Preventative Law Series - Engineering contracts 101
Why does an engineer need to understand the law? Aren’t that what lawyers are for?
There are many possible answers to this question, but first and foremost, everything that an engineer does over the course of any project, large or small, is governed by the contract that was signed at the outset as much as the laws of mathematics and materials. As an engineer or engineering company, if you are going to be sued, one of the most likely reasons will be due to a ‘breach of contract’. Therefore, knowing your way around a contract and how to use it to best protect yourself, is key to managing liability and your professional reputation.
Principal, Sharpe & Abel
Melissa Kirby is a principal of Sharpe & Abel, Australia’s only specialist law and strategy firm for the industrial, engineering, and technical sectors. When you meet Melissa, you might not know that she has been a director and in house lawyer at Honeywell across Asia Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East regions, that she’s headed up the legal, regulatory and compliance department of a major Australian utility company or that she’s worked for some of the best English and US law firms in the world. Or that she also taught university for a while either. But what you will quickly know is that Melissa more than curious: from working with microbiologists who treat sewerage to tackling thorny problems on technically challenging sites, Melissa loves to don a pair of steel caps, roll up her sleeves and figure out how the law applies to some of the most complex sits on earth. Having advised clients through the Asian Financial Crisis, the Global Financial Crisis, the recent COVID-19 pandemic and every business cycle in between, Melissa considers her job well done when clients don’t end up in Court, are paid on time and in full and are growing and thriving in their business.
