Don't take the fall.

In the 1990s, you as a security professional will work more closely with lawyers and the law as the complexity of the security industry's legal affairs increases. As private security grows and professionalizes, understanding, evaluating, and managing legal affairs is essential, especially in terms of civil liability, health and safety, and employment law and regulation.

In the last few years an explosion in law has changed the rules of the private security game forever. One profound change has been the proliferation of malpractice lawsuitscivil liability litigation directed at businesspeople alleging that they have made mistakes on their jobs. Physicians, for example, have complained about the high cost of malpractice insurance and huge jury awards that threaten to put them out of business.

The last 15 years have seen an enormous increase in the liability exposure of police officers, whose jobs are similar to those in private security. Heavy malpractice litigation against private security is beginning, and you will see more of it for several reasons.

First, the industry is growing rapidly because the police can't cover all security needs, businesses realize security is necessary and cost-effective, and new hardware is making private security more effective. As private security increases, so do the chances for legal problems. The matter is simply one of numbers.

Second, people turn to litigation more frequently today than ever before. In the United States, suing people is the new national sport.

Third, security operations invite lawsuits. If an employee is hurt at work and you're in charge of safety, the injured party will naturally blame you for the accident you did not prevent. A shoplifting suspect unhappy about being stopped may try to make someone pay for his or her inconvenience. If thieves bypass an alarm a business relies on, the business quite understandably wonders why the prevention it paid for did not work.

Fourth, and unfortunately, to a large extent litigation is warranted. Private security is just now moving from semiskilled labor to professionals and is behind the times in getting its legal act together. When you hire convicted felons to work as security officers, provide them with no training and little supervision, and pay them minimum wage, is it any wonder customers blame you when something goes wrong?

The plaintiffs bar - lawyers who represent people who sue-is learning that private security is a lawsuit goldmine and that such suits win big dollars. Too many private security practitioners simply do not know what legal vulnerabilities they face, let alone how to minimize and manage their risks. They will pay for that ignorance in the 1990s.

What you are likely to get sued for depends largely on the nature of your business. Physical security vulnerabilities differ from those of executive security, and both of those differ from hardware sale and installation liabilities. However, legal action will increase surrounding the following:

Drugs. One of today's hottest workplace issues is drugs. People who use drugs at work cause accidents, perform shoddy work, abuse sick leave, and are vulnerable to theft and blackmail. In addition, the government is desperately trying to shift the responsibility for curing society of the drug menace to employers. For example, if you want to do business with the federal government, or with a company that does business with the federal government, you must guarantee your work force is drug-free.

Private security practitioners are usually partly responsible for workplace drug programs. You are bombarded with a remarkable number of bright and not so bright ideas on how to deal with this issue. You also see employers rushing in all directions at once trying to implement them.

You have drug testing, with employees urinating in bottles under a watchful eye. You have trained dogs sniffing lockers and desks. You have undercover operatives spying on employees, building dossiers, and reporting rumors about employees' personal lives. Such efforts can be legitimate, legal, and useful. Certainly the goal is worthy.

Such activities are a radical change in workplace operations in this country, however. Unless you set up and implement drug operations carefully, you risk serious liability vulnerability, not to mention genuine unfairness to innocent employees.

The 1990s will see significant legal developments in workplace drug policies. Malpractice litigation will focus on procedures and safeguards. Labormanagement contracts will incorporate new rules on drug suppression. Privacy laws will be changed as drug investigations proliferate.

Training and hiring. The days of the minimum-wage security employee are just about over. As private security professionalizes, its practitioners must be of higher quality, responsibility, and intelligence. Companies will be held legally responsible for inappropriate employee actions. Employees' mistakes will cost you money. In addition, your reputation will suffer, costing you future business.

The 1990s will bring greater emphasis on selecting appropriate employees and training them effectively. The question is no longer whether to screen and train employees but how to do so legally and effectively. If you knew or should have known that an employee was incapable, dishonest, or otherwise inappropriate, you'll be in the legal doghouse if something goes wrong. Thus, you'll have to learn how much applicant screening and employee training is necessary and which techniques are legal and effective.

Appropriate screening and training costs time and money. Neither you nor your customers can afford to cut corners on hiring and training. In the long run, it's cheaper to do it right at the outset. Legally you have little choice.

Safety. People are becoming less tolerant about on-site injuries and health hazards, from simple slip-and-fall cases to subtle environmental hazards such as exposure to toxic chemicals, secondhand smoke, and video display terminal stress. You must begin identifying, containing, and rectifying health and safety dangers at the workplace.

You will also have to learn how to handle complicated environmental and engineering dangers and structure security operations to comply with applicable regulations. If you don't or if you do it wrong, the law may hold you responsible for resulting injuries.

Employment law. One of the fastest growing issues in law is employeremployee relations. Multimilliondollar sexual harassment suits at work and radical changes in civil rights laws in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions are well-known. Employers have a legal responsibility to provide a workplace that complies with relevant employment laws. AW'S INTRUSION INTO SECURITY IS both expected and manageable. Dealing with complex legal issues is simply one price of success and professionalization. Fortunately, there is help. The most important, especially for civil liability, is prevention. Keeping out of trouble is cheaper and easier than getting out of it. Security professionals can profitably spend time, energy, and money to avoid legal difficulties.

Prevention's benefits are obvious. Prevention is, after all, an essential part of security. Security professionals already have the necessary mind-set, which provides a real head start in reducing legal vulnerabilities.

Developing a program to prevent liability is similar to other prevention activities. Identifying vulnerabilities, evaluating risks, and selecting and implementing viable risk reduction programs will help prevent civil liability.

One of the first things you assess is the risks. If you must provide site security, you study the physical plant to determine vulnerabilities. For example, where are the gates, roads, or paths kids use as shortcuts to school or the playground? Is the fence intended to keep people out or objects in? What kinds of people and objects? Are locks intended to prevent unauthorized daytime entries by industrial spies or to stop nighttime burglars?

Risk identification and evaluation is similar when the objective is to prevent legal problems. You need to know what is likely to trigger a lawsuit. Which of your business operations creates situations that may result in lawsuits?

If you manage security officers, your potential for negligence in hiring, training, or supervising is different from that of a sole practitioner security consultant. The first step in identifying your legal concerns is to ask a simple question: What do I do in my business that can make people unhappy? Happy people don't bring lawsuits.

If you remove trespassers or detain shoplifters, you can be sure some of them are going to be unhappy. If a facility is burglarized even after you install locks, lights, and alarms, the owner will surely have questions. In each case, you have identified an area of potential civil liability.

What are other businesses similar to yours being sued for and why? What is the standard of competence for your kind of operation? What statutory, regulatory, or case law requirements apply to each part of your business? How do you measure up?

After you identify particular legal concerns, you can evaluate whether you have potential problems, and if so, how serious they are. This helps you decide the best use of resources. Security professionals perform similar evaluations every day.

For example, you can put bars on 12th-story windows to prevent burglars from breaking in by lowering themselves from helicopters. However, doing so is an unwise way to spend scarce resources. Similarly, if you identify a potential legal vulnerability, but the chances of liability are low, you should concentrate on other areas with greater real risk.

The next step in preventing liability is determining how to reduce risks in worthy areas. Since you can't eliminate all risks and you don't have unlimited resources, you must get the most bang for your prevention buck. You must not only focus on true vulnerabilities but also apply prevention methods that have a real chance of making a difference.

For example, occasional accidents will happen if you operate a fleet of motor vehicles. To reduce the risks of civil liability, you keep vehicles in good mechanical condition. You can train operators and reinforce that training by not letting employees drive if they can't do it safely. You can monitor operators' driving habits, investigate accidents, and establish and enforce regulations about safe driving.

But you can only do so much before you reach a point where anything else you do has little significant preventive effect. You must accept a certain amount of risk as inevitable. Concentrate your time and money on programs that work and make a difference.

While specific legal needs vary, general risk reduction techniques apply across the board. The first and most important is training. Training is a simple example of the old knowledge is power" maxim. Gathering knowledge is the first and most important step in preventing and dealing with problems.

Both security managers and employees need training. Managers need to know how civil liability law works, what the legal requirements of their business are, and how to fulfill those requirements without compromising profitability or efficiency. If you expect employees to do something, you have a legal obligation to be sure they know how to do it right.

If you send an employee out without adequate training, you are begging to be sued. The bottom line on training is that most civil liability lawsuits are successful because a private security practitioner did something wrong. In the overwhelming majority of those cases practitioners did something wrong because they didn't know better.

Not just any training will do. Training for its own sake wastes time and money. Training should be tailored to an operation's needs and enable managers and employees to improve job performance. Training's value does not lie in course length or the exam grade. Its only true measure is whether it results in improved operations. Good training is sometimes expensive, but it's the cheapest civil liability insurance you can buy.

A second legal risk reduction technique involves paperwork. Employee manuals, policy statements, standard operating procedures, performance evaluation forms, hiring applications, operational reports, and contracts with customers are evidence. An old trial lawyer's rule states that if one person says something, it might be true; if two people say it, it's probably true; but if anybody wrote it down, it's gospel.

What you write down, if it's wrong, can hang you in civil liability court. What you don't write down, if you should have, can also hang you. But if your paperwork is right and complete, it can insulate you from civil liability.

A serious risk reduction program requires looking at every document that relates to an operation. Each should be accurate, complete, and consistent with the others. None should be obsolete or promise anything you don't intend to do or can't fulfill. And none should contain anything prohibited by law. Application forms, for example, should not ask prohibited questions about age, marital status, or arrest records.

In addition, you should review your paperwork to ensure it documents information you might need to prove later. Think in terms of evidence. If you need to prove it, write it down.

New and more sophisticated legal issues will crop up in the security industry in the 1990s. As a security manager, you will benefit from establishing a close working relationship with a lawyer who knows your business and its legal needs and risks and who can work with you to meet requirements, minimize vulnerabilities, and solve problems.

Specialization and dedication are valuable in your profession. You will need-and have the right to expect the same sort of professional expertise and dedication from the legal professionals who help you manage your business.

As legal issues become more extensive and sophisticated, you have to deal with lawyers. You should find good lawyers who will help you, who will make the effort to understand security, and who will work with you to prevent and solve problems.

Regulation is another topic that will require attention in the 1990s. Today, security is largely unregulated. Licenses are required in only a few areas, and licensing is often routine and not vigorously enforced. Few government standards for the quality of security and almost no formal oversight of operations exist.

The seeds of change are already planted, however. You can see the signs in cases where security practitioners are held liable for negligence in hiring, training, supervising, and operations. The occasional high-publicity use-offorce case has caused legitimate public concern about just who is protecting whom and from what.

Government investigations have highlighted problems within the industry and suggested regulation as the cure. Whether by legislation or other means, formal, standardized procedures and enforceable performance regulations are inevitable.

Security professionals can't afford to sit back, watch, and wait for regulation. If you do, you risk having legislators and bureaucrats who know little about the realities of security impose regulations that make no sense and with which you cannot comply.

Security professionals must act. To do this, the industry must become an organized political force, with the ability to monitor regulatory developments, influence political action, and help prepare and implement regulations that affect the way it does business.

Government affairs will become more important to the security industry in the 1990s. You will have to become more sophisticated in several fringe areas of law, such as becoming politically active, lobbying, negotiating with the bureaucracy, obtaining licenses and permits, and drafting regulations and legislation. If you don't, you risk losing control of your own destiny.

The brave new world of the 1990s will include many legal challenges for private security. Civil liability prevention and defense will be a critical aspect of your day-to-day affairs. Security's scope will expand to include new responsibilities and opportunities in employment law and workplace safety. You can expect to spend time, effort, and money on legal affairs, but with planning you can manage them efficiently and effectively.