About Me

I am Peter Collie, I own this site and I am a construction lawyer with many years experience of dealing with construction disputes. I am on the FIDIC President’s List of Adjudicators and keen advocate of Dispute Boards.

I am a dual qualified lawyer and construction professional and I am able to bring to bear both legal knowledge and practical construction knowledge to seek to resolve disputes. I provide strategic advice to clients and parties, aimed at avoiding disputes wherever possible and if a dispute is unavoidable I provide strategic advice on the best way to handle the dispute.

I actually started my working life as an apprentice joiner. Following completion of my apprenticeship I studied and trained as a quantity surveyor and have worked on a variety of projects from house refurbishment to large petrochemical projects.

In 1994 I qualified as a Barrister and have acted as a lawyer since, I have been a self employed Barrister from 2000.

In 2009 I became one of only 69 FIDIC accredited Dispute Board members. I act as a Dispute Board on a variety of matters from roads and bridges to large infrastructure projects such as power stations, roads, tunnels and rail projects.

Disputes in the construction industry are inevitable because of a variety of reasons from communication, management of change, not appreciating the risks, design changes, preference engineering and defects.

Dispute Boards are a truly innovative method of seeking to avoid disputes as they arise, to use the jargon “in real time”. The skill of a Dispute Board is to ensure that the parties to a construction contract are talking to each other, addressing the allocation of risks and performance issues such that potential disputes evaporate.’.

As part of my dispute avoidance role I am involved in the Crossrail CAP an initiative aimed at avoiding disputes on major construction projects in London.

Most of the time I am involved in FIDIC projects using the FIDIC Dispute Board rules, however the ICC in Paris and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators also have their own rules.

In addition to being on the FIDIC President’s list I am also on the DRBF, RICS and TeCBar list of dispute board members. I was also appointed by the ICC in Paris.

In the UK we have a specialist court that deals with construction disputes called the Technology and Construction Court. I am an experienced advocate in this court and the English appeal courts.

Internationally I am an experienced advocate, arbitrator, Dispute Board member, Mediator and Adjudicator dealing with major international projects.

My full cv is available here.

Please feel free to browse my website and do not forget to check out my tweets!

Examples of the work I do include:

Other activities

I am a visiting lecturer on the MSc in Construction Law at the University of Wolverhampton. I lecture, examine and assess candidates for the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the RICS. Ie lecture regularly for the CIOB, RICS, CIArb and various clients. I am the author of the CIArb’s book “Introduction to Adjudication”. I am a member of the Chartered Institute of Building’s Dispute Resolution Board. I was part of the working party revising the RICS Practice Note on Surveyor’s Acting as Expert Witnesses. I Chaired a Webinair on Procurement Law and co-presented a Webinair on the NEC3 suite of contracts.

I was awarded the Chartered Institute of Building’s Silver Medal for the Contract Administration Paper of the Membership Examination in 1988.

My memberships/positions include:

I am on the following panels:

I hold the following qualifications:

XS
SM
MD
LG