Peter Webster: Solicitor
Peter is Thea’s Principal and Founder. [Curriculum Vitae]
He can advise and act as an owner of a business established during a recession with a wide experience of construction contracts and the management of conflict in all its various dimensions (commercial, political and personal) in the UK and overseas.
He was admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales in 1999. Between then and 2007 he worked for Masons, Fenwick Elliott and Capsticks in London, two of the top construction law practices and the top healthcare law practice in the country. He set up Thea Limited in 2007 to build his own client following, develop his vision for the delivery of legal services, and assemble his own team who shared the vision.
Peter’s practice has involved a substantial number of contentious construction and engineering matters. These have ranged from bungled domestic refurbishment and disputed supply contracts to the aborted reclamation of one of the largest development sites in the North of England and claims for additional payment arising from the construction in Dubai of one of the world’s biggest airport terminals. Peter has acted for claimants and defendants in contractual and statutory dispute resolution proceedings such as arbitration and adjudication, without prejudice negotiations with or without a mediator, and litigation in the High Court and the County Court. As an example of the kind of complexity that may be involved, one of his cases in the Technology & Construction Court had the project architect, structural engineer, main contractor and specialist subcontractor as co-defendants, and required the coordination of expert evidence on the duties of an architect, the duties of a structural engineer, building defects, programming and quantum.
Peter has also advised upon, negotiated and drafted amendments to most of the standard forms of building contract (JCT, NEC, GC/Works) and a number of bespoke contracts, particularly in the context of NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) work and of Independent Treatment Centre (ISTC) projects.
Prior to training as a solicitor with Penningtons in the City, Peter was from 1994-97 Executive Secretary of the Newick Park Initiative, a discreet non-governmental conciliation project in Rwanda following the war and genocide there. He became a neighbourhood mediator with the Southwark Mediation Centre in 1998, and an accredited commercial mediator with ADR Chambers (UK) Limited in 2003, since when he has been a mediator and a mediation advocate in numerous disputes. He has also been an accredited family mediator since 2011.
Peter holds an MA from Cambridge University, having studied Classics and Modern Languages at St John's College, and is fluent in French. He is also a Cambridge half-blue at chess, and a former Greater Manchester under-18 champion and British under-21 correspondence chess champion. Current interests also include singing, dancing and musical drama: he is director of a production company (see www.allsaintstheatre.com); and chair of the board of his local community centre (see www.allsaintscommunitycentre.co.uk).
