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PDFChris leads the firm’s Maritime Section, where he represents maritime clients in a wide variety of matters, including admiralty and maritime law, maritime insurance defense and subrogation, as well as employment law matters.
Prior to entering private law practice in 1995, Chris served for sixteen years as a commissioned officer and law specialist in the United States Coast Guard, eventually reaching the rank of Commander. While on active duty, he spent three tours of duty at sea and commanded two ships. He also served an extended tour with the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps and later served as the principal assistant legal officer for the Coast Guard's Mid-Atlantic region.
Chris’s employment law experience includes advising and representing a wide variety of clients in both the public and private sectors. As both a litigator and “house counsel,” he has assisted clients with matters ranging from sexual harassment, grievances, and employee privacy issues, to employee discipline, termination and post-employment matters, protection of trade secrets and business confidences, to wrongful discharge claims, pay and compensation disputes, and gender, race and disability discrimination issues.
Chris’s work in the realm of admiralty and maritime law has involved work in virtually every aspect of commercial life along the waterfront and well out to sea, to include serving as lead counsel for numerous complex marine casualty and environmental litigation cases, handling a wide variety of cargo, terminal, marina, shipyard, and maritime contract transactions and disputes, resolving Coast Guard regulatory and mariner licensure issues, working the spectrum of vessel charter, documentation, marine insurance, and fleet operation challenges, addressing a number of unique marine employment issues, and representing a range of clients in various vessel arrest, attachment and limitation of liability actions.
Chris has been recognized as one of the Best Lawyers in America, a Virginia Super Lawyer, and as one of Virginia Business magazine’s Legal Elite. He also has, for each of the past three years, been named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in the Commonwealth by Virginia Super Lawyers.
Chris serves as the General Counsel for the International Association of Marine Investigators (IAMI).
Chris teaches classes in both Admiralty and Employment Law at the William & Mary School of Law, where he was the school's 2011-2012 St. George Tucker Adjunct Professor of Law.
Chris is an award-winning author and a frequent speaker on maritime and employment law topics before local, regional, and national audiences. An experienced litigator in federal and state court and before a variety of administrative tribunals, Chris’s professional affiliations include membership in the Labor and Employment Law and Litigation sections of both the American and Virginia Bar Associations. He served for many years as the General Counsel of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators, and he currently serves as the Chair of the Human Resources Committee of the Virginia Ship Repair Association. Chris also is a member of the Maritime Law Association, the Southeastern Admiralty Law Institute, the Mid-Atlantic Mariners Club, the Fort Lauderdale Mariners Club, and the Newport News Propeller Club. He is a lifetime member and former Proceedings editor for the United States Naval Institute.
A member of the Virginia State Bar, Chris is a past Chairman of the Bar’s Sixth District Committee. He is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Supreme Court of the United States, the First, Fourth and Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, and the United States Court of Federal Claims.
Locally, Chris is a former member and past Chairman of the York County Planning Commission and a Past-President of the York-Poquoson Bar Association. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Legal Aid of Southeastern Virginia, is a former President of the York County Library Foundation, and is a former Executive Committee member of the York Foundation for Public Education.
A 1979 honors graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy with a bachelor’s degree in government, Chris also holds a Certificate in the History of Strategy and Policy from the United States Naval War College, a master’s degree in international relations from Old Dominion University and a juris doctor degree from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law of the College of William and Mary.
Publications
USNI Proceedings (1986-1991), Author of the Year (1991), Contributing Editor (1988-1993)
Author, Note: Not Fit for Sea Duty: The Posse Comitatus Act, the United States Navy, and Federal Law Enforcement at Sea, William and Mary Law Review, Winter 1990
Practice Areas
Experience
Maritime
- Successfully tried a complex multi-party dispute involving a severely injured tankerman’s status as a longshoreman vice a seaman subject to tort liability under the Jones Act for the owner and operator of a fleet of barges.
- Provided maritime insurance coverage and advice to an international client involved in a high-profile overseas governmental detention of foreign mariners and embarked security personnel.
- Successfully defended marina operator in South Carolina against a maritime personal injury claim arising out personal watercraft rental from a tenant business.
- Successfully litigated marine insurance coverage disputes in several states arising out of both property and liability claims involving the intoxicated operation of recreational vessels.
- Lead litigation counsel on multi-million dollar international maritime contract dispute involving damage to and lost use of a large gantry container crane at a major terminal facility.
- Lead trial counsel in multi-million dollar federal court case in Chicago involving a fatal barge explosion, fire, and oil spill. Obtained judgment for client barge owner. Defeated the National Pollution Fund Center's attempt to break the owner's statutory limitation of liability.
- Successfully represented NVOCC and freight forwarder in companion cargo claim suits by shipper in federal court in New York.
- Successfully represented master of U.S. merchant vessel overseas alleged to have improperly restrained intoxicated and belligerent crew member in Middle Eastern port.
- Successfully defended operator of a water taxi service against a million-dollar maritime dram shop personal injury claim in federal court in Maryland. Succeeded in having all counts of the plaintiff's case against client dismissed prior to commencement of discovery.
- Advised and represented banks on financing and documentation of new-construction commercial vessels in Virginia and on the sale, financing, and foreign re-flagging of a "mega-yacht" in Florida.
- Provided coverage opinions on a variety of marine insurance issues, including: a fraudulent claim that a non-existent boat had been stolen; an unauthorized international voyage; fraudulent transfer of vessel ownership; the owner's unauthorized use of pleasure vessel for charter hire; and vessel damage caused by wild animals.
- Advised clients on time-charter of vessel for use in oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico and on chartering passenger vessels for use in overseas eco-tourism/research.
- Successfully defended a work-boat manufacturer from injury claim arising during demonstration voyage.
- Successfully represented foreign vessel operator in high-profile domestic "Magic Pipe" case.
- Successfully defended Docking Pilot following allision with bridge fender system.
- Obtained expedited release from arrest of client's barge arrested in Puerto Rico and successfully pursued subsequent action for wrongful arrest of the vessel.
- Successfully defended vessel owner whose vessel blew from its mooring in a hurricane and damaged nine other vessels and destroyed a marina's floating dock system.
- Successfully represented owner of vessel arrested by salvor seeking exorbitant salvage award in North Carolina.
- Successfully represented owner of U.S. merchant vessel overseas alleged to have engaged in high seas pollution in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.
- Successfully represented yacht repair facility in multimillion dollar action against owner of mega-yacht undergoing major refit and extension.
Employment
- Successfully advised and represented both high-level executives and corporate employer entities in negotiating and drafting complex executive compensation, separation, and retirement issues.
- Won early judicial dismissal, with prejudice, of all claims against client employer made terminated employee claiming defamation.
- Successfully resolved complicated U.S. Department of Labor labor category reclassification for wage-determined employees assigned by client employer to U.S. Government contract subject to the McNamara Service Contract Act.
- Won jury verdict for client in novel workplace email privacy dispute in federal court.
- Successfully resolved employee class action case under the Fair Labor Standards Act in federal court.
- Won public employee grievance case appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
- Won jury verdict for client in multiple victim sexual harassment case in federal court.
- Successfully litigated a several-day trade secrets and business tort jury case in state court.
- Successfully resolved high-dollar employee compensation and contract dispute in state court.
- Successfully resolved numerous employment discrimination charges filed with the EEOC and the Virginia Human Rights Commission.
- Routinely advises clients on Service Contract Act and other employment law issues unique to Government Contractors.
- Regularly provides policy review and all-hands employee training on preventing and responding to complaints of workplace discrimination, harassment, and violence.
- Routinely drafts, reviews and negotiates executive employment agreements and employee non-competition and non-solicitation agreements.