For four decades, Chestnut Cambronne proctors have represented entities and individuals involved in maritime commerce or recreational boating. The scope and diversity of our practice includes a significant role on the federal trial team in the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Litigation, international cargo cases that implicate local businesses, vessel arrests and of course litigation where our focus is on all matters maritime on the Great Lakes, the Upper Mississippi, and the St. Croix.
Karl Cambronne and Brian Toder have the laboring oars in this practice area. Both are certified by the Maritime Law Association of the United States (“MLA”) as Proctors in Admiralty, which is significant as there are only six such MLA certified Proctors in the entire state. Our clients include well-known insurers, shipping companies, lenders, and individuals.
Brian is a former ship’s master who commanded vessels in Alaska, the South China Sea, and South America and maintains a current U.S.C.G. license, Master, 1600 gross tons (domestic) 3000 gross tons (International) upon Oceans. He is a member of the MLA’s Committee on Regulation of Vessel Operations and a member of the Duluth Chapter of the Propeller Club of the United States. He was the only maritime lawyer in the state of Minnesota to be recognized as a maritime 2016 Minnesota Super Lawyer. In addition to his maritime trial practice, Brian is a statutorily qualified ADR neutral and mediates and arbitrates commercial and recreational vessel cases.
Karl’s practice has been immersed in matters maritime since the beginnings of his legal career where he represented all the licensed Pilots on Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron on behalf of Upper Great Pilots Inc. Locally he has tried scores of cases sounding in admiralty in both the federal and Minnesota district courts, and for 10 years taught Admiralty Law as an adjunct professor of law at William Mitchell College of Law (now Mitchell Hamline College of Law).