James has particular experience in advising on engineering issues and in particular in the transport and marine engineering sectors. Examples of James' experience include:  

• Advising a D&B Contractor on a large and both legally and engineeringly complex dispute concerning defects arising out of the design and construction of a 26 km guided busway.  
• Advising the Public Works Department of an offshore public body Employer on a dispute concerning the repair of a prefabricated reinforced concrete structure in the marine environment and the installation of a cathodic protection system. The key issue in dispute was the foreseeability of the condition of the structure at the time of tender. 
• Advising an SPV Operation & Maintenance Contractor of an Energy from Waste plant on a dispute concerning the plant's performance, the occurrence of unplanned outages and the financial consequences of the unplanned outages. 
• Advising an Employer on a dispute concerning the upgrade of a mainline railway. The dispute was a final account dispute in which the Contractor sought an additional £52 million and a 28 week extension of time and relief from liquidated damages valued at £14.5 million. The delay analysis centred around the effect, if any, on the commissioning of the completed works in a series of pre booked extended blockades.  
• Advising the Public Works Department of an offshore public body Employer on a dispute concerning the excavation of an underground tunnel and cavern. The excavation was by both TBM and drill and blast. 
• Advising a Contractor on a dispute concerning the remediation of a Victorian industrial site suitable for the construction of an urban link road and light industrial units. The dispute included the classification of excavated materials, the open cast mining of coal, the transporting and disposal of contaminated material, the importation of virgin backfill material and the earthworks balance.  
• Advising an Employer on a final account and delay dispute concerning the construction of manmade reefs in the near shore environment. 
• Advising an Employer on its defence of a Contractor's claim for "relevant losses" valued at between £260 million and £401 million following the delayed and disrupted upgrade of a main line railway.
• Advising a Contractor on a final account and delay dispute concerning the construction of a concrete sea wall.
• Advising a utility company in dispute with its terminated framework Contractor. In dispute was the Contractor's entitlement to £70 million in the context of circa. 300,000 disputed Minor Works Orders and circa. 579 disputed Project Orders. To address each disputed Order would have been disproportionate and so a strategy was developed which identified recurring themes and which if resolved, would allow for large batches of disputed Orders to be resolved. 
• Advising an Employer on a final account and delay dispute concerning the construction of a flood alleviation scheme.
• Advising an Employer on a dispute with its station Contractor following "ambiance works" to stations across the network. The Contractor's claim was for delay and disruption costs to the design process, additional design costs, variations, changes to the contract prices to reflect the increased cost of labour and materials and an extension of time and relief from liquidated damages.
• Advising a Subcontractor responsible for the design, manufacture, supply and installation, quality assurance, testing, erecting and commissioning of boilers to a new power plant. The key issue in dispute was the manufacture of the high pressure parts and the information against which the Subcontractor priced for their fabrication, the weld qualification procedure, compliance with the weld qualification procedure and the alleged failure of circa. 800 fabrication welds. 

• The Law Society 
• The Society of Construction Law