Proctor in Admiralty

The Jury in the McDonald's Scalding Coffee Case awarded Punitives of $2.7 million...

Today's post is not about a maritime or transportation matter but is about an arbitration run amok. Law.com published a post today about a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge affirming a $4.1 billion arbitration award for wrongful termination.  (Jaw dropping, isn't it?) The article is essentially an interview with Michael D. Young, a partner at Alston & Bird and blogger who wrote about the extreme award on his firm's labor and employment blog.

It appears that the defendant company in the arbitration did not take the case seriously and did not understand the binding nature of this form of ADR.  Their unwillingness to participate fully and their subsequent bizarre behavior apparently indicated to the arbitrator that the defendant was not treating the case with more that a smidgen of gravitas:

The [retired] judge set the hearing for the arbitration, and the defendant wrote a letter to the arbitrator saying, "I'm not going to show up." When there wasn't any information forthcoming from the defendant, what the arbitrator did was look at what information was available about the financial situation of the company and applied adverse inferences against the defendant, essentially filling in the gaps in the story presuming it would come out in favor of the plaintiff. That was really where the numbers started to scale. 

It is a sober reminder to attorneys and an educational lesson for clients that alternative dispute resolution is just that, an alternative, and not something to be treated lightly. See the award here.

MLA - A Week in Review

I am just back from Maritime Law Association of the United States meetings in Washington DC last Tuesday and New York, Wednesday through Friday.  A couple of general observations and then a few specifics:

1. Almost every committee meeting seemed to include piracy on its agenda.  I did not attend the Fisheries Committee meeting but would not be supprised if they did likewise!  The Website and Technology Committee discussed some of the technologies used to combat pirates.  (Kevin O'Donovan, please send me the link to the information you presented so I can link to it here).

2. The main focus of the General Meeting on Friday morning was to debate the MLA's position on the final version of the so-called Rotterdam Rules.  For the uniformed, The Rotterdam Rules is the common name for the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, which does not have a good acronym.  These rules are designed to bring the law current with commercial practice and to help restore the concept of international comity with regard to maritime transportation.  The meeting began at 9am but debate on the Rules did not begin until after 11 so the crowd was really thinning out by the time the final votes on questions came up.

3.  I will be assuming the chair of the Website and Technology Committee and want to bring in new speakers and discussion topics.  Your thoguhts and suggestions are always welcome.

4. In an effort to gauge the technological savvy of maritime practitioners, I inquired of many members as to whether they use Twitter - most of them looked at me like I was a twit.  Check out this post from Carolyn Elefant as to whether lawyers should using Twitter and how.  In the meanwhile, I am searching out maritime related tweets and will post a list of maritime sources on Twitter later this week. 

Get Sourced. Get Quoted. Get Famous. www.helpareporter.com

You may have seen the title of this post on numerous social networks today as the founder of HARO (Help A Reporter Out), Peter Shankman requested help from his 70,000 members to get the word out today in honor of HARO's first birthday.

HARO is a 3 times per day listserv which sends out requests from reporters looking for sources for particular stories they are writing.  It is a great way to get quoted, often in national publications.  HARO is free, supported through small (often humorous) advertising that precedes the listings.  The subjects of expertise sought are wide ranging but recent listings including diverse transportation and logistics items such as 10+2 and port security.  Through HARO, I recently helped a reporter connect with my friends at Continental Airlines and Airplus concerning the corporate social responsibility trip I recently took to Nicaragua. (more on this to come in another off topic post).

I certainly recommend readers subscribe - you can always unsuscribe later if you find it cluttering your email box.

Monitoring Email Usage

I have been terribly delinquent in posting and I am trying to be better but there never seems to be the time - I am therefore renewing my offer to anyone who wishes to post on maritime law and technology - please let me know as I would be pleased to offer up some space here for guest bloggers.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking with my friend Irene Zanetos regarding my blog, and she sent me a link to an interesting article in Information Week magazine.  It surrounds the well known and often ignored fact that as we all type more and more emails, the amount of documentary evidence in any particular matter grows and grows.  The article discusses good document retention policies and tools/software for managing, archiving and locating email, plus the need to think before committing something in writing - something not enough of us do.

Thanks Irene for the heads-up and I will try to be better about posting more often!

Technology finds monster waves beyond estimates of computer models

Researchers aboard the RRS DISCOVERY experienced waves of up to 95 feet in height - the biggest waves ever recorded.  The scientists believe these waves are created by resonance where a storm builds energy into waves over the hours rather than by strong winds which are traditionally thought of the source for large waves.  You can read more about the findings of British National Oceanographic Center researchers aboard the RRS DISCOVERY here.

From an industry perspective, design of vessels able to withstand large waves may need to be reconsidered in the future   As a final note, waves of up to 95 feet give new meaning to so called heavy weather or force majure defenses.  It will be interesting to see the impact of this data on the maritime industry.

What happened to Equasis?

Update to post below: Equasis is back on line.  According to the US Coast Guard, Equasis was having a dispute with its hosting company.  It appears to be resolved and most importantly, Equasis is back online.  I also learned that the popularity of the service is growing all of the time.  I will try to get some statistics on this to report back.

What happened to Equasis, the online database of more that 7500 vessels around the world?  That is the question on the mind of many and I note the comments posted to my orignal entry on Equasis back in May, 2005.  That post is here. 

So far, I haven't been able to find out.  As many of you know, the website is down and they are not answering the telephone in the Equasis head office in Paris - I have called numerous times. 

I am trying to get an update from the US Coast Guard, one of the sponsors of the Equasis project and I will update all of you as soon as I have more information.

For those interested Equasis was an acronym for the European Quality Shipping Information System - I didn't know that until today!

Until more information is available,  if anyone knows of an alternate source of that great data available previously available on Equasis.org, please post a comment here. 

Legal tech, tips and training guru

My friend Adriana Linares is blogging about Legal Technology tips at I Heart Tech.  I have known Adriana since she consulted and trained at my old law firm, and helped bring us from a world of Wordperfect and Groupwise to the Microsoft Office suite.

She is smart, talented and cute - not to mention, she knows her way around a computer.

Her posts have included useful tidbits including, free software for syncing files across multiple computers - here and a free desktop viewing tool, here.

Add her feed, you will not be disappointed.

By the way, thanks to Tom Mighell at Inter Alia, for bringing Adriana's blog to my attention!

Defense of the Legal Profession

There was a very interesting Letter to the Editor in the October issue of the Georgia Bar Journal, the magazine of the State Bar of Georgia.  In the letter, attorney Alvin Leaphart defends against attacks on the legal profession and comments on the need that the world has for lawyers while simultaneously attacking the profession.  Leaphart summarizes stating:

If you want to be popular, be a doctor, a preacher, or the village idiot.  If you want to make a difference and walk a long, lonely road, be a good lawyer.

The letter appears on page 5 of the issue, accessible here.

New Mediation Blog

I saw my former partner Bobby Glenn, of Hunter Maclean at the Welcome Reception for the Maritime Law Association of the United States fall meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.  He advised that he had started An Advocate for Mediation, a blog devoted to mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.

Bobby is well suited to be blogging on this topic.  He has been heavily involved in the development of ADR usage and has served as the Chairman of the ADR committees of the State Bar of Georgia and the MLA.  He is often called upon to mediate complex cases and has developed an excellent reputation for getting the parties to resolution. 

I highly recommend checking out An Advocate for Mediation.

MLA Hurricane Katrina Message Boards

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Maritime Law Association of the United States (the "MLA")has set up two message boards on their website.  One is devoted to news of MLA members in affected areas and one with offers of assistance for those affected.   

If anyone knows how to repost the message board on this Blawg, please advise as I am happy to do  so.   If anyone wants to post information here regarding MLA members, offers of assistance or anything else of use to the maritime legal community dealing with this crisis, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone coping with this tragedy.

- Marc