The new edition of Legal 500 Asia Pacific was released this week, and I am pleased to say that both my chambers and I have been ranked Tier 1, and as

Technically very strong, with very good depth of knowledge

For me, it is a welcome return. When I practised as a solicitor with my firm in London, I was regularly featured in the top bracket. It felt somewhat bizarre when I first arived in Australia to be a relative unknown locally. I did not much mind, but it is still a bit weird to be practising at the bar without silk (they do not rush these things in South Australia). Meanwhile, I am not sure that there are many other Legal 500 tier 1 ranked construction barristers based in Australia. In fact, I am not sure that there are any?

Keating Chambers, of course, has not been out of the rankings for many, many years:

From ‘superior range and quality’ of juniors to the ‘unsurpassed collective depth of experience’ of the silks, Keating Chambers remains at the ‘top of its game’, especially for technically complex cases. Members display ‘passion for their work and practice’, and are typically instructed on large-scale arbitration and litigation proceedings domestically and abroad. The quality of counsel often places barristers on both sides of a dispute, for example in Accolade Wines v VolkerFitzpatrick and others. Key cases also include Hyder Consulting v AMEC and E.ON v MT Hojgaard. Paul Darling QC recently left for 39 Essex Chambers, while Nerys Jefford QC and Finola O’Farrell QC have been appointed to the High Court Bench.

I have no intention of going to any bench, but I am pleased that the majority of my practice now is sitting as review board, adjudicator, expert determiner, mediator etc, and my client work is largely to do with one sort of intermediate dispute resolution process or the other. Happily, the sharp end of major projects around the world has got well on board that old-fashioned trials are long past their best-before date. For me, being a part of the transformation to much quicker and more effective dispute management is hugely important.