John T. Lillis Jr.

In 1986, after experience as a Deck Officer aboard supertankers and eleven years with Donovan Maloof Walsh & Kennedy, Jack started Kennedy & Lillis, now Kennedy Lillis Schmidt & English, with Don Kennedy.

• Marine Insurance Matters: Jack provides claims advice and advocacy in mediation, arbitration, and trial proceedings on behalf of marine insurers. Specifically, Jack handles world-wide marine cargo, hull, and liability matters: for example, strandings, sinkings, fires, explosions, collisions, allisions, weather events, catastrophic losses, navigational issues, cargo loss, damage, and shortage, injury and death, salvage, general average, hull and machinery damage, yachts and marinas, and liability of charterers, stevedores, ships, shippers, and product manufacturers.
• Inland Marine & Property: Additionally, Jack handles an ever-increasing amount of inland matters including storm damage to port and coastline facilities, structural failures at hydroelectric plants, shopping malls, and warehouses, trucking and bus wrecks, factory and warehouse fires, and boiler explosions.
• Cargo Owners & Commodities Traders: As a logical outgrowth of the marine practice, Jack represents cargo owners and commodities traders in a range of legal and practical matters including prosecuting cargo owner claims against third parties responsible for cargo damage, drafting and advising on purchase and sale contracts, litigating disputes under such contracts, providing transportation logistics advice, and assisting with real-time crisis management.

Admitted to the bar: 1976, New Jersey; 1977, New York. Admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Education: Chaminade H.S., 1968; State University of New York Maritime College (B.S. with honors, 1972); St. John’s University (J.D. 1976). Deck Officer, Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. tanker ships 1972-1973; Adjunct Professor of Admiralty Law, The College of Insurance, 1980-1988. Member: Maritime Law Association of the United States (Chair, Transportation of Hazardous Substances Committee, 1995-2002), New York County Lawyers’ Association, and International Network of Boutique Law Firms (INBLF), Association of Average Adjusters of the United States.

Jack has received a Martindale-Hubbell rating of AV® Preeminent™. AV® Preeminent ™ and BV® Distinguished™ are certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies. Information about the Martindale-Hubbell ratings process can be found here.

Jack is listed in New York – Metro Super Lawyers®