Thomas Daniels, Lloyd's Register

'Nabarro’s construction team was appointed to help us redevelop 71 Fenchurch Street.We built a signature Richard Rogers building but there were problems resulting in litigation in the region of £31m. That's how I and the Nabarro litigation team came to spend the next three years living in each others’ homes and offices!

It was a perverse litigation as Lloyd’s Register was the defendant but couldn't get the claimant to make its claim. The Nabarro team spent a lot of time getting us on the front foot in the litigation. They did an excellent job of making sure we fully understood all of the details, the shifting heads of claim in the litigation, and most importantly the strengths and potential weaknesses of our position.

We had to get into the very hard work of understanding what happened – the claimant didn’t know and simply went for the easiest route (for them) of a global claim. In the end we had to rebuild and independently assess the entire construction programme so that we could see cause and effect and the impact this had on valuation - what happened, who made the decisions and what the consequences were in terms of money and time. That took about a year. You have to do an awful lot of work to understand and be certain of your ground as you run headlong towards the High Court!

From that moment, we dictated and ran the litigation process. Nabarro’s expertise put us in the driving seat of litigation being brought by the claimant. We knew what our defence was, we knew what the programme was and we understood and refined our tactics from day one.

Our position from the outset was that Lloyd’s Register was prepared to pay a proper price for a building to the required standard that we originally contracted to have built for us, no more no less.

Tactically, the Nabarro team was spot on - to the extent that the final settlement was an extremely favourable conclusion to the proceedings. We’d already been through mediation and arbitration. We settled in May 2005. The High Court date was January 2006, so we weren’t far away.

Whichever way we turned, as a client we were set to expend substantial sums of money, so it was a question of spending it in the best way. For this job, it was investing in Nabarro’s expertise and their team - that was the best place to invest our money. On this point the Nabarro team regularly weighed the options for us, including whether early settlement was the best option. At no time did I feel the meter was being run up by my legal advisers!

Nabarro were very professional and client-conscious in their approach. We did get extremely good value for money. That’s why we’d work with them again. Not only that - they had a great sense of humour and they tolerated me! It was a text book good team event where everyone involved played to their maximum expertise.'