Our profession is learning that the consequence of an undefined risk management plan is the painful and costly process of defending yourself against a professional liability claim or lawsuit. The larger firms in our profession are exposed to a greater amount of risk and can find themselves dealing with one or more claims on a continuing basis. They are asking for help in avoiding those claims because the last thing they need is a new suit. But it isn’t just the large firms that can use help.
While there is no single effort that can protect you from claims, the prevention of any one claim can easily justify the investment of a small part of your manpower resources. So as a benefit of Coalition of American Structural Engineers (CASE) membership, its Toolkit Committee is providing some tools to assist in the process of designing and building a risk management program that can be tailored to your firm’s culture.

Here are examples of how the first two tools might manage your risks and possibly prevent a claim or lawsuit.

Tool 1-1 Culture: Create a culture of managing risks and preventing claims
The first tool has to do with the creation of a culture of managing risks and preventing claims. There once was a small structural firm that was experiencing repeated professional liability claims. In the process of defending these claims it became obvious that not only were there many things that were not being done properly in the preparation of construction documents, but there was an absence of professional responsibility in the attitude of the principal. He had created a culture that emphasized making money, riding around in his sports car to meet clients, and going to project sites while leaving design responsibility to an engineering graduate of only two years. The young engineer left the firm out of fear of the consequences of operating this way.

Just as in this firm, your firm has a culture already. Hopefully it does not match the one described. Your firm’s and every firm’s culture has been formed by the acts and words of the people of influence in the firm and by the other people that are acting or reacting to those influences. The key to implementing Tool 1-1 is refocusing the firm’s culture toward risk management.

Tool 1-1 attempts to assist firms in recognizing the need for risk management; and then commits to do something about it. The tool provides stories of claims having various outcomes, options for either group role playing or story board exercises, and sample risk management commitment statements. The tool provides the structure for the managers to interact with other staff members to create an awareness of the consequences of claims and lawsuits and then to "buy into" a commitment to act on improving the firm’s risk management procedures.

The younger engineers and the non-engineering staff in your office may not be aware of the responsibility that is taken on by the firm when a design is submitted for construction. They also may not know that if the design does not meet the standard of care in the industry and damages result from the design, there can not only be monetary costs, but emotional distress, damage to personal and firm reputations, loss of future work, and even worse, injury or death to others.

Once these consequences are understood, only those in denial or the most callous would not agree to improve the risk management culture of your firm.

Tool 2-1 Prevention & Proactivity: Act with preventive techniques, don’t just react
Tool 2-1 is a highly effective tool that leads the user to focus on the risks involved in each project, and once recognized, provides advice as to how to manage those risks. A software program allows you to evaluate the risks using check boxes to answer questions about the project, your client, the owner/contractor, and your firm’s ability to do the project. Based on the answers given, the software responds with suggested action items to implement at various phases of the project development.
One project that my firm was considering contained so many risks that it was uncertain as to whether we should pursue it. We had never worked for the architectural client; we were not experienced in the structural systems for either the superstructure or the foundation; the site required great depths of engineered fill over much of the 10 building sites; and we had never worked for the owner/developer, who had recently declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After using Tool 2-1 we found that there were many things that could be done to reduce, shift, eliminate, or mitigate the risks involved.

Every phase of the project was altered to compensate for the risks being taken. The scope, definition, contract, fee, construction documents, and construction services were modified to suit the existing conditions. The project was not only taken on, but was successfully completed with no structural extras except for the sealing of one shrinkage crack in a post-tensioned mat foundation.

Had we not used this tool for risk management, I am convinced that some of those risks would have become claims or suits. Consider "completing the checklist: five minutes; making adjustments to mitigate the risks: several hours; the time and money saved: priceless."

To use these tools, your firm must belong to CASE. However, you may test one of the tools, free of charge. Go to the RMP website to see a description of the tools and choose the one that you would like to try. Then e-mail the vice chairman of the Toolkit Committee, Cory Matsuoka at cmatsuoka@ssfm.com and request the tool that you have chosen to try. We hope that you enjoy and benefit from the tool. Should you want to join CASE and have access to all of the tools, visit the CASE website at www.acec.org/coalitions/CASE/index.cfm and click on "Membership—Join Now!".


The Risk Management Program (RMP) is organized as a program of the American Council of Engineering Companies’ (ACEC) Coalition of American Structural Engineers (CASE). The group’s mission is to enhance risk management, loss prevention, and claims management techniques of the structural engineering profession. To learn more, visit www.acec.org/RMP.

Douglas N. Elliott, P.E., has recently retired as the president of Elliott-LeBoeuf & Associates in Springfield, Va. He also recently stepped down as a member of the CASE Executive Committee and as chairman of the RMP Toolkit Committee.