The Making of this Maritime Attorney

The law was not his first calling. A life at sea as a naval officer was Tom Schodowski’s goal from his earliest years.

Growing Up in a River Town

Growing up, Tom frequented his hometown’s riverside park on the Detroit River, fascinated by the vessels that plied upriver and down every single day. The St. Lawrence Seaway had opened, linking the Great Lakes to far-away oceans. The inland fleets of lakers, both American and Canadian, were now joined by all manner of ocean-going vessels.

Locally referred to as “salties,” the foreign ships flew flags from around the world. Scanning ships’ hulls with binoculars, young Tom sought to discern the names and homeports painted on their sterns. He determined then to live a life at sea. The rivers, lakes, and oceans formed a watery highway, where every place was within reach to those who follow that path.

A Goal Realized — USNA

Tom realized that particular skills were needed to be a member of the maritime community. The oceans were no place for a novice, and his goal was not to be a mere yachting enthusiast or cruise ship passenger: a professional mariner was the only course he had in mind.

At the age of thirteen, he began a writing campaign to the Congressman in his district for an appointment to the Naval Academy. Following graduation from high school, he received that appointment and was on the next leg of his life’s journey – a student at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

At the Academy, Tom excelled during four years of the most disciplined course of nautical study ever devised. The academic year was filled with courses dealing with navigation, leadership, ship construction, and marine engineering. The summers were spent at sea training aboard various vessels of the fleet. Retired sailors, old and weathered enough to be grandfathers of students, taught knots and marlinspike seamanship.

Tom’s nautical experience afloat informed his maritime legal studies ashore. These were not just abstract concepts out of a law book; they were actual firsthand experiences. Maritime Law and his nautical and engineering experience were mutually reinforcing, each supporting and enhancing his courtroom competency. Maritime experience also gave him a decided advantage over older, more seasoned lawyers who had not been to sea.

Upon graduation and commissioning, Tom joined the fleet of the U.S. Navy, serving as a deck officer in charge of navigation and as a marine engineer charged with efficient powering and propulsion.

Finding a Home in Maritime Law

Following the war in Vietnam and the drawing down of the United State’s considerable naval forces, Tom left the Navy for law school under the G.I. Bill of Rights. Law school was a fascinating, rigorous and demanding enlightenment. It was there that he first learned of a unique area of the law that governed actions and claims related to the navigation of ships and their waterborne commerce. He knew immediately that he had found an ideal work environment.

Maritime cases legally discerned and defined what he had learned of and experienced at sea. For instance, collisions at sea occur due to a lack of proper navigational skills and their constant application; engine room casualties can be traced back to shoddy work, improper procedures or failed materials; and damage to cargo is easily understood by those who spend months at sea.

Tom’s nautical experience afloat informed his maritime legal studies ashore. These were not just abstract concepts out of a law book; they were actual firsthand experiences. Maritime Law and his nautical and engineering experience were mutually reinforcing, each supporting and enhancing his courtroom competency. Maritime experience also gave him a decided advantage over older, more seasoned lawyers who had not been to sea.

Lesson of a Maritme Lawyer

Brilliant men and competent attorneys often lack the experience and factual background necessary to form the requisite questions, which are always based on the facts. A lesson Tom took to heart was from an old maritime lawyer, who once told him, “Lawsuits are made up of 99% facts and only 1% law. Discover, capture, and control the facts of a case, and the application of the appropriate law will naturally follow in its wake.”

On more than one occasion, Tom has achieved victory in a maritime court case from an otherwise brilliant adversary, simply because he knew the facts and technical relationships, and his opponent didn’t.

 

The Vast Experience of This Maritime Attorney

After law school graduation, Tom sought every opportunity for additional graduate-level education to deepen and broaden his understanding of Admiralty and Maritime Law, as well as the commercial side of ocean shipping and the chartering and managing of vessels in the far-flung maritime industry. He attained a succession of maritime graduate degrees and held maritime legal positions in both law firms and on the corporate staffs of multiple ocean carriers, chartered operators, marine trading houses, and in the oil business.

The Particulars — from 1979 to the Present

After earning his primary law degree, a Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit near his hometown of Wyandotte, Michigan, Tom was admitted to the Master of Laws in Admiralty program at Tulane University in New Orleans. Tulane is universally recognized as the premier Admiralty and Maritime law school in the United States and the site of the Admiralty Law Institute convened biennially in New Orleans.

Following the completion of his LL.M. in Admiralty, Tom practiced with maritime law firms in New Orleans. This work presented a complete spectrum of offshore “oil patch” cases, brown-water tugs and towing, and blue-water shipping.

In 1979, Tom went to New York City, the seat of the American marine industry. He studied after work toward a new Masters degree being offered at the New York Maritime College at Fort Schuyler in the Bronx. Professor William Sembler designed a commercial maritime graduate degree to rival the land-based Masters in Business Administration. Tom was conferred the degree of Master of Science in Marine Transportation Management cum laude in 1981 and, the following year, accepted a corporate position in Louisiana with Good Hope Refinery, then the largest independent oil refinery in North America.

Good Hope was Tom’s introduction to the oil industry and the chartering of many large ocean-going tanker vessels that transported the feed stocks to the refinery on the Mississippi River at Good Hope, about 25 miles above New Orleans. For several years, he was immersed in oil tanker charter-parties and oil cargo claims. The refinery operated five docks for off-loading tankers, which were continuously in operation.

After Tom left the refinery in 1985, he provided maritime legal services to a number of New Orleans-based maritime corporations and acted as their contracted Maritime Counsel, reviewing their charter-parties and contracts, addressing their cargo claims, litigating their disputes in several federal jurisdictions and arbitrating their charter-party disputes in New York and London.

In 1997, Tom accepted a corporate position with Intermarine, Incorporated as in-house Maritime Counsel. Intermarine was the managing agent for Industrial Maritime Carriers Inc., a heavy-lift cargo ocean carrier, operating a large fleet of vessels to the Far East, Caribbean and the Americas. He reviewed charter-parties, advised operators of chartered tonnage, litigated in federal courts and arbitrated in New York and London on behalf of the corporation, and arranged marine insurance cover and administered claims with various Protection and Indemnity Clubs.

Tom was recruited to go to Jacksonville in 2002 to join the corporate staff of Craig (is), Ltd., an insurance subrogation recovery agent whose main clients included Fireman's Fund and its maritime subsidiary McGee Marine.

In 2005, Tom achieved a lifelong ambition of opening his own maritime law office. In the port city of Jacksonville, he serves the maritime community statewide, south to Miami and west to Pensacola.