Caryl Shuham began her professional career as a civil engineer and “quickly learned” the quiet but isolated life of a cubicle dweller wasn't for her.

“I was too much of a 'people person' to do calculations and drafting on my own each day,” she said. “I decided to go to law school with the expectation of pursuing a legal career that would utilize my engineering background.”

During law school, she clerked for an attorney on a construction defect case, and she's been a construction lawyer ever since.

Shuham served as in-house counsel to the Kirlin Group, a large Southeastern regional mechanical contractor, for 25 years while maintaining a private practice.

She joined Fort Lauderdale-based Moss & Associates LLC as an associate general counsel in June 2014 and became corporate counsel in May.

With nine regional offices in the United States, Moss focuses on construction management for design-build projects and public-private partnerships. The company has developed a program to encourage women employees in construction roles traditionally dominated by men.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

 

How many lawyers and staff work in the company's in-house legal department? 

Our department consists of one paralegal, one administrative assistant and three attorneys (but note, I work part time, and Bruce Moldow, our general counsel, also serves as executive vice president and chief financial officer).

I had been working outside for Moss. They just had expanded so much, and they needed someone in-house.

 

What are the most challenging issues you've addressed at Moss? 

Moss builds for owners from many sectors: hospitality, housing, academia, alternative energy and many more. Also, Moss works virtually all over the U.S. and in the Caribbean. Each jurisdiction has unique laws that impact contract negotiations. Our sectoral and geographical diversity requires a broad understanding of the complexities involved in construction contracting for each project. The challenge is to ensure our contracts address those complexities in a way that is fair to both Moss and our business partners.

 

What's the most challenging contract you've worked on? What made it so? 

To build a project requires not only the construction contract with the project owner, but countless other agreements with suppliers, subcontractors, insurance companies, sureties, lenders, etc. The agreements with entities that are not engaged full time in construction tend to be the toughest ones as we aren't coming to the table with an understanding of the other's most important issues and sometimes don't speak the same “shop talk.” In those instances, we need to take extra time to ensure each of us understands the concerns of the other before finalizing a deal.

 

The construction field isn't known for high representation of women. Has gender been an issue in your work at Moss? Is anyone still shocked or surprised to deal with a woman lawyer for a contractor?

I have been involved in the construction industry since starting as a civil engineer over 30 years ago. The challenge then and today remains increasing the number of women engaged in construction field operations. In mid-2016, we started the Moss Women in Construction group. MWIC's goal is to make sure women entering construction know that Moss is the best place to work and thereby increase the number of women employed at Moss in nontraditional construction roles for women such as project management, superintendents, scheduling, safety and preconstruction. The senior management team at Moss is 100 percent behind MWIC's efforts, and it has been an honor to help get MWIC up and running.

Unlike construction field operations, construction support departments (including legal, accounting, marketing and risk management) are more gender-neutral. Many of our support departments at Moss are led by women, including finance and marketing.

It's a safe bet that the majority of construction lawyers in the U.S. are men, but the ranks of women construction lawyers are growing and many of the country's finest construction lawyers are women. At Moss, 2 out of 3 of our in-house attorneys are women who are certified in construction law by the Florida Bar.

 

How much does Moss use outside law firms, what areas are they used for, and how you go about picking outside firms for new matters?

We do a very high percentage of our legal work in-house. We rely on outside firms for the occasional litigation matter or if unique, complex issues arise where in-house expertise is not available.  We hire lawyers — not firms, and we look for individuals who have appropriate subject matter expertise, who are efficient and are fun to work with.

 

How is your work affected by the growing popularity of public-private partnerships? Does dealing with public agencies complicate contracts or other project provisions?

Moss is already building a number of P3 projects including military housing projects in Hawaii and low-income redevelopment projects across the country. We, along with the Hunt Companies, are actively pursuing a number of projects where our team can provide a fully integrated, one-stop solution (equity, financing, development, design, construction and operations and maintenance.) Whether the contract is more or less complicated than usual depends on the type of project and the governmental agency involved.

 

Do you have any advice for law school students seeking their path in law?

So often, a law student's vision of being an attorney is set in the courtroom. I tell students that, for me, the most interesting and rewarding legal work is that which keeps clients out of court. That's what I love about my job. A well-drafted, fair contract up front can truly serve to keep the parties out of court and have them looking forward to working on the next construction project together.