Title: Partner
Direct: (202) 967-4102
Mobile: (410) 507-1768
Email: hablack@millsblack.com

vCARD: H. Allen Black

H. ALLEN BLACK, Partner

Allen Black heads Mills Black’s maritime practice. He is licensed to practice in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and is a member of the Maritime Law Association.  He received a B.S. degree from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1979, and a J.D. from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and Mary in 1991, where he was a member of the William and Mary Law Review, a Teaching Assistant, and Order of the Coif. 

Mr. Black enjoys a diverse practice, with a focus on regulatory, litigation, and commercial matters for maritime and other commercial clients. He has a breadth of experience handling complex regulatory matters, maritime investigations, cargo and shipping issues, vessel financing and documentation transaction, maritime commercial transactions, marine construction and product liability issues, and general maritime counseling. He has also handled a wide range of maritime litigation and arbitration matters, including marine casualties, product liability disputes, maritime lien and mortgage foreclosure cases, and maritime criminal law matters. He has helped establish a number of key precedents in maritime law concerning the scope of maritime attachments, the availability of punitive and lost-profits damages in admiralty, and the jurisdictional reach of admiralty limitation of liability actions. Mr. Black’s expertise and practice has led him to assist clients in resolving matters with numerous federal agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Maritime Commission, the U.S. Maritime Administration, and the Department of Justice. Mr. Black has also handled a number of arbitration matters before the Society for Maritime Arbitration, the American Arbitration Association, and the Houston Maritime Arbitration Association. Mr. Black assists clients to avoid litigation by conducting shipboard internal investigations and providing timely, practical advice to shipowners and shippers, and by assisting clients with organizational and contracting matters.

Mr. Black served as a seagoing officer, and later as an attorney, in the U.S. Coast Guard, retiring at the rank of Commander in 1996. Before attending law school, Mr. Black served three tours afloat, commanding two Coast Guard cutters and carrying out the full range of Coast Guard missions, from heavy weather rescues to intercepting drug smugglers and deterring mutinies at sea. As a Coast Guard attorney, he handled a number of felony-level trials and advised Coast Guard commanders on operational law matters, before being selected to train and ultimately manage the Coast Guard’s legal workforce. In addition, he developed, coordinated, and presented international law seminars to top-level military and civilian officials in a number of emerging democracies in support of Department of Defense initiatives, traveling to, and working with, a number of countries, including Ukraine, Colombia, Estonia, and Russia. Following retirement from the Coast Guard, Mr. Black first worked as a maritime and litigation attorney in Baltimore before joining the large international law firm Winston & Strawn in 1999. After twenty years of practice in the “big law” environment, Mr. Black opened Mills Black LLP with his long-time partner Tom Mills.

Mr. Black was selected as the 2013 Lawyer of the Year for Admiralty & Maritime Law by Best Lawyers. Mr. Black has also been recognized as a leading admiralty and maritime lawyer by The Best Lawyers in America since 2012, and has been ranked in Chambers USA since 2011 as one of the nation’s top lawyers in transportation litigation practice.

Mr. Black has also lectured as an adjunct professor of Admiralty Law at the University of Baltimore since 1997, and served as an adjunct program developer and instructor for the United States Department of Defense Institute for International Legal Studies from 1993-1999. He is a past president of the Marine Trades Association of Maryland. Mr. Black has written and spoken extensively on maritime law matters ranging from maritime regulatory developments to maritime contracting, legal developments, piracy, and maritime environmental compliance. He is co-author of the “Maritime Law Answer Book,” now in its fifth printing by the Practicing Law Institute.

Mr. Black’s court admissions include: Eastern District of Virginia, District of Maryland, District of Columbia, Southern District of New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First, Second, and Fourth Circuit, and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.