Construction Associate

Distinct | North America; Jacksonville (FL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Distinct Recruitment in Jacksonville, FL is partnering with a firm to hire a Construction Associate for its commercial litigation practice. The role centers on construction commercial litigation, not defense work on defects, with a focus on disputes surrounding contracts, liens and payment issues.

Ideal candidates have 3–5 years of litigation experience, strong academics, and excellent drafting ability to handle large, complex files with precision.

Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of litigation experience, with commercial or construction litigation strongly preferred.
• Strong academics.
• Excellent writing. A large share of the job is persuasive drafting.
• Someone who enjoys detail and can stay calm when a project file runs to thousands of pages.

Responsibilities

• Drafting pleadings, discovery, dispositive motions and briefs.
• Working closely with project documents, schedules and expert analysis to build the case.
• Client contact with construction businesses who want practical advice, not a lecture.
• Payment disputes between owners, general contractors and subcontractors.
• Delay, disruption and change order claims.
• Lien and bond claims.
• Contract interpretation and breach of contract litigation on commercial projects.

Skills

Litigation experience

Excellent writing

Attention to detail

Calm under pressure

Job description

Construction Associate | Jacksonville, FL | $140,000 to $200,000 | Construction Litigation (Commercial)

Construction disputes are rarely about concrete. They're about money, timing and who promised what to whom, usually buried in a contract that four different people interpreted four different ways.

If that sentence made you think of a delay claim you'd love to get your teeth into, this one is worth a read.

I'm Ryan Jaiswal at Distinct Recruitment, and I'm working with a firm in Jacksonville to find a Construction Associate for their commercial litigation practice. To be clear from the start: this is construction commercial litigation. It is not construction defect insurance defense. The work sits on the business side of the industry.

The kind of work you'd be doing

• Payment disputes between owners, general contractors and subcontractors
• Delay, disruption and change order claims
• Lien and bond claims
• Contract interpretation and breach of contract litigation on commercial projects
• Drafting pleadings, discovery, dispositive motions and briefs
• Working closely with project documents, schedules and expert analysis to build the case
• Client contact with construction businesses who want practical advice, not a lecture

Commercial construction work rewards a particular kind of brain. You need to read a contract like a lawyer and a schedule like a project manager, then explain both to a judge who has never set foot on a jobsite. Associates who get good at that become very valuable, very quickly.

What the firm is looking for

• 3 to 5 years of litigation experience, with commercial or construction litigation strongly preferred
• Strong academics
• Excellent writing. A large share of the job is persuasive drafting
• Someone who enjoys detail and can stay calm when a project file runs to thousands of pages

The salary

$140,000 to $200,000. The range is purposely broad, and there is flex for the right candidate if their experience warrants it. I'd rather talk to a strong associate at the edge of the range than lose them over a number on an ad.

Why this could be the right next step

Plenty of associates in their third to fifth year hit the same point. The work is fine, the firm is fine, but the matters have stopped teaching them anything new. Construction commercial litigation is one of the few areas where every project brings a different set of facts, parties and industry quirks. It keeps you sharp, and it builds a specialism that clients and firms both pay attention to.