Best Lawyers Near You in New Orleans, Louisiana for Admiralty and Maritime Law
Admiralty and maritime law in New Orleans reflects the city’s central role in river, port and Gulf Coast commerce. Lawyers in this field handle litigation and advisory work involving vessel collisions, maritime personal injury claims, cargo loss, offshore operations, insurance disputes and marine contracts. Their practices also include transactional matters, such as vessel sales, shipyard agreements, charter drafting and maritime finance. Given New Orleans’ proximity to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, attorneys regularly engage with federal agencies, including the United States Coast Guard, Federal Maritime Commission and U.S. Department of Labor, operating within both federal admiralty jurisdiction and Louisiana’s unique civil law framework.
Why Best Lawyers Recognition Matters
Recognition by Best Lawyers in Admiralty and Maritime Law is based on our long-standing Purely Peer Review® process, which evaluates lawyers through confidential feedback from other leading attorneys in the same practice area and region. Inclusion reflects a strong professional reputation for legal ability, integrity and experience and signals that these lawyers are among the most respected maritime practitioners serving New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
About Admiralty and Maritime Law
The admiralty and maritime practice involves all aspects of legal work relating to marine activities. This includes litigation, commercial transactions, and non-litigation counseling, as well as regulatory work before federal and state agencies. Firms with litigation caseloads generally represent clients in matters involving collision, personal injury, cargo loss, workers' compensation, maritime commercial disputes and insurance coverage relating to inland marine vessels, oceangoing vessels, passenger vessels, drill rigs, and other offshore equipment.
Frequently, these firms also handle marine related issues involving mass disasters, major pollution incidents, toxic torts, and class actions. Due to the nature of when and where clients' needs arise, attorneys in this practice frequently are on call 24 hours and travel to distant and sometimes remote locations. In the areas of commercial and counseling, maritime attorneys handle issues relating to vessel sales, shipyard contracts, maritime insurance counseling and evaluation, contract and charter drafting and negotiations, and maritime finance advice. In the context of the regulatory arena, attorneys typically appear before the United States Coast Guard, Federal Maritime Commission, United States Department of Labor, and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Scott Jenkins is a partner in and leader of the Maritime Practice Group and co-leader of the Maritime Industry Team. He advises clients on a broad range of maritime transactions, compliance, and litigation. Scott advises clients on coastwise trade, security, citizenship, manning, and vessel documentation issues; contracts; service agreements; charter agreements; disputes arising from commercial, construction, insurance coverage, and indemnity issues; personal injury and casualty litigation; a...
Miles Clements is a recognized trial attorney having tried 100 cases to judgment. He practices at the trial and appellate levels in both state and federal court as well as in specialized jurisdictions throughout the country. His reputation spans from the marine and energy sector to defending the business and commercial needs of privately held and publicly traded companies. Miles is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the highest distinction of trial lawyers in the United States...
Richard Bertram is a partner in the Maritime Practice Group. Richard has more than 30 years of experience in admiralty and maritime law. He handles a wide range of domestic and international admiralty and maritime matters, including transactions, litigation, arbitration, appellate, regulatory, and administrative law, marine casualty investigations, regulatory compliance, and marine pollution and environmental matters.
Bert M. Cass Jr., is a jury trial litigator concentrating in the defense of bodily injury and death cases particularly in marine and offshore litigation claims. His practice focuses on representing vessel owners, oil and gas producers, exploration and drilling companies, facility operators, distributors, and offshore service contractors and their insurers against personal injury, wrongful death and survival claims. He is also experienced in energy-related claims, including interpretation of i...
Jeff Tillery is a partner in the Maritime Practice Group and co-leader of the maritime litigation, arbitration, and dispute resolution team. He helps maritime and marine industry clients prevent and resolve a broad range of disputes. For more than 35 years, Jeff has advised and represented clients in maritime personal injury and collision matters, commercial litigation, longshore matters, and marine insurance coverage disputes, and has tried, as lead counsel, complex marine multi-party casual...
Neal J. Kling, a Member of the firm, received his undergraduate degree in Business and Public Administration from Louisiana State University and his law degree from Louisiana State University Law Center where he graduated Order of the Coif and was a member of the Louisiana Law Review. He represents clients in the areas of secured financing transactions, real estate transactions, real property and personal property leasing, maritime construction and finance and other commercial transactions. M...
Will Baldwin is co-leader of the firm’s Maritime Industry Group and leader of the firm’s maritime transactional team, where he focuses on maritime transactions and marine finance. Will also serves as co-chair of the firm’s offshore wind initiative. Will advises and represents clients on a wide range of complex marine transactional matters, including financings, ship mortgages, the purchase and sale of marine assets, Jones Act compliance, and governmental approval for maritim...
Member Alan G. Brackett, who is one of the firm founders, leads the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act defense team, which also handles claims arising under the Defense Base Act and War Hazards Compensation Act. Alan litigates claims nationwide for large corporations and insurance companies, including Chubb and American Longshore Mutual Association. As supported by the many peer honors he has received, including The Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers, Alan has develop...
A firm founder, Senior Counsel André Mouledoux is a seasoned litigator who brings his clients more than 40 years of battle-hardened experience. André’s practice focuses on maritime, insurance and transportation defense. He is also a skilled commercial and corporate counsel. He has successfully litigated serious commercial disputes and catastrophic tort cases from California to Rhode Island, the U.K. to Egypt. He has tried and won defense verdicts in a number of wrongful de...
Jim Silverstein joined Kean Miller in 2012 and is based in New Orleans, Louisiana. His practice focuses on Admiralty and Maritime Law and Product Liability Litigation – Defendants , along with matters involving energy, construction , environmental , and commercial litigation . Jim has substantial litigation and trial experience representing clients in admiralty and maritime disputes, energy and oil and gas matters, and complex product liability litigation. He regularly defends manufactu...
Colin Cambre practices in the area of admiralty law. He specializes in the areas of maritime personal injury defense and litigation, Jones Act and Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act claims, and maritime collision and property damage defense and litigation. He has experience conducting shipboard investigations for vessel collisions, personal injury and cargo damage. Colin has represented clients in state and federal courts in all aspects of litigation. He has handled numerous...
Frank Barry is an experienced maritime and energy litigator with successes involving maritime property damage, marine insurance indemnity and coverage claims. Frank also has achieved successful outcomes in insurance broker E&O claims, and in oil and gas claims such as Legacy Oil, on shore blowouts, and operating agreement litigation. With over 30 years of experience, his reported cases include seminal Louisiana caselaw on gas balancing and preferential rights in mineral law (Fina Oil &...
David A. Bowling is the managing partner of The Bowling Law Firm APLC , in New Orleans, Louisiana . After spending most of his career focusing on the defense of malpractice and other complex medical cases, Mr. Bowling has now transitioned to a plaintiffs' practice. He and his firm concentrate on the representation of individuals and families in medical malpractice , catastrophic injury (including brain and spinal cord injury ), and other serious personal injury litigation. Mr. Bowling has bee...
Zoë Vermeulen advises businesses on labor and employment matters, commercial litigation , offshore energy , and admiralty and maritime law. Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, she represents employers across a range of industries and focuses on practical legal guidance that aligns with each client’s operational and business objectives while accounting for an evolving regulatory environment. As part of her Litigation – Labor and Employment practice at Kean Miller , Zoë works...
In these complex cases, Jeremy complements his arguments with logical structure and prudent strategy to gain advantages over the opposition. He regularly appears in state and federal courts, and he has litigated and handled appeals involving: Contract and other commercial disputes Business torts Products liability and toxic tort cases Insurance matters Vessel seizures/arrests and other maritime casualty matters Jeremy is also a regular contributor to legal publications and has written numerou...
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.
