Lane End and the Search For Equitable Solutions in Construction Disputes

Abstract

In browsing through Charles Dickins’ “Bleak House” I discovered that my former chambers at Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn is mentioned in the novel’s description of the decaying legal profession of Victorian times. Remarkably, the building and courtyard that abuts its frontage are unchanged. The notoriety of the endless and unresolved litigation that is at the heart of the novel has however been consigned to that distant past. Whilst the buildings of Barristers’ Inns of Court remain the same, the court procedures of today are unrecognisable to those that existed in those times and nowadays both common law and equitable principles are available to resolve construction disputes in the courts.