HOW TO CHOOSE A BOATING ACCIDENT LAWYER – 5 key questions

Seriously injured in a boating accident?  If so, you need a lawyer.  But you need a specialist.  Why?  Because this area of the law is highly specialized.  Maritime law applies if the accident involved a small boat, large boat, yacht, cruise ship, jet ski, and any other “vessel” which was in any “navigable water”.

And you want someone who actually tries cases.  Even if you want to settle, you settle for the most by hiring a lawyer who knows how to try a case and who prepares for trial.   And who lawyers and judges in the community know and respect.

So what do I look for in a boating accident lawyer?   Here are the 5 key questions to ask.

Is the lawyer Board Certified in Admiralty & Maritime Law?

Admiralty and Maritime law is a very specialized area of the law.  Only an extremely small number of lawyers in the United States are admiralty and maritime specialists.

The Board Certification process is rigorous.  The application for the certification program is approximately 30 pages long.  The lawyer is required to provide the names of judges and other attorneys who can verify that the lawyer is a specialist in the area, describe with case names the lawyer’s substantial involvement in maritime law, and pass an all day written exam in this area.  And that certification lasts only 5 years when the Board Certified lawyer is required to reapply for the certification.

“Presently, there are 58 certified admiralty and maritime lawyers”. (2023/4 Annual Report of The Florida Bar Admiralty and Maritime Law Certification Committee).  So out of the about 112,000 lawyers licensed in Florida, only .0517% are Board Certified in Admiralty and Maritime.  That is about 1/20^th of one percent.  And most of the certified lawyers only represent the large insurance companies and ship owners, not injured people.

John H. (Jack) Hickey is Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Admiralty & Maritime Law.  Best Lawyers in America has recognized Jack in Maritime law as well as in an unprecedented 2 other areas, Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury-Plaintiffs.

Is the lawyer also Board Certified as a trial lawyer?

In Florida, there is also a Board Certification for Civil (as opposed to criminal) Trial Law.  This requires that the lawyer have conducted a minimum number of civil jury trials, be actively engaged in the trial process, take and pass an all day written exam, and furnish to The Florida Bar the names of judges and other lawyers who can vouch for your abilities.  And the certification lasts only 5 years when the lawyer is required to reapply for the certification.

The last question about Board Certification as a Trial Lawyer is whether the lawyer is also Board Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocates (NBTA).  That is a national association which provides Board Certification in certain areas, such as Trial Lawyer.

Jack is also Board Certified as a Civil Trial Lawyer by The Florida Bar and by the National Board of Trial Advocates (NBTA).  That means that Jack is triple Board Certified.  Jack may be the only lawyer in Florida who holds all 3 of these certifications.

Is the lawyer a leader among other lawyers?

Being a leader among lawyers is important for credibility with other lawyers and with judges.   Jack has served as President of the Dade County Bar Association and Board of Governors of The Florida Bar for 12 years (one of 52 governors who are elected by other lawyers to this post).  Jack currently serves on the Board of Governors of the American Association for Justice (AAJ, a national association of trial lawyers) and the Board of Directors of the Florida Justice Association (FJA, a statewide association of trial lawyers).  He is Past Chair of The Florida Bar Admiralty Law Committee and Past Chair of the AAJ Admiralty Section. Jack also currently is Chair of the Premises Liability Section of AAJ.

Does the lawyer get results?

Jack’s jury verdicts, non-jury (judge) awards, and settlements have broken records.  The total recovered has been in the hundreds of millions of dollars. More importantly though, these awards and settlements have broken records for the type of case and the injuries involved.  Any qualified lawyer can get millions of dollars on a case which clearly and easily worth millions of dollars.  All they have to do is get the case.  The big TV advertisers get a lot of those cases.  There is no trick to that.  But the trick to great lawyering is to take a case with problems and overcome those problems and get a great result.  How about a jury verdict for $3.4 Million for a cruise ship officer who had one bad disc in the back with no surgery?  How about an award of $10.3 Million where the cruise line Defendant said the accident did not even happen?  (The accident did happen and the cruise line even investigated the accident the day that it happened).  How about a jury verdict of $4.5 Million for an 89 year old woman in a car crash who never testified in the trial because she had passed away, and where she died of causes unrelated to the car crash?  And that last verdict was where the blood doctor of the woman, our client, wrote repeatedly in her medical records that she had “fully recuperated” from the car crash.

Does the firm have a team of professionals that they assign to each case?

The size of the firm actually does not matter.  What does matter is the size and quality of the team assigned to your case.  Even the large firms will assign only one lawyer to your case.  At Hickey Law Firm, we assign 2 lawyers and 2 paralegals to every case.  One of the lawyers is Jack Hickey who is the lead trial lawyer on all cases.  The other lawyer is always someone who is extremely experienced.  The 2 paralegals are a Case Manager and a Medical Case Manager.

What do the clients think of the firm at the end of the case?  At Hickey Law Firm our reviews online are frankly stellar.  Clients love the team approach and the people on the teams.