ON THE LEVEL: Construction, punk rock? For Kroes, it’s all prep for a legal career

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Before becoming a lawyer, Bryan Kroes tried his hand not only at construction but also at being an activist and even a punk rocker.

All those experiences now influence his work at Hurtado Zimmerman.

“It has been a long and winding road,” Kroes says. “A lot of it is because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I thought, going to law school, every single area of the world has a need for that.”

In high school in his hometown of Racine, Kroes had considered practicing sound engineering. He loved punk rock and played in bands throughout college, but ultimately decided to study psychology and criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His interest in law school didn’t come until he was in late 20s. Not long after he had enrolled in classes, a friend asked if he’d want to work in construction. He agreed.

So for several years, while hitting the law books, he was also learning about what it takes to put a building together. He was enthralled by the work, which often entailed remodeling apartment buildings. He even started a small company with his wife to pay his school bills. 

When it came time to look for a job, Hurtado Zimmerman stood out. The firm practices mostly construction law but also has a small entertainment practice. Kroes is still playing music, mostly country these days — the “punk-rock retirement plan,” he calls it. 

He recent chatted with The Daily Reporter about his practice and his work with the construction industry. (This article has been edited for clarity and brevity.)

The Daily Reporter: How has your previous work in construction influenced your legal career? 

Kroes: It provided the foundation and the practical knowledge that I needed to be a construction attorney. Having been in construction before and doing the manual labor side of it, that allowed me to get the boots-on-the-ground experience that I needed to be a construction attorney. You can’t teach somebody how to talk the talk and understand the daily routine of construction in a law-school classroom. 

I feel like I would be at a significant disadvantage had I never built something before. Those things are easy to talk about in the abstract, but when it comes down to how projects work — the complex interrelationship between the different trades, for example — having that experience is crucial. 

TDR: What’s your sense of where the industry is headed? 

Kroes: We’ve hit a point where things are going up at rapid rates. Frankly, a lot of the contractors I represent say they’ve been having a hard time keeping up with it. There’s a labor shortage, too. That’s pretty widely understood.

It’s a great time to be a contractor because there’s business for everybody. Because there’s so  much happening, there’s always the potential for things to go wrong. As a contractor, you’re hiring folks that may not be as experienced, because of the labor shortage.

TDR: How does a period of economic growth present both legal opportunities and pitfalls for contractors?  

Kroes: Making sure you don’t bite off more than you can chew is important. There was a time when folks were hungry and they would take whatever came in the door because they needed to survive. A number of the folks I know are very careful. But it’s also a warning sign: Treat every project with the exact same meticulousness, because if you start cutting corners and you start hiring people who aren’t qualified, you may find yourself in some sort of litigation or arbitration. 

A lot of times it’s a matter of who can do the work. If you have a job understaffed or staffed improperly, you’re going to have a bunch of guys who are doing things incorrectly and you may have problems in the long run. I have seen projects where somebody was doing some work that they needed to do over. An architect catches it, or an engineer catches it, and you’ve got to tear it out. Now you’re eating into your own profit. 

TDR: What keeps you interested and engaged in construction?

Kroes: In this moment, there’s so much going on. There are so many innovations happening, you’ve got BIM (Building Information Modeling) that people can use to address conflict resolution in an architectural plan. There’s 3D planning. You’ve also gt 3D printing and manufactured homes.

There’s all these new innovations that are making construction easier, reducing the in-the field conflicts that you have.

What I would like to see is a situation where we have a lot more kids coming out of college going into the trades. I was a product of this generation where our parents were saying we want you to go get a four-year degree. Now we’ve got so many people with four-year degrees, that we don’t have people that know how to be masons. We need to have something where we get more people interested and involved in the trades at a younger age so that we can then populate that workforce. 

I know plenty of people my age and younger who are making a fantastic living in the trades. I’m sitting here with a fantastic amount of debt. We have to get beyond that stigma.  Follow @natebeck9