The Maritime Attorney Vetting Checklist: 18 Steps Before You Hire

Why a checklist beats instinct when hiring a maritime injury lawyer

An injured maritime worker is choosing a lawyer at the worst possible moment: while in pain, often heavily medicated, frequently away from home, and under family pressure to "just sign with somebody." The lawyer on the other side of the desk has chosen this specialty over years, has handled hundreds of cases, and has every incentive to close the consultation with a signed fee agreement. The asymmetry is structural. A checklist is the cheapest, fastest, and most reliable way to correct it.

The reason a checklist works is the same reason a checklist works in surgery, aviation, and financial audit. It does not require the user to have specialty knowledge of the field. It requires only that the user can read, follow steps, and listen carefully to the answers. A specialty maritime trial lawyer will pass every step on this checklist cleanly, in plain English, in about an hour of careful consultation. A generalist or an advertising-heavy intake firm will fail a meaningful share of the steps. The pattern is consistent enough that the checklist itself is a reliable filter. The companion article, the twelve maritime attorney red flags, covers the negative signals (what to walk away from). This checklist is the positive routine (what to verify and what to ask).

How to use this checklist (and how to score the lawyer)

The checklist runs in three phases that correspond to three discrete moments in the hiring process: before the first phone call, during the first consultation, and before the engagement letter is signed. Each phase is independent. You can pause between phases. You should not skip phases. The work compounds.

Scoring the lawyer

At the end of the consultation and the engagement letter review, you score the lawyer against the eighteen steps. Each step is binary. The lawyer either passes the step (clean answer, public record confirms, the engagement letter reflects the commitment) or fails it. Add up the passes. The scoring rubric is calibrated to the realistic distribution of maritime injury practice nationwide.

Phase 1

Pre-Call Due Diligence

Step 1: Confirm the lawyer is licensed and in good standing

Every state bar maintains a free, public lookup that returns each licensed lawyer's name, bar number, date of admission, current status (active, inactive, suspended, disbarred), and the address on file with the bar. The lookup takes under sixty seconds. It is the cheapest and fastest verification step in the entire vet.

For maritime injury cases that will be filed in a state-court forum (under the saving-to-suitors clause), confirm the lawyer is licensed in the state where the case will sit. For cases filed in federal court, the lawyer must be admitted to the bar of that federal district (Step 2) but does not necessarily need to be licensed in the state where the federal courthouse is located. Either way, every lawyer must be in good standing in at least one state bar to practice anywhere in the United States.

Step 2: Verify federal court admissions in the relevant district

Maritime injury cases are litigated in the U.S. District Courts under federal admiralty jurisdiction (28 U.S.C. § 1333). A lawyer who is not admitted to the bar of the federal district where the case will be filed cannot try the case there without local counsel. Each federal district court maintains its own attorney roster, and admission to the federal bar of a district is separate from state bar licensure.

The specialty federal districts for maritime injury cases outside of cruise litigation are the Eastern District of Louisiana (E.D. La., New Orleans), the Southern District of Texas (S.D. Tex., Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi), the Southern District of Alabama (S.D. Ala., Mobile), the Southern District of Mississippi (S.D. Miss., Gulfport), and the Western District of Louisiana (W.D. La., Lake Charles, Lafayette). Cruise passenger cases concentrate in the Southern District of Florida (S.D. Fla., Miami).

Step 3: Run a PACER search for actual maritime case history

PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is the federal court system's electronic case index. It returns the docket for every federal case filed in any U.S. District Court, the Bankruptcy Courts, and the Courts of Appeals. The search is open to the public. Filing-fee waivers are available for low-volume users, and reading the index of a single attorney's cases typically costs only a few dollars.

For maritime injury vetting, a PACER attorney search returns every case the lawyer is listed as counsel of record on in any federal court. Filter for the relevant district (E.D. La., S.D. Tex., etc.), look for case captions involving vessels, maritime employers, or terms like "Jones Act" or "maintenance and cure," and review the dispositions (verdicts, settlements, dismissals). This is the most direct evidence of actual maritime case experience that exists.

Step 4: Search reported decisions on Justia, CourtListener, or Google Scholar

Not every federal case is reported. Most are not. But the cases that are reported (published in F.3d, F. Supp. 3d, or on Westlaw and Lexis) are typically the cases with substantive legal rulings, often after motion practice or appellate review. These are exactly the cases that show a lawyer's trial and appellate work product. Free legal research tools make reported decisions accessible without a paid subscription.

How to search

Search the lawyer's name as it appears on the bar admission record, in quotes, with relevant maritime terms appended. For example: "Jane Smith" Jones Act, or "Jane Smith" "maintenance and cure", or "Jane Smith" LHWCA. Restrict the date range to the past five to ten years. Review the resulting opinions for the lawyer's role (counsel of record, lead counsel, appellate counsel) and the court's treatment of the lawyer's arguments.

A specialty maritime trial lawyer typically has a small number of reported decisions that show real work: a summary judgment opinion, a Daubert ruling on an expert challenge, an appellate brief on a maintenance and cure issue, or a published verdict order. The substance and quality of the reported decisions are a stronger signal than the count.

Step 5: Review attorney discipline records on the state bar site

Every state bar maintains a public disciplinary record for each licensed lawyer. The record shows any public reprimand, suspension, disbarment, or pending disciplinary investigation. Most state bars also publish summaries of recent disciplinary actions, searchable by name. The lookup is free and takes under two minutes.

For maritime injury vetting, the disciplinary record matters because the federal admiralty practice involves complex fiduciary duties to clients: written fee agreements (Rule 1.5), referral disclosures (Rule 1.5(e)), settlement authority (Rule 1.2), and conflicts of interest (Rule 1.7). A lawyer with a history of fee-related discipline or settlement-authority disputes is statistically a higher-risk hire on a multi-year contingency case.

Step 6: Review the firm's published writings on maritime law

Specialty maritime trial lawyers and the firms that employ them typically publish on the subject. The publishing might be at the firm-blog level (case results, statute summaries, MMI explainers), at the bar-association level (CLE presentations, ABA Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section articles), at the academic level (law review articles on Jones Act seaman status, DOHSA preemption, OCSLA choice of law), or in the trial-lawyer trade press (verdict reports). The volume and substance of published writing are direct evidence of subject matter depth.

A general personal injury firm that occasionally takes a maritime case typically has no maritime publishing record. A maritime injury specialty firm typically has a meaningful one. The depth of writing on technical maritime topics (seaman status under Chandris, the borrowed servant doctrine, the OCSLA choice-of-law framework, the relationship between the LHWCA section 905(b) action and the Jones Act) is a strong signal of practice depth.

Phase 2

Consultation Vetting

Step 7: Open with the four federal statutes and listen for recognition

The four federal statutes that govern most maritime injury practice are the Jones Act (46 U.S.C. § 30104), the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (33 U.S.C. §§ 901-950), the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq.), and the Death on the High Seas Act (46 U.S.C. §§ 30301-30308). A specialty maritime trial lawyer can identify each of these in plain English at the first meeting, can explain when each applies, and can describe how they interact with the general maritime law of unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure.

The opening question of the consultation is functional: "Walk me through which federal statute or statutes apply to my case, why, and what each one covers." A specialty lawyer answers in two to four minutes with the analysis above, applied to the specific facts of your injury. A generalist deflects, hedges, or pivots to firm marketing.

Step 8: Ask for the trial-to-verdict count over the past five years

The question is precise: "How many Jones Act, LHWCA, OCSLA, or DOHSA cases have you personally tried to verdict (not settled, not filed, but tried to a jury or bench verdict) in the past five years, and in which federal districts?" The answer is diagnostic. A specialty maritime trial lawyer answers with specific case names, dates, courts, and outcomes. A volume settlement firm answers with aggregated statistics ("we've recovered over X million in maritime cases").

The reason this question matters is structural. Maritime injury cases are valued in proportion to the credible threat of trial. Defendants and their P and I (Protection and Indemnity) clubs evaluate plaintiff's counsel based on demonstrated trial willingness and trial record. A lawyer who has never tried a maritime case to verdict is, from the defense perspective, a low-leverage opponent. Settlement offers reflect that leverage gap.

Step 9: Confirm the lawyer practices in the right federal district

The specialty federal districts for maritime injury practice are not interchangeable. Each has its own trial customs, its own jury pool, its own approach to admiralty case management, its own pattern of defense bar and P and I representation, and its own body of in-district case law. A lawyer who tries cases in the Eastern District of Louisiana knows the local maritime defense bar, the patterns of the Fifth Circuit on maritime appeals, and the section assignment practices in the district. A lawyer who has never appeared there does not.

The question is: "In which federal districts have you personally appeared as counsel of record on a maritime injury case in the past three years?" Cross-reference the answer with the PACER results from Step 3. The two should align. If the lawyer claims practice in S.D. Tex. but PACER shows no S.D. Tex. cases, the claim is suspect.

Step 10: Ask the maintenance and cure protocol for week one

Maintenance and cure is the seaman's ancient right under the general maritime law to (a) a daily living allowance during recovery (maintenance) and (b) full medical care related to the injury (cure), from the date of injury until Maximum Medical Improvement, regardless of fault. The Supreme Court has confirmed the doctrine repeatedly. It is a no-fault remedy. It exists independent of any Jones Act negligence claim. It is enforced through a demand letter or, if necessary, a separate cause of action.

The question is: "Walk me through your maintenance and cure protocol for the first thirty days after intake." A specialty firm answers with a concrete week-by-week sequence: the demand letter to the vessel owner or P and I club in the first two weeks, the litigation hold letters to preserve vessel records and incident reports, the wage and payroll documentation to establish the maintenance rate, and the identification of the treating physicians who will document MMI. A generalist does not have a protocol and improvises.

Step 11: Confirm the primary handling lawyer by name

Many maritime injury intake calls are taken by a senior partner whose name is on the firm's letterhead. The case, once signed, is often handed to a junior associate, a contract lawyer, or in some cases referred out to a different firm entirely. The client who signed expecting representation by the partner ends up with representation by someone the client never met. This is technically permitted in most state bar rules but is poor practice and produces material litigation risk.

The question is: "From intake through trial, who is the primary handling lawyer on this case, day to day? Specific name." The answer should be written into the engagement letter (Step 17). If the answer is "we have a team approach and any of our lawyers may handle the case," that is informational only and does not satisfy the disclosure standard.

Step 12: Ask about the maritime liability expert network

Maritime injury cases are tried with expert witnesses. A specialty firm has a standing roster of experts it works with regularly: marine engineers, naval architects, vessel masters, certified safety professionals, OSHA experts, ergonomics experts, and human-factors experts. The expert network is part of the case-handling infrastructure. A firm without a standing roster typically retains experts on a one-off basis, often at higher cost and with less integration into the case theory.

The question is: "Which maritime liability experts do you typically retain in cases like mine? Specific names. Specific credentials." A specialty firm answers with two to four expert names and a brief description of why each was retained on prior cases. A generalist either does not have a roster or names personal-injury experts (accident reconstructionists, biomechanical engineers) who do not specialize in maritime work.

Step 13: Ask about the life care planner and vocational expert

Maritime injury damages are projected over the worker's remaining work-life and life expectancy. A specialty firm retains a life care planner (typically a certified nurse case manager or rehabilitation professional) to build the future medical care projection, and a vocational expert (typically a vocational rehabilitation counselor) to build the loss of earning capacity projection. Both reports are central to the case value. Without them, the lawyer is negotiating against the defense P and I claim handler's numbers, with no independent damages model of the plaintiff's own.

The question is: "Which life care planner and vocational expert do you typically retain on a Jones Act, LHWCA, or DOHSA case? Have they testified in the federal districts where this case will sit?" Specific names. Specific federal districts where each has testified. Specific reasons each was retained.

Step 14: Ask about referral plans and Rule 1.5(e) disclosure

ABA Model Rule 1.5(e) (adopted in most state bars with modifications) requires that any division of a contingency fee between lawyers who are not in the same firm be (1) reasonable in total, (2) disclosed to the client in writing, and (3) consented to by the client in writing. The most common arrangement in maritime injury practice is that a non-specialty intake firm signs the client and then refers the case to a specialty trial firm in exchange for a percentage of the contingency fee. The arrangement is ethical when properly disclosed. It is a serious violation when it is not.

The question is: "Do you plan to refer this case to another firm, in whole or in part? If yes, to which firm? What is the fee split? Will the disclosure and consent be reflected in writing in the engagement letter as required by Rule 1.5(e)?" A specialty trial firm taking the case directly answers "no referral planned" or names the referring counsel relationship cleanly. An intake firm planning a referral should disclose it immediately, in writing, before the engagement letter is signed.

Phase 3

Before You Sign the Fee Agreement

Step 15: Read the contingency percentage and any tier escalations

Maritime injury cases are typically taken on a contingency fee basis. The fee is a percentage of the recovery, with the percentage often increasing if the case proceeds to a particular stage (filing of suit, completion of discovery, scheduled trial, post-verdict appeal). The typical maritime injury contingency fee ranges from about one-third (33 1/3%) on early-settled cases to 40% on cases that go to trial, with some firms using 45% for post-verdict appellate work. The specific tier structure varies by firm and is negotiable, particularly on high-value cases.

The Phase 3 question is: read the proposed engagement letter and confirm every fee percentage and every tier trigger in writing. Calculate the fee on a hypothetical recovery (the lawyer should be willing to run the calculation with you). Confirm that any tier escalation requires a specific trigger (filing of suit, not just "preparing for suit"). Confirm that the percentage applies to the gross recovery before case expenses, or after case expenses, in the way state bar rules require.

Step 16: Read the case-expenses clause carefully

Case expenses in a maritime injury case are substantial: expert witness fees (often $50,000 to $200,000 across liability and damages experts), court reporter fees and deposition transcripts, life care plan and vocational expert reports, medical record retrieval, vessel inspection and survey costs, filing fees, and travel. The engagement letter must specify how these expenses are paid (advanced by the firm, charged to the client, or both), how they are recovered (off the top of the gross recovery, or only if the case succeeds), and what happens if the case does not result in a recovery.

The two most common structures in maritime injury practice are: (1) the firm advances all case expenses and recovers them off the top of any settlement or verdict, with the client owing nothing if the case is lost; and (2) the firm advances case expenses but the client agrees to reimburse them regardless of outcome. The first structure is more favorable to the client. Both are ethical under most state bar rules when disclosed in writing.

Step 17: Get the specialty answers in writing in the engagement letter

The consultation produced answers to the Phase 2 questions: the four federal statutes applicable to your case, the trial-to-verdict record, the federal districts of practice, the maintenance and cure protocol for week one, the primary handling lawyer, the expert network, and the referral disclosure. The engagement letter should reflect those commitments in writing, or at least the most material of them.

Specifically, ask for the engagement letter to include: (1) the named primary handling attorney, (2) the firm's commitment not to settle the case before Maximum Medical Improvement except with the client's informed written consent, (3) the maintenance and cure protocol (or at least an acknowledgment that the demand letter will go out in the first two weeks), and (4) the Rule 1.5(e) referral disclosure, if any. Some firms will resist adding case-handling commitments to the engagement letter. Specialty firms typically will not.

Step 18: Take 24 to 48 hours to review before signing

The single most reliable signal that you are dealing with a specialty firm rather than a volume intake operation is the firm's response to a request for a review window. A specialty maritime injury firm expects clients to take time with the engagement letter, often delivers the engagement letter by email after the consultation rather than in person, and routinely accommodates a 24 to 48 hour reflection period. A volume firm typically resists the review window with claims that "the statute of limitations is running" or "we need to move now to preserve evidence."

The reality of maritime injury practice is that the default Jones Act and general maritime law statute of limitations is three years (46 U.S.C. § 30106), the LHWCA notice deadline is 30 days but the formal claim deadline is one year, and DOHSA's default statute is three years. None of these timelines is triggered by signing a fee agreement on day one rather than day three. The lawyer who insists on immediate signature is typically signaling something about firm culture, not about case urgency.

What to do after the vet (and the scoring rubric)

At the end of the engagement letter review, score the lawyer against the eighteen steps. Each step is a binary pass or fail. The scoring is honest: do not give credit for a near-miss. Add up the passes. The result tells you what to do next.

If you pass on the lawyer, do not extend the search indefinitely

The vetting routine is designed to take about ninety minutes per lawyer, including the consultation. With two or three consultations, the total time investment is four to five hours over the course of about two weeks. That is the appropriate investment for a multi-year contingency case in a specialty federal practice area. Spending more time than that on the search begins to delay the substantive work of the case (litigation hold letters, maintenance and cure demand, treating physician records collection) and is rarely justified.

The closing thought

Maritime injury law is a specialty. The lawyer you choose in the first thirty days will set the floor and the ceiling of your recovery. The eighteen-step vetting checklist is the routine that maritime injury referring attorneys use when they hand off a case to specialty trial counsel. Apply the same routine to your own search. The cost is ninety minutes of careful work. The benefit is full-value representation in a body of law that does not forgive misclassification. For the negative side of the same analysis (the patterns that signal you should walk away from a particular firm), read the companion guide on the twelve maritime attorney red flags.