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Sir Patrick Garland joined Chambers in 1954 from Cambridge
University, after pupillage with G D Lane (later Lord Chief
Justice). With Donald Keating he saw the dramatic expansion
of Chambers’ work from general common law, including crime and
divorce, to increasingly specialist construction work. His
Reported Cases chart the development of construction law from
Gloucester CC v Richardson [1969] 1
AC 480 in which he was led in the House of Lords by Donald Keating,
to his last appearance in the House of Lords before going on to the
Bench in
Pirelli v Oscar Faber
[1983] 2 AC 1. In between he appeared in the House of Lords,
leading Anthony May, in
Modern Engineering
v Gilbert-Ash [1974] AC 689, the case which re-established
the law of set-off, and in
Percy Bilton v
GLC [1982] 1 WLR 794.
As a junior, Patrick Garland’s many pupils included
Anthony May and John Dyson (both now Lords Justices of Appeal), and
Richard Fernyhough. He took silk in 1972, at the same time as
Donald Keating, and was appointed to the High Court Bench in 1985,
the first member of Chambers to be appointed to the High
Court. He remained a supporter of the Construction Bar,
having founded and become the first President of the Official
Referees’ Bar Association (ORBA, now TecBAR). He retired from the
Bench in 2002.