Herd Dispute Resolution, LLC

Could some of the cargo ships passing Galveston have been quietly listening? U.S. officials say China's COSCO fleet hid spy equipment aboard ordinary merchant vessels. Beijing denies it. Whatever the truth, it lands on the Houston Ship Channel — here's why it matters for everyone who works these waters. 🚢

The Ship That Was Also Listening - Herd Law Firm When a Merchant Fleet Doubles as an Antenna Two senior U.S. officials say China's state-owned shipping giant has been hiding intelligence-gathering equipment aboard ordinary cargo ships — the same vessels that call at American ports every week. Beijing calls the claim baseless. Either way, it land...

Iran says it will soon publish maps of a new "international corridor" through the Strait of Hormuz — and warns that any ship straying from the approved lane could land on a sanctions list.

It's a bold assertion of control over one of the world's busiest chokepoints. However, through straits used for international navigation, the right of transit passage under law of the sea UNCLOS cannot simply be suspended or gated by one coastal state.

An even harder question: what happens when the ship and crew are expected to sail anyway? That's where the Jones Act, unseaworthiness, the duty to warn, and a seaman's right to refuse unsafe passage come in. ⚓

Redrawing the Chart: Iran Moves to Manage (and Meter) the Strait of Hormuz - Herd Law Firm Tehran says it will soon publish maps of a new “international corridor” through the Strait of Hormuz, along with a “restricted zone” in the Gulf and warns that any ship straying outside the approved lane could land on its sanctions list. Days later, the main pipeline built to bypass the Stra...

A brand-new school teaching ship, called away for up to 170 days on a classified mission — and the future mariner cadets who would train aboard her left ashore. 🚢 The federal conscription was first of its kind for the U.S. Meanwhile, her sister teaching ship has just arrived in Texas to teach students of Texas A&M Galveston. We break down who can be ordered aboard, who can't, and why the rights of America's mariners matter more than ever. ⚓

A School Ship Called to War - Herd Law Firm The U.S. Navy needed a ship, and the one it reached for was still a classroom. In the first federal call-up of its kind, the U.S. government has pulled a brand-new training vessel away from the very cadets it was built to produce — and in doing so, has sailed straight into a

The NTSB has released its report on the 2024 Miss Peggy tragedy in the Houston Ship Channel. The cause? A 39-minute personal phone call and three crews who stopped watching the water. Here's what the report found — and what maritime law offers the families and injured crew.🚢

Eyes Off the Water: The NTSB Report on the Fatal M/V Miss Peggy Collision - Herd Law Firm Two years after a towboat capsized in our own Houston Ship Channel, the National Transportation Safety Board has identified the cause — a thirty-nine-minute personal phone call, and three crews who stopped watching the water. On a bright afternoon in July 2024, a mile or so above Lynchburg, the 55...

Elizabeth I's Royal Navy supplied only about thirty-four warships against the Armada in 1588. The rest of the English fleet — some 170 vessels — were armed merchantmen and private ships whose crews were pressed, coaxed, or paid into somebody else's war.
Thousands who fought died afterward — of typhus, dysentery, and neglect — abandoned on the docks of southern England, with no one obliged to care for them.

Four centuries later, the scandal this created helped legally establish and promote the legal duty of "Maintenance and Cure". Read more in our latest blog post!🧭⚓

The “Protestant Wind”: What the Wreck of the Spanish Armada Still Can Teach a Mariner - Herd Law Firm Four hundred and thirty-eight years ago, a fleet built to conquer England was undone by fireships and foul weather off the coast of France. The battle itself killed very few Englishmen — but what happened to the sailors afterward gave the world one of the first laws written to protect a mariner se...

There's an official "line in the water" nine miles off the Texas coast where state becomes federal waters — where even the land under your keel stops belonging to Texas and starts belonging to the nation. Cross it, and the laws that protect you can change entirely. It's based in our proud history: why Texas (a former Republic) and Florida (thanks to an 1868 constitution) are the only states that reach three leagues into the Gulf. 🌊

The Land Under Your Keel: State Waters, Federal Waters, and Why Nine Miles Changes Everything - Herd Law Firm Second in our series on the law of the water. The first post traced the great lines that divide the sea; this one walks the boundary that matters most to a Texas mariner — the nine-mile line where state law gives way to federal, and where the very same accident can carry a very different

This summer's record sargassum bloom smothered Caribbean and Gulf coastlines — and a new fleet of boats and crews is being sent to meet it. But sargassum in bulk isn't just an eyesore: it clogs engine intakes, fouls propellers, and releases hydrogen sulfide as it rots. When those hazards reach a working crew, U.S. maritime law — the Jones Act, the warranty of a seaworthy vessel, maintenance and cure — has something to say.

“The Golden Tide”: A Record Sargassum Bloom, the Fleets Sent to Fight It, and the Law That Rides With Its Crews - Herd Law Firm A record mass of sargassum seaw**d is smothering Caribbean and Gulf coastlines, and a new fleets of boats — Navy vessels, hotel skiffs, and purpose-built harvesters — are being launched to fight it. And the w**d is more than an eyesore: in bulk it can choke an engine, foul

The Gulf's latest "Big Beautiful" lease sale (BBG3), the first run by the new Marine Minerals Administration (MMA), pulled in $82.7 million earlier this month. 🌊 Behind that number are the real people who will work those blocks — and the maritime laws that protect them when something goes wrong. Our post breaks down the Jones Act vs. Longshore Act divide, and the conflict of interest in the MMA agency merger that should have every mariner's attention.

U.S. Gulf Lease Sales: The “Blocks” on the Auction Block - Herd Law Firm Sixteen companies bid $82.7 million for the right to drill fifty-nine tracts of the Gulf of Mexico. Behind every one of those tracts stands a future worksite — and a body of law that follows the men and women sent to work it, out past the last sight of land.

When an injured deckhand on the Houston Ship Channel asks his employer to cover his rent and his surgery, he's invoking a bargain older than the United States itself. "Maintenance and Cure" — the shipowner's duty to heal a sailor hurt in service — runs in an unbroken line from a French island around 1160 all the way to a Texas courtroom. Our new post tells the story. 🌊⚓

An Ancient Promise at Sea: How Maintenance and Cure Crossed a Thousand Years and Every Ocean - Herd Law Firm From the medieval Rolls of Oléron to the courts of Texas, an injured seaman’s right to be healed at the ship’s expense has proven one of the most durable promises maritime law has ever made. This is its long history — and why nearly every seafaring nation, in every age,

The sea belongs to no one — and therefore to everyone. That ancient idea is being tested again in the 21-mile gap between Iran and Oman. 🌊⚓ Read our new blog series on the invisible legal lines that divide the water, from Texas' three-league line to the open high seas.

Lines Drawn in the Water: Who Owns the Sea, and Who May Charge You to Cross It - Herd Law Firm Repeatedly, Iran and Oman are close to a “deal” that would let Tehran meter the Strait of Hormuz — a “toll in all but name,” the world’s shipping lines warn. Strip away the headlines and it is the oldest quarrel in maritime law: whether anyone may