SPOTLIGHT
Vin Casiano: A Law Student Familiar With Pressure
Pressure isn't being forced into a Socratic dialogue about the Dormant Commerce Clause with Professor Kingsfield. And it's not making your first argument in a moot court.
Pressure is piloting a tanker filled with carcinogenic chemicals off the coast of Miami and spotting another ship crossing in front of you. Maritime law says you have to yield to the right. But moving to the right puts you aground, on a reef just a few yards away. Slamming on the brakes? Unfortunately, stopping is not an option either, since ships don't have brakes. The tanker requires more than a mile of open water to come to a halt-and that's only after slamming the engine into reverse in an emergency!
Pressure is running your ship at night, through the Houston ship channel at the Galveston buoy, where several major shipping lanes converge in a nightmare equivalent of a Los Angeles freeway spaghetti-bowl interchange. Pressure is loading or unloading toxic cargo or supervising a deck the length of two football fields with 27 storage tanks below, knowing that turning the wrong valve or making a slight miscalculation could result in spilling some really nasty chemicals into the harbor.
Vin Casiano knows pressure. Sure, he has dealt with the Socratic dialogue. But before law school, Casiano was a merchant marine officer, sailing around the world on tankers loaded with petrochemical products. He holds a master's license for small tankers and unlimited tonnage second and third mate's licenses.
Casiano's merchant-marine life was usually a routine of 120 days at sea, then 120 days at home. As he recalls, "The quality of life on board vessels was horrible." At sea, every sailor stands a watch every 12 hours. So even when your vessel was docked, there wasn't much free time; even if you found some free time, there wasn't much to do. Casiano says that officers really can't socialize too much with the crew, because "you have to be able to give them orders when the situations are critical."
Casiano is now a third-year law student at the University of California Hastings College of Law, in San Francisco. After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Casiano says the shipping industry changed. To avoid potentially huge liabilities under U.S. laws, the industry began moving away from using vessels with U.S. registry. This had a significant impact on the shipping industry, because foreign-registry vessels are not required to have officers licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard. When Casiano saw captains with years of experience taking jobs as third mates because it was the only work they could find, he knew it was time to get out. His sister, Wendy Lindsey, a lawyer on Long Island, encouraged him to enter law school.
Casiano urges fellow students to "get involved in law school," and he has walked the walk. Last year he organized the Bay Area's "Race Judicata," a 5K fund-raising run, which donated $3,300 to Legal Services for Children. This year's beneficiary will be the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation. A 5K run (3.1 miles) is actually a fairly short distance for Casiano, who competes in triathlons. He has also competed in moot court competitions-although it may be a toss-up to say which is more demanding.
Casiano has worked at various jobs while attending law school. He held the position of pollution and safety advisor for the maritime division of Exxon, boarding vessels to identify potential problems and recommend appropriate corrective action. The job also required monitoring Exxon's compliance with local, state, federal and international environmental regulations. Casiano has also worked at a San Diego labor employment law firm and as a legal intern for the Port of Oakland. Currently, he's employed at the Hastings Civil Justice Clinic, where this semester he handled a wage and hours case and a special education case.
Casiano is extensively involved in the ABA/LSD. During his tenure as the school's representative, Hastings was named ABA/LSD "Outstanding School of the Year" for increasing its membership by more than 300 students-the largest increase in the country. Casiano just completed a term on the ABA/LSD Board of Governors, as Governor of the 14th Circuit, overseeing law schools in Northern California and Nevada. And he serves as the division's liaison to the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense.
Although he feels law may not be exactly easy, Casiano tries to stay relaxed. After all, he says, making a mistake at sea, "whether at the con of a supertanker or in charge of transfer operations for thousands of barrels of petroleum products, is far worse than getting a bad grade on a law school exam."
Lee Farbman
