consequently, it will become necessary to refer to the contract conditions
and in some cases to include quotations to illustrate examples of wording
and how this may be effectively incorporated within the submission. Rather
than confuse the issue by using different examples from different forms of
contract, I have made reference throughout the topic to the Conditions of
Contract for Construction for Building and Engineering Works Designed
by the Employer, First Edition 1999 , published by the Fédération Inter-
nationale des Ingénieurs-Conseils (more commonly known as FIDIC), who
have kindly given me permission to quote from their publication. I feel that
this publication is suitable, fi rstly, because this topic is aimed at the inter-
national market in which this form of contract is widely used and secondly,
because it contains most of the principles included in other forms of