At the Bar - The venue for my meeting with one of Spain’s best-known

Suzanne Starbuck meets José Alcántara, founder of Madrid-based firm AMYA Abogados

AUBERGE café/bar/restaurant, off Fenchurch Street in London, looks a bit like a cabaret club from the outside but, like so many of the City’s eateries, is a vast basement of dark wood, white linen, mirrors and leather-backed chairs. It is also the venue for my meeting with one of Spain’s best-known and, I am sure he would agree, outspoken maritime lawyers - José Alcántara.

José is in London doing what he enjoys most about maritime law – travelling and meeting fellow lawyers. But he is no stranger to the city. Having decided on a career in maritime law, and with few opportunities open to him in his native Spain, José enrolled at University College London under the watchful eye of the “very inspirational” Professor Cadwallader. Once his studies were complete, he extended his stay in London by taking a training position with Tindall Riley & Co, managers of the Britannia P&I Club, before returning to Spain to head up the P&I department of an insurance company.

It wasn’t long before he was on the move again, but this time to join forces with a fellow lawyer. All went well until 1981 when they, as José describes, “divorced”. Since then, however, AMYA Abogados has been born and has gone from strength to strength. Today the firm has 43 members of staff across offices in Spain as well as Paris, Lisbon, Rome, Piraeus, Panama City and Buenos Aires. And when he’s not busy overseeing the running of the firm, José finds time to get involved in just about every maritime law-related association, organisation and committee in Spain, including acting as president for the Spanish Maritime Law Association and Spanish Maritime Arbitration Association. But then, this is a man on a crusade.

“What I find most disappointing today is the lack of uniformity of the law,” he says. “Too many countries take a domestic approach to maritime law. This has to go if governments are to start paying any attention to maritime matters and an acceptable solution to uniformity can be found.” Talking of finding solutions, over starters of duck pate and salmon, José tells me about his latest project – MARLAW 2005.

“It is the first time a panel of experts has been assembled at a colloquium for free discussion of selected issues of the moment,” he explains. [See Delegates Diary in this issue] “Twenty-two different countries will be represented – an international viewpoint is important,” he adds, as he reels off a never-ending list of topics up for debate.

Addressing the issues surrounding multimodal transport seems to be top of José’s wish-list for the event. “Shipping law used to be talked about as being autonomous, but it comes ashore and international law must be developed to reflect this,” he says. “The problem with maritime law is that it is just too slow. We are always learning from accidents.”

According to José, lawyers must become much more involved in developing the law they practise. “It is difficult for lawyers as we have a bad reputation around the world. Not only do we make money from people’s trouble, we also don’t commit ourselves to improving the law that we make the money from,” he says. “This is a bad thing. We need to help improve the law and make it more just.”

Our main courses of salmon and sea bass arrive as José explains how Spain is at least making moves in the right direction. “Spain used to rely on its civil courts for maritime matters, but this could result in a lack of experience. Since September last year, maritime cases have been heard at the commercial courts, five of which are in Madrid and four in Barcelona,” he says. A welcome development for the Spanish maritime fraternity, no doubt.

Something else José would like to see is more lawyers spending even a small amount of time at sea. He has never been enrolled on board, but believes that it would bring a much greater understanding and respect for masters and their crew. “I have great admiration for seamen,” he says. “I would have liked to go to sea but my father was a doctor and I think those who go to sea are often born into it.” Although his childhood may not have been spent on the water, José did spend much of his time in his home port of Malaga watching the ships being loaded and unloaded.

In fact, according to José “After a woman there is nothing more beautiful than a ship.”