An expert's job

Syed Ali Dilawer talks about the responsibilities of an expert while preparing a delay claim.

An expert’s specific task in preparing or defending against a delay damage claim is dependent upon the agreement established by the counsel and the client as to the expert’s exact role.

In this regard, it must be clearly noted that any reports or conclusions developed by the expert must be fair to all sides, firmly grounded in the facts of the project, and derived from complete and proper reviews of appropriate project data.

Thus, for expert testimony to be of value it must reflect a fair and complete review of the project data and it must reflect analyses that take into account major and controlling delays of all parties on the project.

The byword for the expert role in preparing scheduling analyses must include fair and complete reviews of all relevant project data. The expert should not accept any engagement that requires ignoring or excluding the failings of the client.

Once the charter and role of the expert have been properly established, the process by which the expert prepares his/her report is typically organised into four broad phases: familiarisation, investigation and data gathering, fact finding and evaluation and presentation of reports and conclusions. Throughout all phases, it is important that the expert participate in periodic reviews with legal counsel.

The familiarisation phase: This phase is essential to effective interpretation and participation in a claim. In addition to providing the necessary overview of the project and an understanding of the claim theories and issues involved, it provides a sound basis for planning, organising and conducting the remaining phases with maximum efficiency. This phase includes two tasks:

1. Review of the project’s requirements: An initial understanding of the project is accomplished by thoroughly reviewing all contract documents, including the plans and specifications.

2. Review of overall submission with legal counsel: In situations where a defendant receives a delay and/or cost impact claim, it is additionally suggested that an independent and detailed review of the overall claim submission should be made in consultation with legal counsel.

The investigation and data-gathering phase: This phase is oriented toward identifying, collecting the specific data required to document original plans and actual performance in order to identify and confirm the problems and delays encountered.

This phase generally requires considerable time in the field offices of the project. The material gathered through the following tasks provides the base for the fact-finding and evaluation phase. Steps include: review of project records and chronological listing of claim issues.

Fact–finding and evaluation phase: The task associated with this phase are originated towards providing a clear understanding of the delays and issues identified and organising them into a comprehensive position. Effective co-ordination with legal counsel is particularly important to ensure that all findings are correlated with the legal plan. Strategic key tasks during this phase are:

Establishment of an as-planned schedule, detailed analysis of the project records, identification of data comparing actual and planned performance, researching claim issue.

Conclusion should include a determination of responsibility for delay, the quantification of the net time and cost impact associated with each delay and identification of its relationship to any other delays that occurred previously or are occurring concurrently.

Presentation of report and conclusion phase: The presentation phase activities will vary from project to project.

This ultimately depends on expert’s findings, conclusions, order of presentation, and procedures to be followed. Careful evaluation of the audience, to whom the previously developed information must be effectively communicated, is required to establish the most suitable, presentation techniques.

Close coordination with legal counsel is necessary to ensure that the presentation of claim is supportive. Many experts can discuss a case intelligently, but the expert’s ability to write a cohesive report in collaboration with the counsel is critical to the outcome of the case.