David J. Farrell, Jr. is President of The Maritime Law Association of the United States, founded in 1899. Its membership consists of 2,200 maritime lawyers and industry leaders. The association does not lobby because its members professionally represent a wide variety of interests, often conflicting. But on especially worthy public policies that would benefit from a legal solution with no downside, it adopts consensus resolutions, as it has done urging U.S. ratification of UNCLOS and the Rotterdam Rules.