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Anne-Marie is a Partner based at Weightmans’ Newcastle Office, who specialises in defending claims against a wide range of professionals. She has thirty years’ experience of advising both insurers and their insured professional clients in this field.

Anne-Marie is regularly instructed in claims against traditional professionals, such as architects, engineers, design and build contractors, approved inspectors, cladding designers, asbestos surveyors, building surveyors, solicitors and accountants.

She has also advised in relation to claims against emerging professions, such as, process servers, heritage consultants and recruitment consultants and has experience of  disciplinary and criminal proceedings and arbitration.

In addition to defending claims brought against professionals, Anne-Marie is regularly instructed by Insurers to advise on policy coverage matters.

Anne-Marie is again recommended by the Legal 500 as one of the Leading Individuals in the North and has for many years been recognised in Chambers and Partners as a highly ranked and recommended professional negligence lawyer. She has acquired a reputation for hard work, attention to detail and excellent client service delivery.

She is an accredited Mediator and has successfully conducted many mediations.

Notable cases

  • YJL Ltd v Jacobs One Limited [2017]EWHC 2625 (TCC) The court had to determine whether the terms of an oral agreement, by which an established construction company provided funding to a start up company and gave permission for its name to be used to enter into construction contracts, included an indemnity to the established company. Anne-Marie acted for the defendant in the claim being dismissed at trial with costs in favour of her client.
  • Williams Tarr Construction Ltd v Anthony Roylance Limited [2018] EWHC 2339 (TCC) Anne-Marie lead the team in successfully defending a claim at trial for breach of contract and breach of warranty against a chartered civil engineer for the defective design of a retaining wall. Although the Claimant construction company succeeded in demonstrating that it had engaged the engineer in his personal capacity to provide design services, it failed to demonstrate that the engineer had been engaged to design the retaining wall and so there could have been no breach.
  • Associated Newspapers Ltd v Buckingham Group Contracting Limited [2022] EWHC 2767 (TCC) Anne-Marie acted for the Defendant  in a £16million claim for breach of a construction contract where the court declined to approve the Claimant’s costs budget, finding it to be disproportionate. The budget included solicitors’ hourly rates that were significantly in excess of guideline rates, and although the Claimant was free to use expensive lawyers, its legal team would need to consider the extent to which work could be delegated to more junior fee earners.

Services:

  • Anne-Marie Knight regularly defends professionals coming from an array of industries, including surveyors, accountants and solicitors. She is particularly adept at handling construction-related professional indemnity matters.

    Chambers and Partners 2025

  • Anne-Marie Knight was tenacious on our behalf and a force to be reckoned with. We were glad to have representation who was confident and had authority, whilst still personable.

    Chambers and Partners 2025

  • Anne is good for anything technical and does not leave a stone unturned.

    Chambers and Partners 2025

  • Anne-Marie Knight is excellent. She is very reliable, straightforward and provides a proactive service.

    Chambers and Partners 2024

  • She is very good at putting clients at ease when they are facing professional negligence claims.

    Chambers and Partners 2024

  • Another stand-out partner is Anne-Marie Knight. I usually send Anne-Marie complicated construction professional negligence disputes. What I love about Anne-Marie is her ability to disarm any aggressive opponent with her calm composure. In difficult and sometimes heated disputes Anne-Marie is unrattled. I admire her common-sense approach and also her ability to build up a constructive rapport with opponents at the same time as maintaining a robust position. She gets results.

    Legal 500 2024

  • Anne-Marie is a very diligent lawyer.

    Chambers and Partners 2023

  • Particularly adept at handling construction- related professional indemnity matters.

    Chambers and Partners 2023

  • She really gets into the case and always has her own independent insights, she's excellent.

    Chambers and Partners 2022