Those of us who are long in the tooth and have made a full-time career in building construction disputes will remember James R Knowles (Roger, to you and me). He died on 27 March (1933-2022). Roger was very well liked within the industry, especially the subcontracting and main contracting end of our game. His career and dispute management firm ran for 50 years. He sold it to Hill International in 2006.

One could argue that it was Roger who invented the claims consultant; he called it a “one-stop shop for construction dispute resolution”. Here was a quantity surveyor who knew his JCT contract documents inside and out and had actually built things. He could sit at a final account meeting between QS and QS and be one of them. Some solicitors got cross: hitherto they had looked after the dispute business. Roger was well ahead because building was his game. Moreover, he got himself through the Bar exams and became a barrister in the late 1970s.

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