Engineering investigations of buildings, bridges, and other constructed facilities that fail or do not perform as intended, rendering opinions as to the causes of failure or underperformance, and giving testimony in judicial proceedings are fields of professional practice often referred to as forensic engineering. Forensic engineering practices are also applied in circumstances involving defects, failures, and accidents involving manufactured products, consumer products, machinery, and vehicles of all types; however, this publication principally addresses forensic engineering for the civil/structural built environment. The Forensic Engineering Division (FED) of ASCE, formerly the Technical Council of Forensic Engineering, was established in 1985. Subsequently, the FED and its Task Committee on Guidelines for Failure Investigation was charged with developing an overview of the functions and responsibilities of a forensic engineer during a successful failure investigation. The task committee’s efforts resulted in the publication of Guidelines for Failure Investigation published in 1989 by ASCE. A companion document published by ASCE in 2012, Guidelines for Forensic Engineering Practice, Second Edition, describes aspects of forensic engineering not discussed in Guidelines for Failure Investigation, including standard of care, the legal forum, and ethical and business considerations.