NAVIGATING RISK IN CONSTRUCTION, INSURANCE AND PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Rona Evans has always been drawn to a challenge. For the Cox Yeats partner, something is compelling about taking a complex problem apart, understanding how each element fits together and identifying exactly where things have gone wrong.
It is an instinct that has ultimately shaped a career at the intersection of construction, insurance and dispute resolution, where technical evidence, commercial realities and legal questions frequently collide. “I have always been drawn to solving complex problems, understanding how things fit together and where they come apart,” says Evans.
She studied a Bachelor of Commerce with Economics and Law at the University of Cape Town before completing her postgraduate LLB, a combination she says continues to influence the way she approaches legal problems today. But construction and insurance law were not part of a carefully mapped career plan.
Finding a Specialisation
Evans joined Cox Yeats as a candidate legal practitioner in 2019 as part of the firm’s dispute resolution team specialising in construction. It was there that she was introduced to technical disputes involving structural failures, engineering evidence and questions of responsibility when major projects go wrong.
“I loved the investigation involved in these technical disputes, especially where I could help the client diagnose the issue and pick up on things they may have missed,” she says. “The more I did, the more I realised this was where I wanted to build my career.” Insurance and professional indemnity work followed naturally.
When a building collapses or infrastructure fails, determining what happened is only the beginning. Questions quickly arise around professional responsibility, contractual risk and whether the relevant insurance policies respond. Evans found herself increasingly advising insurers and contractors on coverage disputes, liability investigations and the relationship between construction contracts and insurance policies. “It’s demanding, technical work, and I love it.”
Where Law Meets Engineering
What particularly appeals to Evans is that construction and insurance disputes rarely present a neat legal question. They can involve contractors, developers, engineers, architects, insurers and other professionals, often supported by extensive technical evidence and with significant commercial consequences. Her task is to make sense of that complexity.
“I enjoy the intellectual challenge of unravelling a technically dense set of facts and translating them into a clear, compelling legal strategy,” she says.
Professional indemnity claims within the built environment are a particular area of interest. When something goes wrong on a project, there may be a chain of accountability extending from contractors to design professionals and ultimately to insurers. Establishing where liability actually lies requires more than simply identifying that a failure occurred.
For Evans, it requires both legal precision and commercial pragmatism. That approach has seen her involved in significant and technically complex disputes in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa. Among them is litigation arising from the devastating 2022 floods in Umdloti, KwaZulu-Natal, involving claims by property owners following extensive flood damage. The litigation involves geotechnical and engineering evidence relating to stormwater management, temporary works and causation, as well as questions concerning the responsibilities of developers, contractors and the local municipality.
Her experience also extends to multimillion-euro product recall and professional indemnity claims, Covid-19 business interruption insurance disputes and a construction insurance coverage dispute arising from the failure of a temporary berm on a major harbour project.
Understanding More Than the Law
Technical curiosity is central to the way Evans practises. She believes that lawyers working in specialist areas cannot effectively advise clients without making the effort to understand the industries in which those clients operate.
“I don’t just want to understand the legal issues; I want to understand the industries and the technicalities at the heart of the claims, the engineering, project dynamics and the commercial pressures my clients face.”
That can mean getting to grips with how something was designed and built, why it failed and what the engineering evidence demonstrates. At the same time, she keeps the client’s broader commercial position in view. “Disputes don’t exist in a vacuum,” she says. “They arise in the context of ongoing projects, client relationships, insurance programmes and financial pressures.” Her aim is therefore not simply to provide advice that is legally correct, but to develop solutions that clients can practically implement within their businesses.
Reliability matters just as much. Large, document-heavy disputes involving multiple experts and parties require considerable organisation, particularly when deadlines are tight. “I pride myself on managing complex mandates with precision and ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks,” she says. “It is important to me that my clients know I am reliable and available to them, whenever they may need advice, and that they can trust me to be their problem solver.”
A Changing Risk Landscape
One of the issues Evans believes deserves greater attention is professional accountability in South Africa’s built environment. Recent structural failures have increased public scrutiny of engineers, architects, contractors and other professionals involved in construction projects. At the same time, climate risk, ageing or inadequate infrastructure and increasingly complex projects are changing the environment in which those professionals operate.
Evans believes an important distinction can sometimes be lost when failures occur.
“Not every failure on a project is necessarily professional negligence,” she says. Determining professional liability requires careful consideration of the professional’s scope of appointment, the applicable standard of care, causation, expert evidence and the responsibilities of the various participants in the project. The question is particularly relevant as South Africa strengthens its focus on construction safety and accountability following major structural failures.
But Evans also sees another issue emerging: how climate change may alter expectations of built-environment professionals. As floods, storms and other extreme weather events become an increasingly prominent risk, the relationship between engineering judgement, resilient design and insurable risk is becoming more complicated. “As climate knowledge changes, does the standard of reasonable professional skill and care change with it?”
It raises difficult questions. When is compliance with a minimum design standard sufficient? How should foreseeability be assessed? And where should responsibility lie when exceptional weather, municipal infrastructure and design decisions all contribute to a loss?
For insurers, construction professionals and their advisers, these are questions likely to become increasingly important.
Choosing the Difficult Work
Evans’ own progression has reinforced her belief that careers do not necessarily need to follow a predetermined path. Her advice to young women entering law is to be intentional about what they want from their careers, while remaining open to opportunities they may not have anticipated. “Be intentional about your career, but don’t be afraid to let it evolve,” she says.
She encourages young professionals to surround themselves with people whose standards challenge them, and not to avoid demanding work simply because they do not yet feel ready for it.
“The matters that stretched me the most were the ones that built my reputation. Don’t shy away from technically complex or high-pressure mandates. That’s where you learn, and that’s where you prove yourself.”
Her own progression to partnership came from actively seeking greater responsibility, delivering consistently and being willing to take on challenges before she necessarily felt completely ready.
For women pursuing careers in specialist and technical areas of law, she believes that willingness to step forward is particularly important. “The path is there, and it’s getting wider. I’d encourage any young woman considering law to pursue it with confidence and determination.”
Going the Distance
Outside the office, Evans has found another challenge that reflects many of the qualities she brings to her legal career: long-distance running. Nearly two years ago, she set herself the goal of running a marathon, despite genuinely questioning whether she could do it. The experience taught her a lesson that now extends well beyond running. “You can achieve anything you put your mind to, with hard work, perseverance and determination.” Running also provides an important counterbalance to an intense legal practice. It is where she thinks, resets and finds clarity.
Perhaps more importantly, it has reinforced the value of community. Evans points to South Africa’s growing running communities and the camaraderie that comes from people choosing to undertake something difficult together. “There is something special about the shared understanding that everyone out there is choosing to do something difficult,” she says. For Evans, there is a clear parallel with professional life: surround yourself with people who share your values, challenge you and understand what it takes to keep going when the work gets difficult.
Whether she is working through the evidence behind a structural failure or preparing for the kilometres ahead, the principle remains much the same: embrace the challenge, understand what lies in front of you and keep moving forward.
