Delivering Clarity Through Collaboration: How Multi Disciplinary Consulting Teams Strengthen Complex Damage Consulting
By Benjamin Irwin, PE, DFE, CXLT, Associate Vice President of Engineering, Principal Forensic Engineer
At Haag, our mission is to deliver independent, industry‑leading consulting services grounded in integrity, time‑tested expertise and practical experience. Today’s complex claims environment demands more than isolated technical opinions. Losses involving building failures, severe weather, fire, mechanical breakdowns, or construction disputes often requires multiple disciplines working together to uncover the full story.
Haag continues to evolve a consulting model centered on multi‑disciplinary teamwork that integrates expertise across:
- forensic engineering
- forensic architecture
- building consulting
- forensic meteorology / forensic weather consulting
- fire science forensics
- property loss consulting
- construction process consulting
- research and materials testing
- mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineering
- heavy, mobile, and fixed equipment evaluations
This coordinated approach provides clients with clear, comprehensive, and reliable conclusions for insurance claims, litigation cases, and expert witness consulting.
A Unified Approach to Forensic Consulting
Modern damage and failure challenges do not always fit neatly within a single discipline. Structural behavior, building envelope performance, mechanical systems, storm impacts, construction practices, fire dynamics, and materials science often intersect.
The Haag team brings together specialized experts from the start, replacing isolated opinions with a coordinated evaluation of the full scope of damage, regardless of the depth it leads to. This means a clearer, more complete technical evaluation and analysis that helps clients understand not just what happened, but why, as well as what to do next.
This is especially valuable in complex assignments involving property loss consulting, liability determinations, litigation support, and expert witness consulting, where the conclusions must stand up to technical and legal scrutiny. When experts collaborate and coordinate early in an investigation, they can:
- Evaluate structural, MEP, and building system behavior alongside environmental conditions
- Identify potential construction defects that may have contributed to the damage
- Align technical findings across damage extents, reparability scope and cost, and liability implications while causation conclusions are being finalized
- Provide clients with a unified, defensible explanation of the loss, as well as the next steps needing to be taken to return to the pre-loss condition.
Forensic Disciplines That Work Together on Large Losses
Haag’s multi‑disciplinary approach to consulting draws from several core service areas, which work seamlessly together on complex loss assignments.
Forensic Engineering and Failure Analysis
Our forensic engineers analyze failure mechanisms, structural behavior, building envelope performance, mechanical systems, equipment, and construction practices. These investigations often involve identifying the cause and origin of damage, including how structural or equipment failures develop over time or under specific conditions. This work often forms the technical foundation for insurance claims evaluations, dispute resolution, and expert witness consulting, when needed.
Building Consulting and Property Loss Evaluations
Haag’s building consulting services complement this work by documenting damage, and developing repair scopes, ROM estimates for repair and restoration planning, and defensible reporting that helps clients move claims forward. The goal of our building consultants is to help insurers, attorneys, and property owners understand the full extent of damage and the path to recovery. They play a key role in translating technical findings into practical repair strategies with cost considerations included.
Forensic Architecture and Premise Liability
When questions arise regarding design intent, code compliance, building use, or system performance, our forensic architects evaluate design documents, construction sequencing, code requirements, building systems, industry standards, and specialized waterproofing and roofing assemblies.
This experience is especially valuable in premise liability matters, where the condition, design, or maintenance of a structure is typically under review. By examining how a building was intended to function, compared to how it performed in service at a particular point in time, our team determines whether design, usage, or maintenance factors contributed to an incident or loss. These services can also include proactive consulting, in order to avoid future losses.
Forensic Weather Consulting
Weather and environmental conditions often play a critical role when evaluating the cause of damage. Haag’s forensic meteorologists provide scientifically grounded weather analyses, including hail, wind, tornado, temperature, snow, ice, and precipitation factors.
Their analysis is frequently paired with engineers and building consultants to determine how severe weather contributed to roof damage, structural failures, premises liability incidents, mechanical breakdowns, or other buildings system impacts.
Fire Forensics and Fire Investigation Services
When fire events occur, specialized analysis is required to determine the origin, cause, and impact. Our fire experts help determine how a fire started and how it affected the surrounding structures and systems. Depending on the extent of the fire, assignments are coordinated with engineers and building consultants to evaluate system damage, specialized equipment damage, and repair feasibility.
Materials Testing, Analysis, and Research
Supporting all of these disciplines is Haag’s accredited forensic and materials testing laboratory that offers independent testing of roofing systems, materials, components, and assemblies to verify field observations with scientific data. This data strengthens the technical conclusions presented in our reports and testimony.
GIS and Data Analytics and Visualization
Most cliché statements are just that because they are true…. pictures do speak louder than words. Geospatial analysis, drone imaging, data analytics, and 3D modeling help visualize and interpret how damage occurs and provide added visual context to complex scenarios not easily put into words. These tools support documentation, map storm impacts, and improve how findings are communicated to clients, attorneys, and jurors.
Together, these interconnected disciplines allow Haag to deliver comprehensive, multi‑angle evaluations that give clients a complete, defensible understanding of the technical aspect affecting their handling of their specific claims.
Consistent, Efficient, and Technically Strong Results
Alignment across disciplines is essential when multiple experts contribute to the same assignment or litigation case. Haag maintains unified technical standards, reporting practices, and a collaborative technical review process to promote clarity and reliability.
At the same time, coordinated workflows help streamline the entire forensic consulting process. By aligning teams early and maintaining communication throughout the assignment, Haag helps to reduce delays and improves overall assignment turnaround time.
For clients, that means clear communication and faster turnarounds without compromising thoroughness or technical depth.
A Client First Approach to Forensic Consulting
The guiding question engrained into the culture of our forensic consulting team is simple:
“Are we doing our very best for the client?”
A focus on service, quality and integrity defines our core values and drives the evolution of our team. Every enhancement, from integrated expertise deployment to quality assurance management, is designed so that clients receive:
- Accurate and complete technical evaluation results
- Defensible conclusions for technical questions affecting claim resolution and litigation case management
- Efficient turnaround times
- Clear communication throughout the assignment process
- A strong overall client service experience
For Haag, collaboration isn’t just an internal initiative — it’s a promise to our clients.
In an industry where accuracy, timeliness, and reliability matter more than ever, Haag’s multi‑disciplinary approach unifies our experts to provide clarity when and where it matters most, to the level of multi-disciplinary technical depth required.
Benjamin Irwin, PE, DFE, CXLT
With dual degrees in architecture and civil engineering from Lehigh University, and over 26 years of diverse professional experience, Mr. Benjamin Irwin provides a wide array of engineering, design, construction, and safety consulting and expert witness litigation support services. He is a registered Professional Engineer in 27 USA jurisdictions (PE), and one Canadian jurisdiction (P.Eng) and is recognized as a Model Law Engineer (MLE) by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). He is a Board-certified Senior Member of the National Academy of Forensic Engineers (NAFE), holding the designation of Diplomate Forensic Engineer (DFE). He has been qualified for, and testified within, state and Federal courts, with retentions from both plaintiffs and defendants, often offering visualization demonstratives in support of his testimony.
Mr. Irwin’s experience has included architecture, engineering, surveying, design, and construction of buildings, bridges, civil infrastructure projects, furniture, temporary structures, construction safeguards, and complex/specialty/hybrid structural systems. He routinely consults on large scale, complex, and/or multi-party assignments, some of which require a multi-disciplinary scientific investigation methodology. Mr. Irwin has also managed exploratory demolition programs and laboratory and onsite structural/building science pathology testing, including on structures, buildings, bridges, and components with unknown, historic, or legacy construction components and techniques. Learn more.
Any opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Haag, a Salas O’Brien Company or subsidiaries.
