How quickly can you pick up a live file?

Once conflicts are cleared and the records land, I can normally start quickly: adjudication, the fast 28 day dispute process construction contracts must offer, sets tight timetables, and working to short notice is a normal part of this work. The honest constraints are the conflict check, never skipped, my current commitments, which I state plainly before you rely on me, and the state of your records, which governs the pace more than anything I control. What I will not do is take on a deadline that cannot be met properly, because a quantum built to look finished rather than be right costs you far more in the decision than it saved in the diary. If a timetable is too tight to do the figures justice, I say so at the outset so you can plan around it.

Say you ring on a Tuesday afternoon: an adjudication has just been served on a cladding subcontractor, and the response with a full valuation is due in seven days. I run the conflict check that evening, it comes back clear, and I confirm the week is free of clashing deadlines. The records arrive Wednesday morning, and because the applications and cost reports are reasonably complete I start pricing straight away rather than chasing paperwork. Had the file instead been a shoebox of loose invoices, I would have told you that Wednesday that a defensible valuation could not be built in the days left, so you could weigh a scope you could stand behind. That is the honest version of speed: fast when the conflicts are clear and the records are there, and straight with you when the diary and the file will not allow it.