[Long Island, NY State, USA] Lawyers who have hired/coordinated with forensic engineers/PEs for reports, affidavits, and expert testimony: how would you recommend a homeowner evaluate an engineer to support potential litigation? | discoverkit

discoverkit · 2025-09-19T15:17:27.000Z

Location: Long Island, NY State, USA For quick context: Our neighbor built a non-permitted 6+ ft tall retaining wall on a steep slope before we moved in, multiple feet over the boundary line and partially on our property. That wall is sinking/tilting/failing (the footing is now split 4+ inches; I can stick my fist through it), and pulling our conjoined walls with it and damaging our deck. We've tried to solve this amicably and shown them the damage; but they aren't doing anything about it and are actively making the situation worse by applying surcharges (increased weight) to the wall. **Please note that there is no adverse possession claim here; we took care of that before we bought the house.** Unfortunately, our only recourse is to sue (we can't just alert the municipality because the wall is partially on our property, and the municipality may decide we are responsible for that portion and serve us a violation and order of removal). We've spoken with a lawyer with experience litigating cases like this, and his suggestion was to first get an evaluation and report from a licensed engineer covering the reasons the wall is failing, what a potential repair could look like (and if one is even feasible), and to document the damage to our property and attribute the likely cause to the neighbor's failing wall (if in their professional opinion the engineer agrees with this assessment). Unfortunately, the person he has used before is too busy and can't take this on. We've started to get quotes from PEs/SEs now (sole practitioners and large firms). All the SEs we've spoken to have forensic and expert witness experience, are licensed, and they all seem like really nice, upstanding people, and all say they can do this work and have done this work before, so I'm wondering how I should choose? So far, I understand this would be desirable: **1 / Experience in our area; with our Township, courts, and soil conditions** 2 / **Price** for first report, but also the affidavit to get a lawsuit off the ground, and then expert witness testimony following. Big firms with dedicated forensic teams are up to 5x as expensive for the first report as sole proprietorships. 3 / **Availability/capacity** to serve as an expert witness if the neighbors do decide to litigate after they have been served. i.e., we won't be left with just the initial report and then be left hanging for the court case 4 / **Anything else? Any blindspots** I'm not considering? Anything I need to specifically write into a contract to be included in the report? One final note: in my mind, as a layperson DIYer with some common sense, the issues with the wall and the damage it is causing are obvious, so I struggle to see why a qualified sole proprietor's report which may be 95% of the way to perfect would not be 'good enough'; vs a large firm's report that is 5x as costly but may be 97% of the way to perfect; if that makes sense. The incremental benefit doesn't seem to outweight the cost; and I don't think would make a difference in a mostly binary outcome (i.e., successful or unsuccessful litigation); but I'm open to the possibility I'm wrong! Thank you for any help and advice; this is such a crazy situation and I can't believe we have to do this vs the neighbors just voluntarily deloading the area to prevent further damage to our property.

[Long Island, NY State, USA] Lawyers who have hired/coordinated with forensic engineers/PEs for reports, affidavits, and expert testimony: how would you recommend a homeowner evaluate an engineer to support potential litigation? | discoverkit | discoverkit