Harriet Di Francesco

Harriet’s practice spans Chambers’ specialisms including construction, engineering, professional negligence, procurement, adjudication and international arbitration.

Harriet accepts instructions for County Court and High Court proceedings both as junior and sole counsel. She was recently led by Vincent Moran QC in TCC proceedings concerning allegations of professional negligence against architects in relation to the design of a multi-million-pound development in the UK. She was also recently led by Richard Coplin in a multi-party TCC dispute concerning cladding at a mixed-used commercial and residential development in Greater Manchester. Harriet appears regularly in the County Court and High Court in her own right.

Harriet has experience in arbitration and accepts instructions from both international and domestic clients. She was recently sole counsel in a domestic arbitration concerning the determination of final accounts in relation to multiple construction projects across the UK as well as junior counsel in an international arbitration under the DIFC-LCIA Rules in which the contract was governed by UAE law. She is regularly instructed by international clients to advise in relation to ICC arbitration. Prior to joining Keating Chambers, she undertook a six-month traineeship at the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris where she drafted ICC Court documents and assisted with the scrutiny of ICC Awards.

In addition to litigation and arbitration, Harriet has a busy adjudication practice advising and acting as sole and junior counsel in both statutory and contractual adjudications. Most recently, Harriet successfully defended an adjudication on behalf of an employer in respect of a claim for additional fees brought by its professional consultant.

Harriet has experience with many major standard form contracts including the JCT, NEC, FIDIC, RIBA, CECA and MF/1 standard forms. She is an editor of Keating on JCT Contracts.

City University, BPTC, 2016-2017 BPP Law School, GDL, 2015 Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Bologna, Italy and Washington DC – MA International Relations, 2011-2013 University of Sheffield – BA History, 2008-2011