Forensic engineers apply their engineering expertise to legal matters, including civil and criminal cases, patent disputes, and product liability cases. They investigate failures of engineered products and may be employed by government agencies or companies specializing in forensic engineering.
A forensic engineer is an engineer who applies his engineering expertise to forensic topics. Forensic engineers often work with civil cases involving products that do not perform as expected, but they may also be involved in criminal cases and may be called upon to investigate patent disputes and other legal matters that require the involvement of an experienced engineer. A typical forensic engineer has at least a bachelor’s degree in engineering and may also have a degree or two.
In a classic example of how forensic engineering can be applied, after a bridge failure, a city government might call in an engineer to find out how and why the bridge failed and who might be responsible. Lawyers and public safety agencies may also use forensic engineers in product liability cases and in other situations where the failure of an engineered product has caused an undesirable result. In patent claim investigations, forensic engineers can examine the product being patented and determine whether it is genuine.
In criminal cases, a forensic engineer can talk about various engineering-related conditions that are relevant to the case. If, for example, someone is accused of filing someone else’s brake lines with the intent of causing them to break, causing the brakes to fail, a forensic engineer could speak generally about how brakes work and what techniques can be used to make them fail, and he or she could examine actual physical evidence to see what happened and whether or not the case is valid.
Engineering can also become relevant in more abstract ways, from a defendant’s claims that are designed to provide an alibi that can be refuted by an engineer, to examining homemade weapons to determine how they were designed, what level of expertise would be needed to make them, and how well they would have worked. Forensic engineers work in the lab and field, relying on a variety of tools and skills to do their work.
In some cases, a forensic engineer may be employed by a government agency, such as a police force. Others work for companies that specialize in forensic engineering or for companies that make products like cars that require a lot of engineering expertise to make their products safe. Others may work as professors or instructors, serving as forensic engineering consultants on the side.
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