The King’s College London and Adjudication Society Report: 2023 on Adjudication is due to be published in November 2023.  The 2022 report raised awareness of the lack of diversity within practising adjudicators. This incited positive change. However, more needs to be done.

What further reform might be encouraged?

One area of possible discussion is the increased need to help aspiring adjudicators bridge the gap between theoretical training and practical experience by the use of pupillage schemes.

It can be difficult for new adjudicators to be appointed to a panel. Many panels require adjudicators to demonstrate experience. Many (if not, most) adjudicator appointments are off-panel. Even in the most difficult of disputes, agreeing a suitable adjudicator can be the sole area of consensus.

However, the parties generally choose a known quantity: someone already known to be a safe pair of hands. Off-panel appointments do not typically go to new adjudicators. Nevertheless, over the next 10 years a substantial number of experienced UK adjudicators will retire. How will we prepare the next generation of adjudicators to take their place?

Various training schemes are in place. These enable adjudicators to acquire knowledge of the relevant and applicable procedural and substantive law. Pupillage, on the other hand, enables the development of practical skills.

Many adjudicators offer ad hoc pupillage schemes. There are also some structured offerings from Adjudicating Nominating Bodies (ANBs), such as the CIArb and ICE. The approach is broadly the same. The adjudicator obtains approval from the parties for a pupil to shadow the adjudication.

The pupil drafts directions, jurisdictional challenge responses and a decision in real time, as if they were acting as the adjudicator. Once the adjudication process is complete, the adjudicator offers feedback and suggestions for improvement. Through observation, pupils also learn the most effective ways to manage an adjudication process and the types of challenges that are thrown up by the parties along the way.

What are the benefits?

For new adjudicators, pupillage gives them the opportunity to obtain advice and constructive feedback on decision writing. It trains them to reach not just an enforceable decision, but also one which is complete, thorough, logical, well drafted and absent of gaps in reasoning. It helps them to develop effective management skills, which are vital to enable them to control the adjudication process.

For ANBs, pupillage gives confidence that a newly admitted adjudicator has sufficient practical experience to meet the standards required of their register. This might unlock the difficulties that some adjudicators experience when seeking entry onto panels.

For parties, whilst each mentor has a different way of thinking, approach and style, pupillage builds a degree of quality control into future decisions. Parties will hopefully then consider, and be comfortable with, the appointment of less experienced, or well known, adjudicators to decide their disputes. This should encourage greater diversity.

The time and effort offered by experienced adjudicators to encourage and promote new adjudicators, together with the generosity of the parties and their legal representatives in allowing pupils to shadow their disputes, is greatly appreciated.

So, if you can act as a mentor, please consider doing so and, if you wish to become an adjudicator, you should seek out pupillage and the benefits it brings.

This article was first published by the Construction Law magazine on 2 November 2023.