Education: United States Merchant Marine Academy, Tulane Law School

Bar admissions: New York, New Jersey and Maine

Jeanne-Marie Van Hemmen practiced maritime law in New York and New Jersey, and throughout the country with the assistance of local counsel, for over thirty years. 

She represented  shipowners, operators, charterers, marine terminal operators,  employers of longshoremen, fishing vessel operators, marine service providers, and their insurance companies, in federal and state courts at the trial and appellate levels. She participated in arbitrations before the American Arbitration Association, and Society of Maritime Arbitrators. 

She has in-depth experience with virtually all facets of maritime law, including charter parties, contracts of afreightment, maritime casualties, Jones Act, marine construction, recreational boating, and longshore harbor workers personal injury, tug and towage, salvage, marine cargo claims, vessel arrests, Rule B maritime attachments, pollution incidents, maritime liens, and related insurance issues.

Her litigation experience includes ship collisions, breach of contract, insurance coverage disputes, commodity sales disputes, judgment enforcement actions, personal injury defense, marine construction litigation, oil trading contract disputes, and foreign judgment enforcement actions. She regularly worked with counsel internationally and in other states to orchestrate a coordinated approach to her clients’ needs, including attachment of foreign assets and the prosecution of foreign litigations and arbitrations. 

She is a graduate of Tulane Law School where she participated in Tulane's Admiralty and Maritime Law Program. She was on the Tulane Law review and graduated Order of the Coif. Jeanne-Marie began her maritime legal career in New York City as an associate with Haight, Gardner, Poor & Havens. She started her own maritime law firm, Betancourt, Van Hemmen, Greco & Kenyon, in Red Bank, New Jersey and New York City, where she and her partners and staff specialized in maritime litigation. 

In 2023, she moved to New Harbor, Maine, where she now serves as local counsel for out-of-state law firms in need of local maritime law expertise, and provides of-counsel maritime legal advice to Maine-based law firms. 

Before turning to the practice of law she graduated from the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, and worked on tugs and barges on the Inland Passage between Seattle, Washington, and Whittier, Alaska. In her spare time she explores the coast of Maine with her husband Pim, a nautical journalist, aboard their Zodiac RIB and Herreshoff 12 1/2.