I also did not understand the pride that my dad took in doing what seemed to me to be very strenuous and laborious work. He worked outside, exposed to the elements, and his work usually required him to bend over or spend long periods of time on his knees. My dad is now 79 years old, and some of that wear and tear on his body isn’t a good thing.

The extent of the danger he was exposed to became clear to me when I was a 20-year-old college student.

My dad took a bad fall in a form-collapse accident, and his injuries required surgery. It affected him the rest of his life. As he got older, he transitioned to union work and served as his union local’s business agent.

I had hopes and dreams of working in an office with a view in a tall skyscraper somewhere, wearing suits to work.

Yet at my first opportunity to choose my own career path, I found myself compulsively drawn to
law and everything I thought that would involve and then, oddly, to construction law.

When I did, I suddenly wanted to know much more about it to become more involved in it. As I studied the complexities of law, I finally understood my father’s love of the complexities and workings of construction projects and the pride he took in the contribution he has made to buildings all over the Northeast.

New Appreciation

I now appreciate construction, its ancient, foundational engineering concepts and the newly developed high-tech solutions. I love the complex relationships on the project teams involving owners, designers and contractors and the way the tradesmen and -women work with the materials. All must fit together for a successful project.

Families are complex, too. Something I enjoy is talking construction with my father. He always asks me about the projects that I am working on, and he loves it when I ask his opinion about something that may help me with a case.

I realize that no matter how technologically advanced the industry becomes, we still need people—skilled tradespeople like my father—to actually build. And now I’m proud to be involved in his world.

Gina M. Vitiello is a construction law and litigation attorney in the Atlanta office of Chamberlain Hrdlicka and a contributing author to the firm’s ">Construction and Green Building Law blog.