The TV lawyer running ads in Mobile has never been inside the federal longshore hearing room in Covington, Louisiana. He does not know what the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act requires the carrier to pay. He has never stood in front of a federal Administrative Law Judge on a maritime workers’ compensation claim. He signed you, he handed your file to a secretary, and he is waiting for a check from an adjuster who has processed hundreds of these federal claims and knows the billboard lawyer will never show up to a hearing. That knowledge is worth money to the carrier and it comes directly out of your pocket.

Mobile has one of the largest shipbuilding and port workforces on the Gulf Coast. Austal USA employs roughly four thousand people on the Mobile River building Navy combat ships and Coast Guard cutters. BAE Systems Southeast Ship Repair runs a 432-acre drydock and repair facility on Mobile Bay with around 650 workers contracted for maintenance on military vessels. Alabama Shipyard LLC handles ship repair on the Mobile River. The Alabama State Port Authority and APM Terminals move twenty-seven million tons of cargo a year through the Port of Mobile, employing longshoremen, crane operators, and terminal workers on the docks every shift. When any of those workers gets hurt doing covered maritime work, the claim is not an Alabama workers’ compensation claim. It is a federal Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act claim, heard in the New Orleans district, and the carrier defending it has a team that knows that system cold.

I am Jay Foster. I have practiced maritime and longshore law on the Gulf Coast since 1994. My office is in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, ninety miles from the Austal front gate. I know the Covington district. I know the Administrative Law Judges who hear these cases. I know the carriers who defend them. And I am the only lawyer on this coast who guarantees in writing, before we start, that you put more money in your pocket than I do. Every case. No exceptions.

Austal USA, BAE Systems, And The Port Of Mobile: Three Different Employers, One Federal System

Austal USA is building the Navy’s TAGOS-25 ocean surveillance ships and the Coast Guard’s Offshore Patrol Cutters on a $3.195 billion contract. The yard is adding more than a thousand jobs through its expansion on the Mobile River. Workers there are welders, shipfitters, pipefitters, riggers, outfitters, crane operators, and skilled tradespeople doing work that carries real physical risk every shift. When one of them gets hurt doing covered maritime work at the facility, the claim runs through the federal longshore system, not the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Commission.

BAE Systems Southeast Ship Repair handles drydock maintenance on Littoral Combat Ships and Coast Guard cutters at its facility adjacent to the forty-two-foot ship channel on Mobile Bay. The work involves ship repair, vessel conversion, heavy fabrication, and marine construction. Workers there face the same hazards as any shipyard: overhead crane operations, confined spaces, hot work in steel hulls, and equipment at every level of the facility. The LHWCA covers qualifying work at that site.

The Port of Mobile is a different environment but the same federal law. Terminal workers, longshoremen, crane operators, and stevedores loading and unloading cargo at the Alabama State Port Authority docks or the APM Terminals facility are covered under the LHWCA when they are injured on the maritime situs. The Port processed twenty-seven and a half million tons of cargo in 2024. Injuries on those docks happen. The carrier assigned to those claims has done this hundreds of times. Your lawyer needs to have done it too.

Why Alabama Workers’ Compensation Is The Wrong System For Your Claim

Every day Mobile maritime workers file Alabama state workers’ compensation claims when the LHWCA actually covers their injury. They do it because no one told them the federal system exists, or because their lawyer did not know the difference, or because the carrier’s adjuster never corrected the error. The two systems have different benefit calculations, different medical rules, different procedural structures, and different lifetime benefit potential. In many cases the LHWCA produces significantly better results for the injured worker. The worker who files under Alabama workers’ comp and never asks whether federal coverage applies leaves money on the table that the law was designed to give him.

Determining which system covers your injury requires knowing the nature of your specific work and where the injury occurred. Workers doing maritime employment on navigable waters or in the adjoining areas used for loading, unloading, building, or repairing vessels are generally covered under the LHWCA. Workers at the same facility doing land-based support work may fall under Alabama state workers’ compensation instead. The carrier is not going to tell you which system pays you more. Your lawyer needs to know both and choose correctly before anything gets filed.

The Carrier Started Building Its Defense The Day You Got Hurt

The moment the incident report hit the carrier’s system, an adjuster opened a file with your name on it. He has processed hundreds of LHWCA claims. He knows the benefit formula. He knows the medical arguments that minimize permanent impairment ratings. He has physicians whose reports consistently serve the carrier’s financial position. He has a recorded statement request ready. And he already knows whether the lawyer on the other side has ever been in the Covington hearing room.

That single assessment drives everything. The number he decides to offer. The posture he takes on your medical care. The pressure he decides to apply. None of that is based on what your case is worth under federal law. It is based on what he thinks he can get away with given who is representing you.

When I am on your side of that file, the calculation changes. The carrier knows I have been in that Covington hearing room. The threat of hearing is real. That shift in their posture is worth more to you than most injured workers ever understand.

Five Things That Destroy Mobile Longshore Claims Before They Start

The first is filing under Alabama workers’ comp when the LHWCA applies. The coverage question must be answered correctly at the start. It cannot always be fixed once the wrong claim is filed.

The second is giving the carrier a recorded statement. The adjuster will call it routine. Every word in it can be used against you at a federal hearing. You are not required to give it. Do not give it before you have talked to a lawyer who has been in that hearing room.

The third is accepting the carrier’s first settlement offer. Early offers are calibrated to the minimum the carrier thinks it can get away with. They are not based on what the LHWCA actually requires them to pay. The injured workers who recover what their case is actually worth are the ones who had a lawyer before they accepted anything.

The fourth is hiring a lawyer who has never been in the federal hearing room. Ask any lawyer you talk to: have you personally appeared before a federal Administrative Law Judge in the New Orleans district of the U.S. Department of Labor on a Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act case? A direct yes with specifics is the only acceptable answer. Anything else is a no.

The fifth is waiting. The LHWCA requires you to notify your employer within thirty days of the injury and file a formal claim within one year. Miss either and the carrier has a procedural argument that can permanently damage your recovery. Every day without a lawyer on your file is a day the carrier’s defense builds itself without any counterweight.

The Foster Fair Fee Guarantee

I am the only lawyer on this coast who puts this in your contract and means it: you will put more money in your pocket than I put in mine. Every case. No exceptions. That is the Foster Fair Fee Guarantee, written into your contract on day one. The TV lawyer will not match it because his business model does not allow it. When your recovery has to exceed my fee on every case I take, my financial interest and yours run in the same direction from the start.

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The $5,000 Double Dare No TV Lawyer Has Ever Collected

I will pay you $2,500 cash if the TV lawyer whose face is on the billboard personally handles your longshore case from the first call to the final check. Every phone call. Every hearing appearance. Every filing. Personally. I will pay you another $2,500 if that same TV lawyer personally argues your case in front of a federal Administrative Law Judge in the New Orleans district of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Nobody has ever collected. Because it never happens. The carrier knows it. That is why every file that comes in from a TV firm gets a lowball number from day one.

P.S. The carrier handling your Austal, BAE Systems, or Port of Mobile claim has worked longshore cases in this federal system for years. The TV lawyer you are thinking about calling has worked zero. The free book is where the comparison starts.

P.P.S. The Foster Fair Fee Guarantee is in your contract in writing on day one. You put more money in your pocket than I do. Every case. No exceptions.