Confessions of a Marine Lawyer

“More trade vessels are coming to Indian ports. That means more chances of things going wrong”

In marine law, you have to comply with an international convention of laws. There are country-specific laws as well but the international laws are more important. In India, people think it’s easy to bend the rules. But that is not so. In marine law, we deal with custom officials and the like, and they are hard to bribe or pay off. Most of them are strict and take their work seriously. So it’s an industry that is less corrupt than others. Obviously, there are stray people who will take money to do something, but they are few.

Also, business for marine lawyers has been booming in India the past few years. More trade vessels are coming to Indian ports. And so, there are more chances of things going wrong. That’s where marine lawyers come into play. We fight cases for wealthy ship owners when they are in trouble over not being able to pay off their loans (that they took to buy the ship) or if they flout any rules. That’s the civil aspect of it.

There is also the criminal aspect. Sometimes, we are hired to prosecute pirates who have entered Indian seas. Then we have to prove why they should be tried in India.

There are not many firms that practice marine law, though everyone is very competitive. There are a lot of shipping clubs in Mumbai and India, full of rich ship owners, and whether you get their business depends on your rapport with them. So there is some bit of networking and sycophancy required of us. But you don’t mind doing it because you end up making a lot of money. Of a big client, you can charge Rs 30,000 to Rs 1,00,000 for even a small job.

Sometimes you have to inspect large ships to make sure they are in sound shape before they are sold off to a new owner, and that’s a lot of hard work. The money we get is worth the work we do.

(This marine lawyer has been working in the industry now for six months)

As told to Aastha Atray Banan

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