A lot of people ask me how I became involved practicing maritime law. 

Thirty years ago, I started law school at Tulane School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.  I may be biased, but Tulane has the best law school in the United States involving maritime studies. Tulane has a renowned "Admiralty and Maritime Law" program which is part of the Tulane Maritime Law Center.

Tulane is where I took my introductory maritime courses (Admiralty I and Admiralty II), maritime jurisdiction, maritime personal injury and death, maritime insurance and "offshore operations" –  a particularly excellent course addressing personal injury and death cases in the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tulane is the home of the Tulane Maritime Law Journal (previously called has the Maritime Lawyer) which is described in Wikipedia as the "preeminent student-edited law journal in the field of Admiralty and Maritime Law."  

The professors teaching the maritime law courses were excellent.  A professor named Thomas Schoenbaum taught the introductory maritime course.  He went on to write the famous maritime law hornbook – "Admiralty and Maritime Law."  A number of the maritime personal injury courses were taught by maritime lawyers, including the Honorable Eldon Fallon who was a well known personal injury lawyer and then became a highly respected Federal Court Judge in New Orleans.      

After graduating from Tulane law school, in 1983 I joined the Maritime Law Association. Since 1983, I have been practicing maritime law – mostly personal injury and death cases.  

I have a lot of fond memories of attending maritime law classes at Tulane.  Its hard to think that was three decades ago!  

Tulane also sponsors the Admiralty Law Institute every other year, which is always a good excuse to make a trip back to New Orleans.

You can follow Tulane’s maritime program on Twitter @TulaneMaritime.