Take a moment to meet our lawyers — they are the people who truly allow us to offer the quality of service for which we are known.

PRACTICE PROFILE

Doug Schmitt practices in all areas of maritime and admiralty law including marine insurance disputes. He has extensive courtroom experience at trial and appellate levels. Mr. Schmitt’s preferred areas of practice include ship arrest, marine insurance subrogation, marine insurance coverage disputes, recoveries for cargo damage or loss, motor carrier and rail cargo claims, marine casualties (including collisions and personal injuries), marine mortgages, and drafting of insurance policies, financing and other documents related to the marine industry. He has been on the executive of the Canadian Maritime Law Association, and chairs its Arrest of Ships Committee (since 1998).

In 1999, Mr. Schmitt was a member of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference on Arrest of Ships in Geneva, Switzerland. He speaks frequently at maritime law educational events.  For example, in 2009 he presented a paper titled “Update on the Canadian Law and Practice of Ship Arrest” at the Canadian Maritime Law Association seminar on Current Developments in Canadian Maritime Law at McGill University, Montreal, and he spoke on the Rotterdam Rules at the annual conference of the Canadian Transportation Lawyers Association; and, in 2003, he co-chaired the Federal Court Practice Update Seminar of the Continuing Legal Education Society of B.C. He currently chairs the Canadian Bar Association BC Maritime Law Section Committee on the UNCITRAL Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea (the Rotterdam Rules). In 2008 he was a speaker about the Rotterdam Rules at the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) conference; and, he was a leader of the Canadian delegation on the Rotterdam Rules at the Committee Maritime International (CMI) conference in Athens.

Mr. Schmitt is a member and Arbitrator of the Vancouver Maritime Arbitrators’ Association. In addition, Mr. Schmitt has served on the Marine Insurance Association of B.C.’s (MIABC) Drafting Committee for marine insurance wordings in wide use in the Western Canadian market and was an Executive Member for the MIABC in 1991.

Mr. Schmitt is the author of "Trans Aspiration and Hudson Bay - Jurisdiction Clauses and Carriers" (Int’l. Journal of Shipping Law, 1999), "The Law of Ownership and Control of Meteorites" (Meteoritics and Planetary Science 37 (Supp.), B5 - B11, 2002), and "The Truth about Global Warming" The Advocate, page 789, November 2009.

REPRESENTATIVE CASES

• Canadian Forest Products Ltd. v. B.C. Rail Ltd., 2005 BCCA 369
• The "Trans Aspiration," 3 F.C. 481, (1998) 225 N.R. 140 (Fed. Ct. App.)
• The "Looiersgracht," (1995) 2 Lloyd’s Law Rep 411

PROFESSIONAL AND COMMUNITY AFFILIATIONS

• Canadian Bar Association, Member; National Maritime Law Section, Past Chair; BC Maritime Law Section, Past Chair
• Canadian Maritime Law Association, Executive Committee, Member (1995-2007); Arrest of Ships Convention Committee, Chair; Comité Maritime International Conference 2004, Co-chair Program Committee
• Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, Member
• British Columbia Trucking Association, Member of Insurance Committee
• Transportation Lawyers Association, Member
• Canadian Transportation Lawyers’ Association, Member
  

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

Before his legal career, Mr. Schmitt worked as an oceanographer and served as Chief Oceanographer on the Canadian Coast Guard ship Quadra. He is on the Meteoritical Society’s Committee for drafting the code of ethics of collecting and distributing meteorites. Mr. Schmitt plays lead guitar in the firm’s rock band “All Hell Breaking Loose”. Other personal interests include travel, global warming issues and the outdoors.