Ralph Dado Presents Legal-Engineering Framework for Preventing Catastrophic Events at American Society of Safety Professionals' (ASSP) Safety 2026 Conference
08.04.26
On June 15, Aronberg Goldgehn Member and Chair of the White Collar Investigations, Risk & Integrity practice group Ralph Dado served as an invited speaker at the American Society of Safety Professionals’ 65th annual Safety Conference & Expo in Anaheim, California. Dado presented to attendees in a session titled “Engineering, Law, and the Safety Ecosystem: A Unified Approach to Preventing Catastrophic Events.”
The session examined how catastrophic incidents frequently emerge from organizational blind spots, missed warning signals, deferred decisions, and breakdowns across technical, operational, and enterprise risk systems. Dado and co-presenter Michael Snyder, Vice President of Operational Risk Management at DEKRA Process Safety, used real-world case studies to explore how legal and engineering perspectives can be integrated to improve the identification, escalation, and management of high-consequence risks before an event occurs and to better prepare organizations for the regulatory, enforcement, governance, and litigation scrutiny that follows when prevention fails.
The presentation addressed principles of high-reliability organizations; the management of high-consequence, low-frequency risks; the role of recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices; and the importance of clear decision-making, accountability, and documentation. A central theme was that risk is not only managed pre-incident but ultimately reconstructed and judged after an incident.
“Ralph’s invitation to present at ASSP reflects the practical importance of this work for companies operating in complex and high-risk environments,” said Aronberg Goldgehn Co-Chair Sharon S. Zaban. “The decisions that shape a company’s safety, quality, and risk profile are often made long before an incident but then later examined through legal, regulatory, and enforcement lenses. The platform Ralph has built brings those perspectives together, integrates them with deep engineering expertise, and provides clients with a disciplined and legally informed way to identify consequential risks earlier and strengthen the systems used to manage them.”
Through the Safety & Risk practice within Aronberg’s White Collar Investigations, Risk & Integrity group, Dado advises companies on proactive risk management and organizational assessments, safety and quality architecture, crisis preparedness, and responses to catastrophic or potentially catastrophic events. The practice integrates legal, regulatory, enforcement, governance, engineering, and operational perspectives, often within a privileged framework.
