“You can’t pass the buck. You’re the subject matter expert.”
For many lawyers, risk is something to analyze. For Rob Naudin, it is something leaders must act upon. Across nearly three decades in law, Rob has advised leaders facing decisions they could not afford to get wrong. As a Navy JAG officer, he sat alongside military commanders weighing operational risks in real time. As a prosecutor, he handled cases where preparation could determine whether someone lost a career or went to prison. In commercial litigation, he spent years unpacking disputes that often began with a single decision, a single conversation, or a single sentence buried in a contract. Today, as Associate General Counsel at Primoris Services Corporation, he helps business leaders navigate contracts, acquisitions, disputes, compliance, and growth. The settings have changed. The responsibility has not: understand the risks, provide judgment, and keep progress moving.
In every role, Rob worked alongside leaders who could not wait for certainty before making decisions. Whether the consequences involved military operations, criminal proceedings, or infrastructure projects, the challenge was the same: assess the risks, weigh the options, and chart a path.
Different missions
Like many law students, Rob worried about choosing the wrong path too early. The JAG Corps offered something few legal careers could: the chance to practice across multiple disciplines while serving a larger mission. “The military provides a very broad range of legal practice. Essentially, it is a very large law firm, with about 800 lawyers practicing environmental, military, criminal, and international law. While I was in the service, I practiced family law, commercial law, international law, and a good deal of the law of armed conflict.”
Before advising executives, litigants, and project leaders, Rob spent eight years in an environment that gave him early responsibility most young lawyers don’t see. It was a stage where many young lawyers are still finding their footing.
That variety of law the military offered proved valuable, but the experience that shaped him most was advising senior leaders during Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a young lieutenant serving as legal adviser to a naval task force commander, Rob found himself at the center of conversations where decisions carried immediate consequences. The lawyer was not there merely to explain the law. The lawyer was there to help leaders make decisions. “Leaders must make real-time decisions that have impact. I know that risk evaluation must be made by the lawyer, applying the law, the situation, and judgment. Sometimes, you must give your opinion, and you can’t pass the buck.”
What stayed with him wasn’t the military setting itself; it was the realization that leaders need judgment as much as legal knowledge. “A lot of lawyers will just say, ‘Well, it depends.’ But when your client asks you the question, they want your opinion. They need to know the risk, and they want your honest assessment.”
Years later, the questions sound different, but the challenge remains remarkably familiar. “When the CEO says, ‘What do you think?’ I have been in that situation before.” Decision-makers want advisers who can frame risk clearly, explain consequences, and guide them toward a confident decision.
Risk and reality
If military service taught Rob about responsibility, criminal law taught him about consequences. As both prosecutor and defense counsel, he handled cases where preparation was not a professional preference but a necessity. Cases involved real people, real outcomes, and little room for complacency. Success depended on preparation, communication, and the ability to adapt when situations did not fit neatly into established frameworks. “Preparation was extraordinarily important. If I did not do a good job, someone would face those consequences. Communication is key because there are no cookie-cutter cases. Each case must be taken seriously, and sometimes creativity plays a big part.”
Commercial litigation gave Rob a front-row seat to the long-term consequences of business decisions. By the time a dispute reached a courtroom, he was often looking back at choices made years earlier, contracts negotiated under pressure, project decisions that seemed reasonable at the time, or risks that were never fully understood until they became costly problems. That experience fundamentally changed how he thinks about legal value. “I can see contract problems very early on. I have had contracts we have taken to the supreme court, where if a single sentence had been changed years earlier, the case would never have gone to trial. You do your best to influence the decision-making process early and try to prevent unnecessary disputes.”
At Primoris, he operates upstream, helping leaders assess risk before it becomes litigation. Yet he is quick to point out that the goal is not to eliminate risk. The same lesson that applied to military operations applies to business growth. Leaders cannot make progress if every risk becomes a reason to stop. “Business leaders take a lot of risks every day because that is how business works. We cannot stop every conceivable risk. Any lawyer who tries to stop business leaders from taking risks is not doing their job. We must continue advancing intelligently and make informed decisions.”
The lesson he carried from the military and litigation is straightforward: risk is unavoidable, but unmanaged risk is not. Primoris operates across utility, energy, communications, industrial, and infrastructure markets, sectors where growth opportunities often require balancing commercial objectives against operational, contractual, and regulatory considerations. Rob’s role is not to remove uncertainty from those decisions. It is to help leaders understand it.
Trust creates influence
At Primoris, growth has brought a different challenge. As the company expands through acquisitions, legal’s role extends well beyond diligence and deal execution. Integration requires balancing the governance, reporting, and risk-management expectations of a public company while preserving the relationships, expertise, and operating models that made an acquired business attractive in the first place.
For Rob, that process begins with understanding the business before trying to change it. “We acquire businesses because they are valuable, and because we believe our synergies will add value to them. However, we cannot as lawyers force changes that would impact their value. My critical role is to always be of service.”
For all the discussion of risk, contracts, and acquisitions, Rob believes many in-house lawyers misunderstand where their value comes from. Legal knowledge may earn a seat at the table, but it doesn’t guarantee influence once someone has it. “Technical legal skill is just what I do in my role, but it is not how I get my team to connect or communicate with me. The key to being useful and valuable in my business is understanding everyone else’s role, their vernacular, and what everyone does.”
For Rob, understanding the business starts long before legal advice is needed. It begins with learning how other people do their jobs. “The easiest way to do that is to admit you do not know everything which is clearly the case. I will walk up to someone and say, ‘Hey, I am the lawyer here. Can you tell me what this means?’ People are happy to help. You learn more about the business, but more importantly you build a connection at the same time. They learn that you are approachable, and that is exactly where you want to be.”
The focus on learning extends beyond business relationships. It shapes how he now defines professional success. “Success for me now is getting a lot of fulfillment out of what I do. Not just learning things and keeping them but sharing what I learn and helping others grow. Mentorship is important to me.”
Although Rob joined Primoris with decades of experience spanning military service, criminal law, litigation, contracts, and risk management, he remains committed to understanding the business from the inside out. “Whenever you step into a new role, keep your eyes open and listen first. There is so much to learn.”
Even after nearly three decades in law, Rob has little interest in trying to be the smartest person in the room. “Paying it forward matters, whether working with younger lawyers, military personnel, or colleagues taking on new challenges.” For Rob, the most meaningful legacy is not the disputes he resolved or the contracts he negotiated; it’s the people who are better prepared because someone invested in their development.
Throughout his career, Rob has helped leaders navigate uncertainty, assess risk, and make consequential decisions. Today, he finds equal satisfaction in helping the next generation of legal minds develop the judgment and confidence to lead decisively.
Photos by Robb Williamson
