Maritime Law Institute bridges industry, law interests

Charleston Business Journal > April 17, 2006 > News

By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer

A new institute at the Charleston School of Law is focused on the study and research of admiralty and maritime law, with an emphasis on laws involving intermodal and ocean transportation.

According to Richard Gershon, dean of the Charleston School of Law, the Charleston Maritime Law Institute is a collaborative effort involving students, professors and leading maritime lawyers and professionals from around the Southeast.

“The Charleston Maritime Law Institute will allow the law school to take advantage of a competitive advantage we have—the expertise of dozens of talented maritime lawyers in and around the area,” Gershon said.

“We bring people not only from the legal profession, but also from other parts of the maritime industry, such as shipping companies, harbor pilots and ports authority management, to show how the port is run and how it’s involved with commerce,” said Randall Bridwell, the institute’s director.

“The institute is run as one of the programs at the law school, and its purpose is to promote the maritime curriculum and to have seminars and programs that would inform people on many different aspects of the maritime industry, including the legal aspect,” said Bridwell.

The first seminar was held on March 24. Beginning in the fall, the institute will offer a series of courses on maritime practice specialties.

“By the time the law school reaches full accreditation, which will be in another three years, we hope to have a master of law program in maritime studies,” Bridwell said.

Besides promoting maritime legal studies and offering programs and seminars, the institute publishes a periodical bulletin on significant maritime issues.

The institute’s board of advisors is comprised of 22 members, including admiralty and maritime lawyers, law professors and industry experts.

“We envision the new institute as not only a critical teaching component for law students and lawyers interested in maritime ocean transportation law, but also as a forum for the maritime industry at large to discuss and debate critical issues of maritime and ocean shipping policies,” said Charleston attorney Gordon D. Schreck, who chairs the advisory board.

Schreck noted that as the fourth largest and one of the busiest container ports in the United States, Charleston is a center for maritime legal activity, but the institute will have a profound effect on making it a center for maritime legal learning as well.

“There’s an obvious synergy between the activities of the port and the law school and the institute,” said Schreck. “That the law school happens to be located in a port city gives it some particular advantages that it wouldn’t have were it located inland.”

The school went to some lengths to recruit non-lawyer industry leaders to serve as advisors, Schreck said.

“We anticipate those industry leaders will provide some additional hands-on resources for law students interested in pursuing studies in the field of ocean and transportation law,” he said.

“We want them to see firsthand what the container industry is all about.”

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Fathoming the depths of maritime law

Maritime law is a specialized area of federal law recognized by the U.S. Constitution. The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the federal district courts exclusive jurisdiction in admiralty and made the Supreme Court the ultimate arbiter of admiralty disputes, although a “saving clause” permitted state courts to hear some maritime actions.

“It’s one of the powers delegated to the federal government and federal courts because of its importance to commerce,” said Randall Bridwell, the Charleston Maritime Law Institute’s director. “Because maritime trade involves different states and different local governments, they didn’t want to leave those legal matters up to individual states and instead wanted to standardize the laws.”

Maritime law deals with all aspects of water-related incidents, from the liability of goods being shipped, to labor issues involving seamen, to recreational boating.

Admiralty and maritime law cases early in the nation’s history involved issues of piracy and slave trade. Some of the cases helped pave the way for the outlawing of slavery.

Contemporary maritime law is a mixture of ancient doctrines and new laws, both national and international. Traditional principles of admiralty are still in use, including marine insurance, general average and salvage. The welfare of the seaman, the ancient concept of “maintenance and cure,” is also still in use today.

The reason for the continuation of ancient principles of law is that the basic hazards of seafaring have not changed, although in the past few decades, naval architecture and cargo handling have changed significantly.

The extensive use of crude oil carriers has posed new hazards and questions of liability for oil pollution and damage to the marine ecology and the shorelines. Accidents such as the Amoco Cadiz in 1978 and the Exxon Valdez in 1989 ushered in new laws and court opinions.

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