Maritime & Admiralty Expert Witness

Maritime and admiralty expert witnesses evaluate vessel operations, navigation decisions, marine safety compliance, cargo handling, and offshore platform operations to determine whether maritime practices met applicable COLREGS, SOLAS, USCG regulations, and industry standards. They interpret voyage data recorders, AIS tracks, weather logs, and maintenance records to reconstruct marine casualties and identify the root causes of collisions, groundings, and equipment failures.

Cases commonly requiring maritime expertise include Jones Act and LHWCA personal injury claims, vessel collision and allision liability, cargo damage and loss during transit, marine pollution and environmental response, and offshore platform injury and safety compliance. These matters involve a unique body of federal maritime law and industry-specific standards that require an expert with both operational sea experience and regulatory knowledge.

Subspecialty areas including navigation and seamanship, marine engineering and machinery failure, naval architecture and stability, offshore drilling operations, and marine surveying and cargo claims each involve different technical expertise and industry certifications. An expert with relevant sea service, licensing, and marine industry experience provides the operational credibility that shore-based analysts cannot replicate in admiralty litigation.