What is the use of QSs?

In an old Fry and Laurie sketch, Hugh Laurie has an appointment with his local quantity surveyor, much as one might visit to the doctor. After initial pleasantries have been exchanged, Stephen Fry asks brightly whether Laurie has any quantities that he would like to have surveyed. Laurie delves into his case, brings out a rock-like object of indeterminate shape and asks Fry whether he might have a look at it for him. Fry takes it eagerly, turns it around in his hands and examines it carefully.

Although the average member of the public may have no clear idea of what QSs do, lawyers come into contact with them on a variety of matters, particularly in connection with disputes. What are their roles in the legal arena? In the world of disputes, they operate in three main areas.

First, QSs work with lawyers as expert witnesses before judges or arbitrators. The expertise of a QS relates to building costs, and traditionally they have given opinion evidence about disputed quantum issues, although QSs (and others) with contract planning experience are nowadays much in demand. So what skills should such QS witnesses have? Obviously, an understanding of the post-Woolf role of an expert is important. QSs still sometimes confuse the role of claims preparation with that of offering impartial evidence to a tribunal. The ability to understand the limits of one's expertise is also significant. Time and again, the courts have thrown out whole swaths of reports where a QS, having read through inter-party correspondence, has sought to give an opinion on matters that can only be determined by factual evidence. Some QSs have even gone as far as to form conclusions on legal matters, which has not endeared them to judges.

A QS who can express his views clearly is more likely to have his evidence accepted, as judges are irritated by having to follow muddled arguments.

A second legal area for QSs is in the field of claims preparation. The best QSs prepare a well-constructed and clear claim on which the lawyer can base his pleading. The worst produce large lists of variations with no real link to loss suffered. Although it is true that the high water mark of the courts' opposition to "global" claims was reached more than a decade ago, a party may still be ordered at least to indicate what the key events are that he relies on as crucial to the costs claimed, even if those events have to be grouped together. This means that the other party knows which events to concentrate on when he comes to prepare his witness evidence, as demonstrated in Bernhard's Rugby Landscapes Ltd vs Stockley Park Consortium Ltd (1997).

Finally, QSs also act as arbitrators and adjudicators. How have they fared? In the cases where the courts have held that an adjudicator has made some sort of error, he often turns out to be a QS (although the adjudicator in the controversial Bouygues case was not). However, this is not surprising, given that the RICS is easily the most popular appointing body for Construction Act cases.

And in the field of arbitration, a review of cases in the past 10 years or so reveals that architects, engineers and even lawyers seem to be at least as proficient as QSs in the art of getting themselves removed by the High Court for misconduct.

However, it is perhaps outside the field of disputes that the relationship of the QS with the lawyer may change most. Driven by the rise in non-traditional procurement methods and the decline in the use of old-style bills of quantities, QSs are using their knowledge of the construction industry to do more advisory work such as whole-life costing, facilities management, project management, PFI procurement advice and project monitoring. Lawyers are increasingly working with them in these areas.

Indeed, it has been suggested by more than one leading QS that traditional quantity surveying will disappear and QSs will at some point be calling themselves management consultants who specialise in construction. At least that would relieve QSs of the need to explain to the uninitiated exactly what it is that they do when they survey quantities.