General Counsel & Senior Trial Attorney
About Restoration Doctor
Restoration Doctor is a fast-growing retail water damage mitigation and restoration contractor serving Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Florida. We work directly with residential property and commercial property owners and managers — handling emergency dry-outs, large-loss reconstructions, and complex multi-trade restorations. We are a multi-state operator with significant scale and an active portfolio of insurance and collections matters.
This is the legal pillar of our next phase of growth.
POSITION SUMMARY
You will be Restoration Doctor's first in-house attorney — owning the legal function end-to-end while **personally litigating our cases and trying them to verdict in Fairfax County, Virginia**. Approximately **60% of the role is active litigation and trial work**; the remaining **40% is traditional general counsel duties** (contracts, compliance, employment, vendor, M&A diligence, and enterprise risk).
This is a hands-on trial seat, not a litigation-management role. You will carry the docket, draft the pleadings, take and defend the depositions, argue the motions, and **try the cases in front of the judge or jury yourself.** Outside counsel is used sparingly and only where bar admission, conflict, or capacity requires it.
The strategic mission of this role is to litigate every contract and collections matter in Fairfax County. Every customer agreement we sign — Work Authorization, Direction to Pay, MSA — contains a Virginia choice-of-law and Fairfax County forum-selection clause. Your job is to exercise that leverage every single time: pulling defendants into our home venue, defeating challenges to the clause, and consolidating our entire docket at one bench where we hold the calendar advantage.
You will report directly to the Owner/Operator and partner closely with the General Manager and Lead Estimator on case strategy.
WHAT YOU WILL LITIGATE
THE FAIRFAX STRATEGY. Every Restoration Doctor customer contract includes a Virginia choice-of-law and Fairfax County forum-selection clause — and the core objective of this role is to **bring every contract defendant into Fairfax County General District Court and Circuit Court, regardless of where they live or where the property sits. You will aggressively enforce that clause: filing motions to dismiss or transfer when defendants try to litigate elsewhere, defeating challenges to the clause, and consolidating our entire docket at one bench. The narrow carve-outs — mechanic's liens (statutorily venue-locked to the property), out-of-state garnishments, and tort claims outside the contract — are handled by local counsel under your direction. **You spend your courtroom time in Fairfax.
Our legal strategy is focused exclusively on the parties who sign our contracts — property owners, HOAs, and commercial counterparties. We do not litigate against insurance carriers, TPAs, or third-party reviewers; that's outside the scope of this role. Whatever happens between a homeowner and their carrier is between them — our claim runs against the property owner under the executed Work Authorization, Direction to Pay, or MSA.
- Collections actions against property owners: Warrants in Debt (Virginia GDC, Form DC-402) brought in Fairfax County under our contractual forum clauses; mechanic's lien perfection and foreclosure in VA, MD, and DC (statutorily venue-locked to property location)
- Defensive matters: motions to compel forum-selection, defeating challenges to our contracts, and defending counterclaims raised by property owners we are pursuing
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES
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LITIGATION & TRIALS (~60%)
- Enforce the Fairfax County forum-selection clause in every contract dispute — file motions to dismiss or transfer where defendants sue elsewhere, defeat challenges to the clause's enforceability, and consolidate the docket at the Fairfax County courthouse
- Try our cases. Serve as first-chair trial counsel of record in every matter we take to verdict — opening, direct, cross, exhibits, closing, jury and bench — in **Fairfax County GDC and Circuit Court**. The narrow MD and DC carve-outs (liens, garnishments, tort matters tied to out-of-state properties) are handled by local counsel under your direction
- Carry a portfolio of nearly 100 active matters at any given time; expect a high-volume Fairfax County trial calendar (GDC Warrants in Debt frequently proceed to bench trial; Circuit Court collections matters take 2–5 to verdict per year)
- Draft and argue all pleadings, motions, dispositive briefs, and trial filings
- Conduct and defend depositions; prepare all company witnesses (PMs, estimators, crew leads, ownership)
- Build trial strategy, exhibit lists, witness orders, jury instructions, and verdict forms in-house
- Negotiate settlements and pursue mediation or arbitration where strategically appropriate — but be prepared to try every case rather than settle from a position of weakness
- Engage and direct outside counsel only where bar admission, conflict, or trial-calendar capacity requires it
GENERAL COUNSEL (~40%)
- Draft and negotiate commercial contracts: Commercial MSAs, subcontractor agreements, vendor and software contracts, insurance referral agreements, and e-sign Work Authorizations
- Modernize standard customer documents (Work Authorization, AOB, Direction to Pay) for enforceability in VA, MD, and DC
- Advise on regulatory matters: DPOR / state contractor licensing, IICRC standards, OSHA, EPA RRP, and state insurance practices
- Employment counsel: hiring, separations, handbook, wage / hour, and W-2 vs. 1099 classification for field crews
- Lien-law strategy: perfecting and prioritizing mechanic's liens in three jurisdictions
- Build playbooks, templates, and AI-augmented workflows to scale the legal function efficiently
STRATEGIC PARTNER
- Sit on the leadership team; advise on M&A, financing, real estate, and expansion to new states
- Conduct quarterly enterprise-risk reviews with ownership
- Partner with operations and engineering to embed legal review into our estimating and collections software
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
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- Juris Doctor from an ABA-accredited law school
- Active bar membership in the Commonwealth of Virginia is required at hire
- 7+ years of post-bar litigation experience, with substantial first-chair trial time in state court
- Demonstrated experience trying cases to verdict — not just settling them
- Direct experience in at least one of: high-volume contractor or trade collections, mechanic's liens, property / construction plaintiff-side litigation, or consumer-debt enforcement
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
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- Prior experience as a plaintiff-side construction or trade collections attorney, contractor / restoration in-house counsel, mechanic's lien specialty practice, or high-volume Fairfax GDC / Warrant in Debt practitioner
- Familiarity with the property restoration industry (IICRC S500 / S520, Xactimate, ESX files, NIOSH equipment standards)
- Experience building or scaling a small legal department from scratch
WHO THIS ROLE IS FOR
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You will thrive here if you:
- Want ownership of the legal function from day one rather than a partner-track grind
- Genuinely enjoy courtroom work and are demonstrably good at it
- Value building deep judicial and clerk relationships at one primary bench (Fairfax County) rather than perpetual multi-jurisdiction travel
- Are operationally minded and willing to embed with ops, estimating, and collections teams
- Want to build, not maintain
- View AI as a force-multiplier, not a threat
This role is not a fit if you:
- Are a purely transactional attorney who wants to outsource all litigation
- Prefer to manage litigation rather than personally try cases
- Want a 9-to-5 with no business responsibility outside legal
- Are uncomfortable taking aggressive plaintiff-side positions against non-paying property owners
WORKING CONDITIONS
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- Location: Hybrid — Vienna, VA office (Tysons area) 2–3 days/week; remote balance
- Travel: The strategic objective is to litigate **every contract and collections matter in Fairfax County General District and Circuit Court** under our forum-selection clause. Out-of-state appearances are limited to lien filings, out-of-state garnishments, and tort matters not bound by the clause — most can be handled by local counsel under your direction. Occasional travel to job sites for inspections, expert preparation, and depositions
- Schedule: Standard business hours with court-calendar variability; trial weeks require commensurate hours
- Reports to: Steve Jafari, Owner / Operator
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
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- Base salary: $190,000 – $240,000 (commensurate with experience and bar status at hire)
- Quarterly performance bonus tied to litigation outcomes, collections recovery, and company performance
- CLE budget and Virginia bar dues paid
- Malpractice insurance
- PTO and paid holidays
HOW TO APPLY
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Submit your resume, cover letter, and one representative writing sample (motion, brief, or appellate filing) to:
[email protected]
In your cover letter, please briefly address:
1. Your most recent jury or bench trial and the outcome
2. Your current bar admissions
3. Why an operating-company, in-house role appeals to you over firm life
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Restoration Doctor is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
VA Water Damage LLC DBA Restoration Doctor
8609 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 110 #1062, Vienna, VA 22182
1-888-293-5663 | restorationdoctors.com
