Expert Services
Our depth of in-house expertise means we can effectively manage your expert service matters across the entire construction and structural spectrum.
SJA is a leading provider of independent expert services, specialising in the provision of construction related expert witness services to owners, contractors, subcontractors and law firms for the purposes of litigation, arbitration, adjudication and mediation proceedings across all construction and infrastructure related sectors.
Our Expert Services team have assisted in the resolution of some of the largest construction related disputes in Australia and major disputes internationally. The expertise we bring comes from decades of hands-on experience delivering major building, construction and infrastructure projects.
SJA’s experts commit to the highest levels of integrity, quality, and objectivity, delivering detailed analyses in a clear and concise manner and are committed to supporting clients with accurate, unbiased opinions allowing them to objectively assess their position and ultimately achieve optimum results and outcomes.
SJA’s experts are adept and experienced in providing their evidence in the form of written reports and oral evidence under examination before the appointed dispute resolution tribunal in all jurisdictions across Australia and other alternate dispute resolution processes.
Our team provides these services in all states and territories of Australia, New Zealand and internationally.
Service Offering
Forensic assessment, reporting and expert witness services for matters relating to:
- Delay and disruption
- Delay cost quantum
- Quantum relating to variations and other claims
- Project delivery issue
- Defect inspections and reporting including the quantification of remediation works
- Structural engineering issues
- Hydraulic Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
- Electrical Engineering
- Fire Services Engineering
- Civil Engineering
Our Experts
Steve Abbott
CEO & Expert - delay, quantum, quality & process
With 42 years’ experience in the building, construction and engineering industries, Steve has provided expert services on some of the largest building, construction and engineering projects across Australia together with major projects in New Zealand, Macau, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the United Kingdom.
Steve is an accomplished construction expert specialising in the areas of forensic delay analysis, disruption analysis, quantum, quality of product and construction process / project delivery. He has provided expert witness services in relation to Arbitrations (including International Arbitrations), Expert Determinations, Mediations and has authored expert reports and testified in most legal jurisdictions including the Supreme Courts of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.
John Tasho
General manager & expert - quantum & commercial
John has more than 40 years’ experience in the commercial management of construction and engineering projects in Australian and International markets. As a skilled commercial practitioner, John has a successful record of managing the contractual aspects of major bids, negotiating and securing contracts and leading the commercial delivery of large projects in the infrastructure, engineering and building sectors. In addition to project procurement and delivery, John is experienced in the management, preparation and settlement of claims and disputes.
Rob Foster
GENERAL MANAGER & expert - delay
Rob is a project planning & programming professional with over 30 years’ experience providing innovative planning and scheduling advice for live projects and forensic analysis of delays and disruption in project delivery.
Ben Mackey
General Manager & expert - project management
Ben is an accomplished construction and property project director with a background in the engineering design of civil and building structures.
He has demonstrated expertise in the public and private sector, working nationally and internationally. He has led multiple business geographies in an executive role and acted as a responsible director and service assurance manager for all project management commissions within these business units.
Mark Lincoln
STATE MANAGER, VICTORIA & expert - delay & quantum
Mark has over 30 years of experience in the building, construction, engineering, rail, infrastructure and defence industries successfully providing commercial and contracts management direction and support in respect of a wide range of construction and service-based projects.
Mark has demonstrated success implementing operational and commercial project turnarounds, preparation and negotiation of claims (including insurance claims) and the resolution of disputes. He has also been involved in the preparation of or independently as appointed expert prepared expert reports in relation to time and quantum, to a variety of owners and contractors engaged in capital works programs located in Australia, Asia and Europe.
Steve Hulme
Regional Manager, QUEENSLAND & expert - delay
Steve is a construction project planning & programming professional with over 33 years’ experience providing innovative planning and scheduling advice for live projects and forensic analysis of delays and disruption in project delivery.
Steve is an accomplished adjudication dispute expert witness and has experience in most jurisdictions across Australia. He has prepared expert reports for Infrastructure, Healthcare, Hotel/Resort, Residential sectors and has worked on matters including construction of Dams in Regional Queensland, Highways in Western Australia, Resort refurbishment in the Whitsunday Islands, Water Treatment Plant in Brisbane and High-Rise Residential in Brisbane
Graham Hargrave
REGIONAL MANAGER, VICTORIA & expert - commercial & quantum
Graham has over 30 years’ experience in the building, construction, and engineering industries with extensive experience in various roles including quantity surveying and commercial management. Graham’s experience has been derived from projects delivered in the United Kingdom, Ireland, North Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. Graham assumed the role of lead commercial contracts manager responsible for leading large teams to deliver commercially compliant outcomes for numerous substantial and often complex building, commercial and infrastructure projects.
Graham has extensive experience in expert analysis and reporting on project matters relating to quantity surveying and cost planning, contract administration, variation account assessment and evaluation as well as the appraisal and quantum of claims for additional entitlements involving time and/or cost.
Tim Stevens
REGIONAL MANAGER, new south wales & expert -commercial & quantum
Tim is a professionally qualified commercial manager whose broad experienced has been gained over a 30-year career in the Australian and UK construction industries.
Tim has extensive experience in the commercial leadership, management and administration of large projects across a wide range of sectors including transport infrastructure, commercial, defence, education, health and retail.
Ben Marshall
REGIONAL MANAGER, new south wales, & expert - project management
Ben is a highly experienced senior project manager with 18+ years’ developer and client-side
Ben is a senior project management professional with 18+ years’ developer and client-side experience gained throughout the UK, the Middle East and Australia. Ben has an in-depth knowledge of the development and construction process through repeated exposure to the whole life cycle on a diverse range of projects, including large mixed-use, retail, commercial, education, residential and hospitality.
Ben has prepared expert reports for the public and private sectors with particular focus on defective works and procurement issues.
Scott Patten
Regional Manager, new zealand & expert - quantum & commerical
Scott is an RICS qualified Chartered Quantity Surveyor and Commercial Mediator with over 20 years’ experience in the engineering, defence and construction industries. He has a depth of expertise in all facets of contractual agreements, ranging from main contract to design and service agreements.
He has worked across multiple geographic locations including the United Kingdom. United Arab Emirates, Australia and New Zealand.
Scott has prepared expert reports across infrastructure, commercial, defence and mining sectors and has worked on matters including change control, risk management, insolvency, preparation/negotiation and resolution of disputes.
Tim Hoare
Senior Advisor & expert - Structural Engineering
Tim is a highly experienced Structural Engineer with over 26 years’ experience in the engineering and construction industries. He is an accomplished Structural Engineering expert in areas of design inadequacies and code non compliances, fabrication faults and construction defects.
Tim has provided expert witness services in relation to litigation and mediation and has authored expert reports in NSW and Victorian court systems and testified in NSW.
Maurice Bitar
senior advisor & expert - Structural Engineering
Maurice is an experienced Structural Engineer with over 23 years’ experience in the engineering and construction industries. He has extensive knowledge of the current standards and designs.
Maurice has been involved in many major structural projects in commercial, retail, defence, age care, and residential. He has extensive knowledge in design of reinforced concrete, post tension concrete, precast, structural steel, composite steel and masonry.
Maurice is chartered and registered on the National Engineers Register and an active member of the Institute of Engineers Australia. He is an experienced at preparing expert reports and is a testifying witness.
Karl Payne
Senior Advisor & expert - commercial & quantum
With more than 27 years’ experience in the building, construction and engineering Industries, Karl has worked in roles as a quantity surveyor and senior commercial management within some of the largest construction organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Karl has assisted with the preparation of expert reports for adjudication applications and responses involving both time and cost with contractor’s, subcontractor’s, and clients.
Jimmy Tiet
Senior Advisor & expert - commercial & quantum
Jimmy is an experienced and commercially astute construction professional. Over his 18-year career, Jimmy has successfully delivered commercial management expertise in the construction and delivery of major building, infrastructure and civil engineering projects across Australia.
Jimmy is skilled in providing commercial support and reporting for projects in building and infrastructure and has worked on matters including dispute resolution, adjudication, arbitrations and expert determinations.
Jeanne Zhang
Senior Advisor & expert - commercial & quantum
Jeanne has over 17 years’ experience in the commercial management and contract administration of construction projects. Jeanne has supported the delivery of many projects across a broad range of industry sectors across Australia.
Jeanne is skilled in providing commercial support, quantum analysis and reporting for projects in building, infrastructure, mining and civil sectors and has worked on matters including dispute resolution, adjudication, arbitrations and expert determinations.
Kevin Siggers
Senior Advisor & expert, commercial & quantum
Kevin has over 30 years’ experience in the building, construction and engineering industries with extensive experience in road and rail infrastructure projects. Kevin has played an instrumental role in many major projects in roles including quantity surveyor, managing quantity surveyor, program managing quantity surveyor, commercial manager and contracts manager.
Kevin has extensive experience in expert analysis and reporting for infrastructure projects and has worked on matters including authoring claims (EoT, Delay and Disruption, latent condition) and variations for major contractors, claim preparation, claim reviews and responses, dispute resolution process papers and responses on rail metro infrastructure.
Tim Sherwood
Senior Advisor & expert - Quality
Tim specialises in construction defects providing advisory services, performing building inspections and, where there are claims in relation to alleged construction defects, providing Independent expert reports under instructions from legal advisors retained by owners or contractors. With his industry experience and intimate knowledge of the BCA and its associated compliance requirements.
Tim has prepared many independent expert reports which have been used as evidence in legal proceedings. Tim is also an experienced testifying expert having provided oral evidence that has been examined before the New South Wales and Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunals. Tim has also prepared detailed expert reports in relation to large scale defect claims before the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
Matt Crosby
senior Advisor & Expert - Quality
Matt is a construction defects expert witness, with over 30 years of hands-on construction experience. Matt adds further depth to our Expert Services offering in the areas of defect inspection, reporting and remediation quantum.
Matt specialises in inspecting defective works, rectifications, and new construction. He is a licensed builder in New South Wales and Queensland as well as a licensed building inspector.
Luke De Gioia
senior Advisor & Expert - Hydraulic Engineering
Luke has over 30 years’ experience in the installation, design, documentation, project management and problem solving of hydraulic building services including; hydraulic services problem solving, complex plumbing systems, expert witness inspection & reporting, building and water auditing, due diligence, government project funding (ESD), condition reports, Australian Standards product testing and Australian Standards product testing code compilation.
Dominic De Gioia
senior Advisor & expert - Hydraulic Engineering
Dominic’s has over 30 years’ experience which stems from design, documentation and reporting of services over a broad range of projects. These projects include a diverse range of industry types including health care, defence, residential, industrial, and commercial applications.
With his background based in technical engineering, Dominic has a strong knowledge of materials and products relating to hydraulic and fire services. This knowledge, coupled with design experience, allows Dom a unique understanding of hydraulic and fire systems. It also allows him to provide practical and efficient designs and expert assessment reviews.
Conrad Oma
senior Advisor & expert - Hydraulic Engineering
Conrad brings 42 years’ experience, professionalism and knowledge in the hydraulics services Industry, construction, design and cost management. Conrad has extensive expertise in the field of Hydraulics Design and expertise in the field of specialist hydraulics services cost management. Conrad has a broad range of knowledge including consulting for education, correctional, residential, retail, hotel, industrial, health, recreation, airport, and commercial projects.
Conrad has been responsible for the initial project briefing, design and master planning of projects and has fulfilled the pivotal role in the design development stages of projects by coordinating with other engineering and design disciplines.
Tarek Kassab
senior advisor & expert - Electrical Engineering
Tarek is a Chartered Engineer with a breadth of experience across a range of projects including commercial, retail, residential, education, health, data centres and infrastructure spanning both public and private sectors.
Tarek has delivered projects across all sectors ranging in roles from design engineer to services lead. The projects delivered and overseen by Tarek range from fully documented jobs to large and complex design and construct (D&C) projects.
Shahab Shoaee
senior advisor & expert - Civil Engineering
Shahab is a Civil-Structural engineer with considerable experience in design and delivery of infrastructure projects. He has been involved in feasibility studies, conceptual and detailed design within a range of projects including urban developments, railways, oil and gas, petrochemical and mining industries.
Neil Fraser
senior advisor & expert - Fire Services Engineering
Neil has over 30 years’ experience providing fire engineering services to the property and construction industry, working on many large-scale projects for some of Australia’s most prominent developers and builders.
His experience includes and is not limited to providing; BCA assessment of existing fire services, recommendations for required upgrade works to satisfy BCA and Code requirements, due diligence, condition assessment, existing infrastructure assessment, master planning, expert witness assessments and capex estimates.
Dominic Xavier
senior advisor & expert - environmental engineering
Dominic has over 25 years’ experience working as a process and environmental engineering consultant/project manager in the areas of delivering ‘world’s best practice’ in sustainability in the built environment, manufacturing, mining. farming and defence.
He has experience in all aspects of engineering from design, project management and plant commissioning to construction supervision, maintenance and asset management. His sustainable development knowledge has been demonstrated in water and wastewater treatment, water auditing and demand management, waste management and sustainable development.
