Notes and sources

Collaboration

Keep the discussion with the evidence.

1. 1

   Note 1.

   Email volume.

   Microsoft WorkLab, “Breaking down the infinite workday”, Work Trend Index Special Report, 17 June 2025: the average worker receives 117 emails a day, most of them skimmed in under a minute. The figure is a mean across aggregated and anonymised productivity signals from Microsoft’s workplace software, to 15 February 2025, excluding education and European Union customers. It is not specific to construction or legal work.

   Back to the text
2. 2

   Note 2.

   One round by email: a modelled example.

   A modelled example, not a measurement. (1) The contractor’s commercial manager emails the document to the solicitor, copying the supervising partner: two deliveries. (2) The solicitor forwards it to counsel, copying the partner: two. (3) The solicitor forwards it to both experts, copying the partner: three. (4) Counsel replies to the solicitor and the partner: two. (5) One expert replies to all: three. (6) The solicitor reports back to the commercial manager, copying the partner: two. That is six emails and fourteen inbox deliveries, with the document in five inboxes. In VeriCase the same round is one thread on the record, with nothing attached; VeriCase may still notify people by email.

   Back to the text
3. 3

   Note 3.

   Professional time: a modelled cost.

   A modelled cost of the time spent on the email rounds, not a measured saving: what share of that time a shared thread removes has not been measured. Each round is assumed to take 40 minutes of professional time in all: the contractor’s commercial manager 10 minutes at £47.50 an hour, the solicitor 12 minutes at £305, the supervising partner 3 minutes at £579, counsel 5 minutes at £150, and each of two experts, on delay and on quantum, 5 minutes at £253.73. That is £152.66 a round: £18,318.60 for 120 rounds in one adjudication and, over a dispute lasting two to three years, £137,389.50 for 900 rounds (300 documents, each discussed three times), £22,898.25 on a conservative case of 300 rounds at half the minutes, and £366,372.00 on a high case of 2,400 rounds (600 documents, each discussed four times).

   The commercial manager’s rate is an estimate of the internal cost to the contractor, not a charge-out rate: a gross salary of £57,000 (the lower end of the range RICS publishes for senior and management quantity surveyors), with employer National Insurance at 15% of earnings above £5,000 (HMRC, rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027), the statutory minimum employer pension contribution of 3% of qualifying earnings and a 25% overhead, divided by 1,740 working hours a year (a 37.5-hour week, less 5.6 weeks’ statutory holiday).

   The solicitor’s and partner’s rates are the HMCTS guideline hourly rates for Grade C and Grade A fee earners in London 1 (very heavy commercial and corporate work by centrally based London firms), in effect from 01 January 2026. The courts use guideline rates as a starting point for the summary assessment of costs; actual charges may be higher.

   There is no official guideline hourly rate for barristers, so counsel’s rate is the Attorney General’s London A Panel rate for government civil work, in effect from 01 April 2025: a conservative figure, as rates charged to private clients in construction disputes are typically higher.

   The experts’ rate is the average hourly rate for report writing reported by expert witnesses working in the civil courts, across all disciplines, in the Bond Solon Expert Witness Survey 2025 (published 07 November 2025; 525 respondents). It is not specific to delay or quantum experts.

   The minutes, the numbers of rounds, the overhead and the working week are our assumptions; the rates are as checked on 06 October 2026. Much of the time in a round is reading and replying, which takes place wherever the discussion is held. The cost in any matter depends on its volume of correspondence and the rates paid.

   Back to the text