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How to Find a Maritime Lawyer Near Me
Admiralty law, which is also called maritime law, is related to actions, injuries or offenses that take place on navigable waters, which are bodies of water used for transportation or commerce. Maritime law encompasses a variety of areas of law including personal injury, products liability, worker’s compensation and commercial and contract law. When looking for a maritime lawyer, it is important to first identify the type of legal work or claim that you have and then choose a maritime lawyer that specializes in your specific area of law.
Identifying Your Maritime/Admiralty Claim
2.Decide whether your legal needs are related to your business. Maritime law regulates commercial practices related to shipping, navigation, or any other business practices that are related to work that is based on the operation of a ship. This could include hiring a charter boat for pleasure or entering into shipping contracts with a major shipping firm.
- If you are looking for a lawyer who drafts or reviews contracts, you should look for someone who has a specialty in maritime commercial and/or contract law.
- If your dispute is related to a breach of contract, i.e. someone failed to uphold his or her obligations under a written agreement related to shipping or commercial use of a boat, you will need a maritime lawyer who specializes in contract law and is an experienced trial lawyer.
3.Consider the source of your injury, if applicable. If you are injured while working on a boat or as a passenger, you may have a claim under maritime law related to personal injury. While these actions are similar to injury actions that happen on land, the actions are governed by separate bodies of laws and rules.
- Injury claims can occur from boating accidents.
- Negligent maintenance of a ship or boat.
- Actions can also be related to injuries caused by defective products, such as a jet ski malfunctioning. This area of law is known as products liability law.
- Seamen or other maritime workers may suffer an injury while working.
- So long as the person was legally allowed to be aboard the ship, and suffered an injury because of someone else’s negligence, that person may have a claim under maritime personal injury or products liability law.
- When choosing an attorney, you need to choose an experienced maritime trial lawyer that specializes in the applicable area of law, such as personal injury or products liability.
4.Recall whether you were working when injured. Maritime law has specific statutes that govern how to handle injuries to employees that occur during the course of that person’s employment. An employee who was injured while working because of his employer’s negligence may have a claim under the Jones Act. This federal law governs injuries that occurred in the course of a person’s employment while they were working on a vessel in navigation.
- Depending on whether you work as a seaman, longshoreman or on an oil platform, there are different laws that govern employee actions for injuries sustained while working.
- If you were injured during the course of your employment related to a boat or other maritime employment, it is important that you seek out a maritime lawyer that specializes in worker’s compensation cases.
Locating a Maritime Lawyer
2.Review maritime law firm rankings. Once you have identified a number of law firms that handle your specific type of maritime claim, you can look at online law firm rankings, such as those conducted by US News, to see which law firms in your area are well regarded.Choosing a high-ranking law firm may be especially important for large commercial cases, where a law firm’s reputation may assist in your negotiations.
- If you have a smaller claim or you have limited resources, it may not be in your best interest to select a large, high-ranking law firm to represent you.
- In these cases, rather than rely on rankings, you should contact state and local bar associations, maritime legal associations, and interview potential law firms and lawyers (as discussed below).
- Regardless of whether you are searching for an alternate sea legitimate specialty from the lawyer alluded to you, it very well might be valuable to contact that lawyer and request a reference to another person.
- Most lawyers have an organization of lawyers in isolated fortes to whom they allude cases.
Choosing a Maritime Lawyer
1.Survey the legal advisors’ accreditations. Whenever you have reduced the rundown of expected oceanic lawyers, you need to intently analyze their site and the singular lawyers’ accounts. You need to ensure that sea regulation is a huge piece of the attorney’s ordinary practice and not only one of numerous areas of regulation where the legal counselor handles cases. While inspecting individual lawyer histories, search for the accompanying:
- Does the lawyer list maritime law under his or her areas of practice?
- Does the lawyer list a specific maritime law specialty?
- Did the lawyer attend a law school with a strong maritime law program? There are several schools that are known for their maritime law specialty, including law schools at the University of Miami, Tulane University, and Louisiana State University.
- Did the lawyer get a specialization in maritime law? Some lawyers, particularly if they did not study maritime law may get a legal degree beyond their juris doctor (JD), known as an LLM. This is a master’s degree in a specific area of law, such as maritime law. While this is not required to practice maritime law, it can be one factor that you consider in choosing an attorney.
- Does the lawyer list past maritime cases that he or she handled successfully? Attorneys who are promoting an expertise in an area of law will sometimes list cases that they handled successfully on their website.
- When you make the appointment you should ask whether the attorney offers free consultations with prospective clients.
- If you are calling about a maritime-related personal injury case, the attorney should meet with you for free.
Read More-
- What is a Personal Accident Injury Lawsuit? wikipedia
- Scranton Personal Injury Lawyer Attorneys | Michael Pisanchyn
- San Antonio 18-Wheeler Accident Lawyer – The Law Offices of …
4.Meet with the attorney.Upon the arrival of your arrangement, you need to show up around 10 minutes ahead of schedule so you get an opportunity to assess the workplace and how the assistant treats you and different guests or guests. Ensure that you bring any reports, photographs, or other data pertinent to your likely case. Whenever you meet with the lawyer, think about posing the accompanying inquiries.
- How long have you practiced maritime law?
- Who is your typical client? You want to determine whether the attorney generally represents individuals or businesses similar to yours.
- On average, how many maritime cases do you handle a year? You should follow up on this question by asking, “what percentage of your overall practice is focused on maritime cases?”
- Ask whether the attorney handles maritime cases specific to your case, such as maritime personal injury, products liability or maritime contract law.
- With whom will I communicate about my case? Communication is an important part of the attorney-client relationship and you want to make sure that you will have access to your attorney when you have questions or concerns.
- Based on the information that I provided, what is the likely outcome of my case? An attorney cannot predict the outcome of your case. By asking this question, you are looking for an honest and open response from the lawyer.
5.Discuss the fee arrangement. During your underlying gathering with the lawyer, you ought to examine the expense of the case and the lawyer’s charges and expenses. Assuming a lawyer is exploring or drafting gets, the lawyer might demand that you pay a specific sum front and center to take care of the expense of charges and expenses. You ought to request that the lawyer detail the hourly rate for lawyers and others chipping away at the case and to furnish you with a gauge for the general cost of the case.
Is maritime law a good career?
How do you become a Marine lawyer?
What is governed by maritime law?
How much do maritime lawyers make UK?
Why should I study maritime law?
Who writes maritime law?
What do maritime lawyers earn?
| Job Title | Range | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Job Title:Attorney / Lawyer | Range:R137k – R465k (Estimated *) | Average:R249,260 |
