Silver Shemmings LLP
Airport Legal Services and Legal Training
We are specialists in various Airport Legal Services and Legal Training Services across the aviation sector.
We are leading Construction, Engineering and Real Estate Solicitors headquartered in London, experienced in advising clients across the Aviation supply chain on all aspects of planning and procurement, contract drafting and negotiation, operation and maintenance, dispute resolution and end of design life. We also provide both routine and bespoke training to clients and contacts in the Aviation sector.
We are known for our pragmatic, down to earth style and our advice is delivered to help clients quickly make important business decisions.
Our legal service is designed around what our clients need, not around us. No two clients have identical needs and we reflect that in what we offer. We also understand that client needs change and evolve.
In all respects we are a thoroughly contemporary law firm built on many years of success and experience. Our tools and systems maximise efficiencies and enable flexibility. Many of our lawyers are also qualified in various construction & engineering industries and therefore bring that background and experience to our service.
We are experienced in all aspects of the standard form construction and engineering contracts used by parties in the Aviation sector, in particular NEC and FIDIC. We also have considerable expertise in drafting Terms & Conditions for suppliers of products and services to the Aviation sector.
We advise our clients on all the various forums in which they can resolve their disputes, including Litigation, Arbitration, Mediation, Adjudication, Expert Determination and Dispute Boards. We also advise on how to best manage the risk of disputes arising when putting the contracts together at the outset. Dispute Resolution as a whole is a changing landscape and we are attuned to those changes. We have advised on some of the most significant projects and disputes in the Aviation sector, both domestic and international, in the last ten years.
Our training programme is diverse and detailed. We host client/contact seminars, provide tailored In-House training, lecture for RICS and the ICE, and produce articles, guides and commentary across numerous platforms.
Company Profile
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Our Aviation Legal Services
We are specialist Solicitors and our primary activity is the delivery of specialist legal services to our clients.
Our legal services consist of advice, representation before courts and other tribunals, and the drafting / negotiating of contracts and other agreements on our clients’ behalf.
We are specialists because we limit our areas of expertise to certain areas of law, namely Construction, Engineering and Real Estate. We also only recruit the very best Solicitors from other law firms, industry, government and non-law backgrounds such as Engineering. Once with us, they receive the best training and development.
As we provide an industry-based legal service, we know those industries well. We know their customs and practices, the market pressures and challenges, the supply chains and the regulatory context.
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Our Areas Of Expertise: Construction, Engineering & Real Estate Law
These are our practice areas. They are complementary and overlapping areas which we think is a benefit. Whilst they are a small number of areas of specialty, each one covers a fair amount of ground.
We are not only domestic specialists, because we include an international element to our practice. We work for overseas clients, on overseas projects, on international contracts. We are also specialists in International Arbitration, which is an ever growing and universally respected means of resolving international disputes. So our perspective is confidently both national and international.
Our Solicitors also include trained Adjudicators and Barristers within their number, therefore we offer legal services that go beyond the delivery of advice from Solicitors.
When we refer to legal services, what that increasingly means today is a blend of legal and commercial services, because good legal advice cannot sit in isolation of its commercial context, therefore our service goes well beyond advice on the legal framework that our clients operate within
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Our Legal Training Services
Our second area of service delivery is training services.
We are regular and enthusiastic providers of training to clients, contacts and other lawyers. We know our practice areas intimately and enjoy demonstrating that by passing on what we know to those who want to listen. We do that via lectures, seminars, tailored In-House training, article writing, books, content know-how, social media posts and blogs and other forums. We provide both free and paid-for training and we design our training around our audience.
We also perceive our training services as part of our obligation to put back in to the markets that we benefit from, whether they are legal services markets, industry markets or other professional training markets (e.g. RICS).
Providing training also cements relationships with new and existing clients and contacts. They get to know us better via our training and that benefits our relationships with them when we are providing legal services
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Our Legal Services: The Detail
We advise clients on the various ways that it is possible to procure construction works and services, and the pros and cons of each. That feeds into the decision as to which forms of standard or bespoke contracts it is in the client’s best interests to use.
We advise on traditional procurement, design & build procurement, construction management and management contracting, and EPC procurement. We are also experienced in EU Public Procurement and advise both public sector clients and those parties that contract with them.
We are experts in drafting and negotiating all standard form construction and engineering contracts including NEC, FIDIC, JCT, ICE, ACE, ACA, IChemE, LOGIC and GC/Works. We understand the dynamics of these contracts and their respective strengths and weaknesses. We keep up to date with all their standard amendments. We also understand the partnering and collaborative themes in certain of these suites of contracts and how they tend to succeed or fail in practice.
Some of our training sessions are focussed on standard form contracts and/or updates to them.
Risk and Liability
Risk and liability are important ingredients of Construction and Engineering contracts and we understand how to manage those things for our clients via drafting and amendment. These are elements of increased business focus for our clients and their expectation of us is that we know that and deal with it in their best interests.
Risk comes in many different forms, for example financial, regulatory, brand damage and loss of entitlement.
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Dispute Resolution
We are experts in advising on all forms of dispute resolution. Those include:
- Litigation
- Arbitration (domestic and international)
- Adjudication
- Mediation
- Expert Determination
- Negotiation
- Conciliation
- Dispute Boards
Each of these has its own rules and regulations, sometimes covering considerable areas of law and practice. They also change and evolve and we keep abreast of these changes to ensure our advice remains completely current.
Today cost, speed, efficiency and access to all, are the primary points of focus for users and regulators of the various tribunals in which Construction and Engineering disputes get resolved. That being the case, we ensure that our service matches those focal points.
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Our Service Standards
We are not only expert legal advisors to the Aviation sector – by itself that is not enough. We offer a service that is also intelligently priced, designed around client need and expectation, grounded in industry experience, and delivered via those modern tools and systems that maximise efficiency and value.
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Some of the matters we have advised on
- Dispute between the owners and operators of Gibraltar Airport and its infrastructure, and the main Spanish contractor responsible for their design and construction
- Burj Tower, Dubai
- Taiwan Shinkansen High Speed Railway Project
- Olympic Village, London
- Projects at Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester, Frankfurt, Charles De Gaulle Airports
