Article – Liability of ‘Delegated Design’ – Understanding and Avoiding Risks to Design Professionals

Recently Hall & Company hosted the webinar: Liability for ‘Delegated Design’ – Understanding and Avoiding Risks to Design Professionals.  We had such a huge response with questions and comments about how helpful the content was that we asked the speaker, Bill Thomas to provide an article on the subject.  Below is an except from this article:

1. What is “Delegated Design?” 

Delegated design is not a new concept in construction. Fire suppression systems and roof trusses are the classic example of an element that is generally a “design/build’ or delegated design element. However, more and more, manufacturers of certain construction products can design elements more efficiently and effectively than a generalist design professional. The manufacturers know their products, and will not “over-design” the necessary details…The design professional lead simply cannot design every detail of every component of every system. It would be impossible to keep up with all the changes and improvements made in these complex components. The Construction Specification Institute’s (CSI) Project Resource Manual refers to the delegation of design as “delegate[ing] technical design responsibilities to industry specialists