Since joining Watson Burton’s Construction & Engineering Department in 1999 Sarah has specialised in heavyweight, large value engineering and construction projects.

Sarah has acted on behalf of a variety of developers, main contractors, sub contractors and professionals in numerous different forums including the Technology and Construction Court (TCC), arbitration, adjudication and mediation including arbitration "appeals" and adjudication enforcement proceedings. She is familiar with most of the standard forms of construction contract and particularly NEC, ICE IChemE, MF1, PPC 2000 and JCT as well as having dealt with numerous matters based upon bespoke contracts.In addition she has negotiated contracts on numerous projects, including:-

• Waste treatment plants.
• Factory fit outs.
• Offices.
• Residential premises.
• Remediation works.

Sarah has been involved in disputes involving, in particular, defective piling, waste to energy plant, commercial to residential flat conversions, oil and gas platforms, highway construction, sea defences, house building and concrete works.

Sarah also spent 4 months doing primarily non contentious work in-house for Clugston Ltd who specialise in civil engineering, construction and facilities management. This involved the negotiation and drafting of bespoke contracts based upon (amongst others) the BSF, NEC and PPC 2000 forms of contract.

Sarah gives seminars to RIBA, IStructE, The Adjudication Society and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA), and produces articles for the RIBA Journal, the Building Services Journal, the Journal of Building Appraisal, RIBA CPD Network Newsletter and the Terrier (quarterly periodical for The Journal of The Association of Chief Estates Surveyors and Property Managers in Local Government) and she is also a Specialist Practice Consultant for RIBA.

She is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and was Treasurer of the Northumbria branch of the CIArb (2005 – 2007).

• A multi million pound FPSO dispute which involved arbitration (and subsequent ‘arbitration appeal’) on a discrete issue and then on the main dispute a settlement several weeks into a TCC trial.
• Defending a multi million pound claim made by a major construction company involving three adjudications which subsequently proceeded to arbitration and then an "arbitration appeal" (in the TCC).
• A multi million pound claim against a sub contractor for defective piling works. The matter proceeded to the Technology and Construction Court and involved complex civil engineering issues.