It's just money, I would say no, some of these engineer's (PhD whatever) can be a huge pain and drag a job out times 10-20X, Nah!
Plus NDA or not, if he gets hurt, your in a mess, because your insurance doesnt cover random PhD working in your shop.
you cant sign away liability with a waiver, talk to your lawyer.
I don´t get it.
If he buys your work, if he is there or not, you get paid, no ?
NDA == to someone paying for "work for hire".
It´s not someone looking for a wage and an insurance payoff, in other words.
Anyone can sue anyone for anything, even with no reason.
Any widget you make, someone potentially could sue you ..
But in most cases making widgets, most wont sue, and in most cases, most suits would not have any merit.
I do understand that in the US suits don´t routinely get tossed out so much, for not having any reasonable merit.
In Spain, in Finland, and in the EU in general lawsuits need to have a fairly good base of facts and a reasonable preponderance of merit // facts supporting them, or otherwise the law clerks, judges, or other parties lawyers (if even involved) will simply get them tossed out.
A private individual, without a lawyer, or a company director, even without a lawyer, can simply approach a judge after a suit has been served and point out that it has no merit.
I´ve done that successfully.
Pointing out that the company in question had no relevance to the issue, there were no contracts or bills or invoices or work done - just a nuisance suit.
Tossed out by the judge before any trial.
I´ve also done the same with a harrasment nuisance suit, basically designed to get a payoff, for someone who never did any work (was on 5 day free training) but wanted to get a payoff.
Tossed out by the judge - in trial.
Everyone, including my lawyer, wanted me to pay something, even a 1000$, to the other party, just before the trial.
The judge ruled, correctly, that there was no work done, no contracts were signed, and free training for a possible future job-offer did not constitute a labour relationship.
Here in the EU lawyers are not all that expensive, and there are no draconian penalties, unless serious fraud, or risk to life, or major fraud is involved.
Example:
I built an amusement park ride, once, with more than 3 m free height, qualifiyng it as potentially lethal.
This paid for my first serious industrial lathe.
The guy who came to inspect it, from the UK, qualified to work all across the EU, from the company who approves all UK parks, approved it first time.
He advised us, beforehand, on what we should have and do so that he could approve it. Free advice, just to help new startup people.
E.g.
My gearbox (underneath a platform) with wire transmission was not shielded, but was over 3 m in height.
I said that magic johnson could not jump that high - thus no shielding was necessary.
He agreed.
Likewise, because I built an inverse struss box, like a boat but supported on top via stressed-skin and not cross-members, that I built to support about 4000 kg, with a max load of less than 350 kg, it was more than the industry standard 10:1 safety margin required for potentially lethal devices/amusement park rides/etc.
He agreed.
Think of an old-style wooden rowboat, with ribs, but flat and about 4x4 m in size.
And double-skin.
Kind of like modern machine tools, lathes, vmc, that are stressed-skin structures.
2 layers of crossed plywood, 12 mm iirc, screwed on == 120 mm == 5" distance all across, about 3000 screws. On 2x4" beams that were there basically to hold the screws and support the deck of 3.5 x 3.5 m == 12 feet, supported at the edges only.
Any failure would have needed a large number of screws shearing off the double-deck plywood simultaneously.
Having 30 people of 100 kg each would not have broken the deck.
Only 4 at a time were allowed on deck, in operation.
My opinion on 3000 kg real max load, my experience, but my architect (consultant only, but who signed and certified the structure officially, registered at the local buildings registry), and the uk-based parks inspector agreed.
My point is that;
-done that, been there
-don´t worry too much about theoretical nuisance suits - get some insurance just in case. A little bit is not expensive. The client pays for it.
-no matter what, you could always be sued. Worrying won´t help
-if the client wants to help, and is an engineer, maybe put them to work ?
Most engineers are actually really smart and capable and eager.
They may not have all that much practical experience, although perhaps 50%++ do in scandinavia and spain, but someone smart and capable and eager is always useful.
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