Books

This page provides some details about some books that I have written, or which are work in progress.

500 Fenwicks

This is a work in progress, by way of a history of the Fenwick family. See the 5oo Fenwicks page.

The Workers Liens Act Casebook

This is a book of what might be be the daftest piece of legislation (it is a South Australian Act) to last for 120 years without repeal.

Since its enactment in 1893 as the Workmen’s Liens Act, the Worker’s Lien Act (South Australia) has had a colourful and problematic history.  It was drafted by a man who had already been certified as a lunatic, and taken through Parliament by a man then bound over to keep the peace for apparently intending to shoot the principal opponent of the Bill in a duel.  It has been repeatedly criticised from the Bench for its “fuliginous obscurity”, “enigmatic language” and for being “antiquated”.  Yet the Act remains in force and continues to pose challenges for lawyers practising in South Australia.

This work contains sections describing the operation of the Act, the Act itself with annotations, all the significant decisions on the Act from South Australia and the Northern Territory (including the early cases of Oswald v Matters, Bourne v Kneebone and Giles v Jacob, which were reported only in the Register and/or Advertiser newspapers), the text of the parliamentary debates including both the 1893 and the 1896 proceedings, and precedents.

Building Contract Disputes: Practice and Precedents

A large loose-leaf on UK construction law practice, published by Sweet & Maxwell This is a large loose-leaf work; releases come out twice a year. See here for a list of cases considered. It is also included within Sweet and Maxwell’s electronic publication, the Construction Law Service. The loose-leaf is now accompanied by the Building Contract Disputes – Materials & Cases Handbook.

Building Contract Litigation

This book effectively replaced my previous much shorter book Building Contract Litigation, which ran to 4 editions and a number of reprintings.

 

 

Construction Industry Law Letter

From 1994 to 1999, I was Editor of Construction Industry Law Letter, published by Informa Law. As such, I reported many construction law cases from the UK and other jurisdictions.  Form time to time, these 10-times-a-year publications were published in book form.