Going to the Dark Side 5

[brane23]

I'm an engineer considering a career as an attorney. I like being an engineer and want to use the experience and knowledge to move forward in contract law and expert witnessing. Let's hear it.... any thoughts?

 

[KENAT]

I'd insist on it

 

[casseopeia]

I am an expert witness and consultant for construction defect litigation. I have known several attorneys who were also architects or engineers. Lawyering seems to win out over their technical side. Most of them use their technical expertise to evaluate their consultants, and I’m sure it comes in handy for interpreting reports.

I don’t know if I would necessarily characterize this as the dark side. I work primarily in class action lawsuits, generally on the defense. I am hired to defend contractors or subcontractors who are caught up in this system of class action lawsuits. They have not necessarily done anything wrong. Most have supplied what was specified and built to industry standard. But deals are cut between the opposing sides that never really rests on the facts. And it’s never fair. The deal is the result of the lawyering, not the technical argument. That’s the sleazy side, especially for someone technically astute.

I think of myself as just one tool in the lawyer’s bag. If the attorney has some technical expertise of his own then he is more adept at using me as one of his tools for beating the other side. If I am working with an attorney who lacks basic construction knowledge, the only thing I can do is provide the information and hope that he is not outgunned by the opposing counsel at a mediation or allocation conference. I love working with the engineer attorneys. I would suspect that they get better results for their clients as well.

Prior to this line of work I was an expert for the plaintiff, generally on building failures and construction accidents. The cases were more technically interesting, but there was a lot more emotion involved, especially on construction accidents where maiming or death had occurred. Arguments between attorneys were much more heated and I’m certain this has a negative emotional and physical effect on them, not to mention the effect the accident photos have on their consultants.

By contrast, construction defect law is much calmer. Insurance carriers cover the expenses for the most part and generally everyone stays rational.

I would go for the law degree. It’s a long haul, probably 2 years of school, clerking and working as a paralegal, passing the bar, then getting some experience under your belt. I would guess about 6 years and you would be ready to be lead counsel.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[controlnovice]

Damn, You had me scared by that title. I thought you were going to become a MANAGER!

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[brane23]

casseopeia - Thanks... I was getting slammed in this forum (just kidding)(sort of)(not really). How long did you work in industry before you went to law school? Did you obtain your PE? There is an evening program through Duquesne. I could continue working... I know one person who did this. Seems to be quite the challenge...

 

[csd72]

In law you just have to know, in engineering you have to understand!

When you sell your soul to the devil, there is no going back.

 

[casseopeia]

brane23,

I'm not an attorney. I am an architect working as an expert witness, as opposed to the design field. I need about 30 hours more schooling before I can get a PE. I just work with several attorneys who have enginering or archetctural degrees and I ask them what it has been like.

Yes, this will be a challenge. It is something you must have a passion for. I suspect you will find that out pretty soon after you begin law school. I'd try to get through the formal education portion as quickly as possible and then concentrate on your experience, and passing the bar. I support your idea. I think the world needs more attorneys with engineering minds. It might just fix the legal system a bit.

csd72 makes a good point. One of the most irritating aspects of my job is that I am constantly asked to tell someone why something has happened without ever being allowed a full evaluation. I ask for, and rarely get, the opportunity to do destructive testing or material science evaluations. That's because the legal theory is that if you find out what really happened, it could implicate the defendant. If you don't know, you can in good conscience, argue anything.

I know I'm discounting the moral implications of this work. That's something that does not come easy. Some of my co-workers find it impossible, in fact. csd72 is also on target about selling your soul, but then I've had my name emboidered on a crushed red velvet couch right next to Lucifer himslef for a long time, but I don't think it has anything to do with my job ;-)

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[KENAT]

Taken completely out of context but none the less...

the world needs more attorneys

Are you sure about that?

Just teasing, the thing that gets me is how many lawyers etc go on to be politicians. Perhaps what the world needs is more engineer politicians.

I actually found the law I had to study as part of my degree fairly interesting, and fairly easy, but it was only a very small amount and certainly didn't leave me wanting to be a lawyer.

 

[Ashereng]

I disagree. Bad engineers/lawyers know. Good engineers/lawyers understand.


The world needs more "good" attorneys, plumbers, framers, electricians, politicians, etc......

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[csd72]

Ashereng,

What is there to understand about law? Most of it has no logic, it just is!

 

[Ashereng]

csd72,

I am not sure how to answer you.

So, I guess I will just leave it.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Heckler]

Lawyers are only worthy when we need them to get our arse out of a sling whether it be personal or professional. Lawyers are experts in the field of Situational ethics.

I have a good friend that practices Tort Law and the stories he has told me it's no wonder lawyers have a bad image.

You don't need to be a lawyer to be an expert witness. You just need to be an expert in your field. In fact, I think you would be more credible without a law degree.

 

[SomptingGuy]

casseopia,

You say you need 30 more school hours before you can get your PE. From other Eng-Tips threads I have gathered that practising without a PE was illegal in (most of) the USA. I would have thought that being an expert witness would require PE certification to make your evidence valid.

I'm not knocking your post - most interesting. I'm just a bit more confused about the whole American PE thing than I was before I read it.

 

[prohammy]

Heckler,

'Lawyers are experts in the field of Situational ethics.'

Fantastic quote, but I do know that if you mention the word ethics near a lawyer one of two things will happen. Either the lawyer will start to sweat a lot, or pound (dollar) signs will roll down from the top of his/her eyes


Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[brane23]

I don't think that's in the US.. You get your accredited degree... take the FE... wait 3,000 years... take the PE. That's it.

 

[casseopeia]

SomptingGuy,

That only applies if it gets drawn, stamped and built. Any minor amount of engineering (mostly structural steel design) I’ve done here is reviewed by my boss, who is a licensed engineer. And evidence is evidence. It is no less ‘valid’ whether observed by a double PHD or by a homeowner who drives a garbage truck.

The bulk of my testimony is what I would call standard of care or construction technique. There is also a fair amount of contract law, or construction administration that gets included. My main areas of expertise are masonry, stucco, concrete, sealant, waterproofing, flashing, and industrial coatings. A general knowledge of structural engineering principals comes in handy, along with chemistry, and industrial hygiene for the mold claims.

My most recent testimony involved a log cabin where I had to talk about everything but the logs. That case hinged on the quality of the architectural drawings which were very poor versus the quality of the improvements to the residence which were actually quite good. There were other experts who were brought in including a young man whose family had been manufacturing log cabins for a very long time. He might have had a contractors license, but he was not an engineer nor an architect. But he knew log cabins, their history and their construction inside out. His family lived, ate and breathed log cabins. Similarly, I come from a family that has been in stone, brick and marble construction for generations.

There is no requirement for licenser as an expert here in the US. What you have to be is believable and generally unassailable by a competing expert. The attorneys will quickly go through your CV and pick it apart, but in the end, if you are firm in your convictions and good at explaining why you hold a particular opinion, the details of the CV are log forgotten by judge and jury.

One of the sweetest moments I had in a deposition is when the opposing counsel didn’t believe that my family actually sat around on Thanksgiving arguing the proper way to repoint large limestone panels, until I called my 68 year old Uncle and put him on a speaker phone and let the attorney talk to him directly. My Uncle not only backed up my story, but said I had won the family argument. Sometimes you just have to be a big blow-hard.



"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[Ashereng]

SomptingGuy,

I wasn't aware that you need to be a PE to be an expert witness.

You can be an expert in something, even without a degree.

In the US, from what I gather, most engineers actually "practice" without a PE.



"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[SomptingGuy]

"You can be an expert in something, even without a degree."

But surely the courts/juries would need credentials of your expertise? I simply assumed that US (state) courts would require proof of engineering expertise & experience in the form of bits of paper from appropriate bodies.

Not arguing, just interested. What makes an expert?

 

[Ashereng]

By all means, argue/debate/discuss. That is also what this forum is for.

Yes, degrees, credentials from associations, letters after your name, they all confer a certain "patina" of expertness. By the same token, we have all worked with or known people who have degrees, credentials, etc. that we consider "unknowledgeable" (check out Eng-Tips).

I am not sure what makes an expert. For myself, I think several things collectively would persuade me to believe someone is an expert.
- degrees (certainly)
- professional association (definitely)
- publications (books, research papers, etc)
- recognition by other people in that industy
- someone I know vouching for their expertness
- years of experience

If any one is missing, it probably doesn't make much difference. If too many things are missing, then I would be less inclined to believe the "expert" part.

An expert witness in a court of law would face the same issues to the judge and/or jury. Chances are, if one side has an "expert", the other side does too. So, how does one convice something that they are more "expert" than the other guy?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[swivel63]

have you guys ever seen "my cousin vinny?" marissa tomei's character was an "expert" in cars because everyone to her paternal great x 5 grandfather was a mechanic.

*shrug*

oh yea, i also thought about law school once.....but was never sure if i'd ever be able to use anything that i learned because i loved engineering too much.

 

[casseopeia]

I have obviously failed to communicate this concept. I’ll try a something different.

Say SomptingGuy owns a log cabin. He moves in and decides that his log cabin needs a drywall interior and elastomeric paint on the outside to change it’s color inside and out. Log cabins, being made of logs, will eventually turn to compost. You can just imagine this happening looking at fallen trees in the forest or in your yard. Log cabins actually settle a bit every year as the wood naturally decays. There is not much you can do to prevent this. But SomptingGuy decides he wants a different color, and not knowing anything about log cabins, proceeds to paint the outside a very dark brown and install drywall, with a vapor barrier, on the inside.

SomptingGuy has thus created a petrie dish for the logs to cook in their own juices, hastening their decay. Compare this to putting your fallen tree into a compost bin. The decay will be sped up by the heat and moisture retention.

SomptingGuy decides to sue. His first expert, Big Structural Man, PhD, PE, SE and whatever else you would like to tack on to his name, has NO experience whatsoever in log cabins, but he's published lots of structural papers and is generally recognized as an excellent engineer and scientist. He has never even seen a log cabin, nor lived in one, nor built one. At trial, the attorney goes through Big Structural Man’s CV and asks all the pertinent questions, but Big Structural Man has to admit that even though he carries a PE in every single State in the US, he has no direct experience with log cabins. In fact, when he talks about log cabins he hems and haws and generally sounds very unsure of himself. He is a good scientist, but as such, he must admit that he does not have direct experience, except for designing a cantilevered balcony for a friend's cabin in the Adirondacks.

Thinking through the above scenario, SomptingGuy decides to interview a 25 year old architectural candidate recommended by his attorney. Turns out, this young woman knows all about log cabins. Her family has made them for 5 generations. She grew up in one and helped her father build a bigger one when their family expanded. They keep tabs on all the industry happenings and go to all the trade shows. They discuss the family business at the dinner table. When she talks about log cabins, she is direct and sure of her information and facts. She presents this information very well since she has been doing trade shows since she was 11 years old. Not only that, but she is a regular person, without lofty credentials with whom a jury can identify. She describes the compost analogy and the non-engineers sitting in the jury box instantly understand.

That’s all they have to remember. SomptingGuy plaintiff turned his own log cabin into compost, just like we have in the yard. We’ll give him a little money to cover his legal fees, but he will be out of luck on that $5 million claim to replace his residence.

The courts/judge/lawyer have no say in you selection of your expert, other than the requirement to disclose their name and CV prior to trial. You decide which expert is best for your case as part of you legal strategy.

If you think the letters and publications will sway the jury best, use Big Structural Guy. If you think the jury will like the other expert better, use that one. I'm sure you've seen cases where it's just one expert pitted against the other. If it all came down to who has the longer CV, testimony would be unnecessary. Just measure the number of inches of typed credentials.



"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"