Life and Career of a Marine Law Expert
After completing his bachelor's degree from the University of Mumbai in 1989, Shrikant Hathi wasn't sure of his future. But he and his brother, who had by then completed his management studies, impulsively decided to study law.
After completing his LLB, Hathi, took up an employment with Little & Company (now Fox Mandal Little after its merger with Fox Mandal) where he was asked to expand the firm's scope by handling cases related to maritime affairs.
"I was the first one to do that in the firm and VSNL v/s Kapitan Kud, became a landmark case in the field of maritime law. Then many more (cases) followed," says Hathi.
The gradual inflow of cases earned Hathi the reputation of a marine legal expert-in-the-making. "You just need to be a law graduate and after that it is only through experience that you learn the tricks of the trade. There are many marine lawyers who have made it big and they are plain LLBs. I know there are some universities which offer a postgraduate course in marine law but I don't know how useful that is," he wonders.
In his first case, Hathi was instrumental in the ‘arrest' of a ship which had damaged submarine (underwater) cables. Doing the documentation work for such arrests is not easy but one ought to be very agile and well versed with the procedures. "You might have to do everything in half a day - from arranging the papers to tracking the vessel and from checking the legal conventions to adhering to their procedural patterns," Hathi explains.
Such arrests, however, are not everyday affairs. Hathi informs that one can't survive merely on maritime litigation. One ought to develop expertise in transactional work, too, which includes negotiation and documentation at the time of buying/selling of ships, takeovers and mergers of shipping corporations.
"Litigation work is very limited. In Mumbai, there would be somewhere around 30-35 cases, Kolkata might have five or six and Chennai about two to three. No wonder, there are only a handful of maritime legal firms in India, most of them concentrated in Mumbai, to deal with such matters. Mumbai is important because its jurisdiction spans the country unlike other ports such as Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Chennai, which deal with cases related to their own marine territory," he says.
Maritime lawyer Joy Thattil also concedes that the litigation work is limited. "There is not much work in India and a maritime lawyer can earn by carrying out transactional work such as drafting and contracting ... and so on."
The litigation in the maritime cases is carried out normally over a huge quantum of goods which are always worth crores of rupees, if not more. Binita Hathi, partner, Brus Chambers, a law firm, says: "Stakes are phenomenal in the maritime cases. Currently, I am pursuing a case wherein a gamut of 38 insurance companies and cargo owners have filed a suit against the vessel owner after his vessel sank into the sea. The court fee, which increases with the value of goods at stake is always the maximum in maritime cases, that is three lakh rupees."
As stakes are very high, money is also huge in this profession. But one needs to pay a price for that. "Sometimes, I have to work the whole night in office. You can't escape from what you do. A minor goof-up will not cause great losses but can also lead to the arrest of my client," adds Binita.
Even though senior advocates have junior staff to shoulder some of their tasks, it doesn't relieve the senior lawyer of his/her responsibilities because "ultimately it's the responsibility of a senior lawyer as the buck stops with him," adds Binita.
Though all the matters pertain to ships, Hathi doesn't represent the shipping companies all the time. "When a shipping company doesn't pay repair charges even when 30 days credit period have lapsed and the ship has left port, a legal battle ensues. In such cases, the ship repair company will file a suit against the vessel and we would represent the repair company to get the ship arrested," says Hathi.
He also has a piece of advice for the prospective maritime lawyers. "Though the profession pays well, (he charges a fee ranging between $125 or R5637 and $300 or R13,529 per hour), one should be open to all fields of law as a fresher. Be receptive to all kinds of work," he says.
Author: Vimal Chander Joshi (HT Horizons)
Date: 10th December, 2010
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