Sometimes you just have to take a break from personal injury law and talk about treasure hunting. In this episode, we interview Lieutenant Commander and Navy JAG, Jordan Foley about maritime treasure law. Why? Because I didn’t know anything about it and wanted to hit “record” while I learned. During this conversation, we take a “deep dive” into some of the misconceptions surrounding treasure law and some of the challenging legal arguments that come up during international treasure disputes. Visit Jordan online here: https://www.usni.org/people/jordan-foley. See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eQ0BZ0M1V4 Transcript: Lindsey: Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I'm your host, Lindsey Busfield. Well, I should amend my opening spiel. We usually cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world, but sometimes we're just going to talk about whatever I want to. I recently taught a CLE at the Maryland State Bar Association, and while I was there, I met Lieutenant Commander in Navy JAG, Jordan Foley. While he currently serves as the Department of Defense Fellow to Senator Mazie K. Hirono in Hawaii, he has a special background in naval warfare and a deep understanding of maritime treasure law. Knowing absolutely nothing about this myself, I wanted to take the opportunity to learn more about treasure law and invite you listeners to join me on this educational journey. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jordan.   JJ Foley: Absolutely. Thanks, Lindsey, for having me, and it was great meeting you in Ocean City, and I was glad we could talk a little A little bit.   Lindsey: And as I like to say, nerd out about treasure law. So that was fun. I mean, who doesn't love treasure law as kids? You know, we are taught to play pirates and you steal the treasure. My kids do this on their play set. You know, it's just kind of built into your childhood and development as a natural curiosity. So tell us a bit about your background and how you got involved in treasure law.   JJ Foley: Absolutely. I'll actually start with saying knowing more about treasure law takes some of the romance out of it, which we'll get into later. But it is a fun topic. But so, you know, as you stated, I'm an active duty Navy judge advocate. I started off my naval career as a submarine officer. So I got ship driving experience and deployment experience there. And they got selected for a Navy program where they sent me to law school and I became a Navy JAG through that. So I have a bit of a mix. I'm about 15 years into my career and half of it was spent on submarines and now about half of it as a judge advocate. And a lot of what I've focused on over the years has been. Naval warfare and legal analysis. So whether that is applying law to sea to board deploy missions, or sometimes weapons reviews, as I was doing at the Pentagon most recently before I joined Senator Verona's office as a defense fellow, a lot of it's been bridging the gap between my naval warfare experience and the legal and policy world.   Lindsey: And a lot of this comes with your understanding of international law, treaties, and working with our partners and allies, and sometimes even teaching and providing legal support for our partners and allies. So I've had this broad experience, and as one does in the beautiful profession of naval law and such, you find your interest areas, and mine became very quickly, for a lot of reasons you mentioned, treasure law, because it's cool and it's fun, and it's almost a bit of a hobby for me, too. But in the industry, in the private sector, it is an area that you have some specialized attorneys. He's in maritime and admiralty, and I like to see myself as maybe extra specialized with admiralty and maritime law, as focused in the Navy, but it doesn't stop me from nerding out, as we said, about things like treasure law. So let's start with kind of a broad focus here. What exactly is maritime treasure law, and how does it differ from other types of maritime or property law?   JJ Foley: So interestingly enough, it specifically deals with ownership, salvage rights, protection of valuables covered from shipwrecks, and submerged cultural heritage. So it's unlike broader maritime law. That's going to cover your shipping, your navigation, commerce. Treasure law focuses on the intersection of property rights, historic preservation, and salvage operations. So you actually find an interesting niche here, and it's very complex in a lot of ways. So for international lawyers out there, it's great. For a hypothetical question on... Law school exam, I'd absolutely throw one on there if I was teaching international law. But with treasurer laws, involves just complex international treaties and competing claims from governments, private salvers, and descendants of original owners.   Lindsey: You know, it's making it tightly and highly specialized, nuanced area with just storylines galore. So that's really how it differentiates itself. And anyone who dives into it, pun intended, too, can really see where the romance we spoke of comes from with treasurer law. And you have so many different parties that are involved in this, as you mentioned, you know, you have historic preservation, you have people who are going after and finding the treasure and having that excitement and kind of that, and an investment in going down and finding this as well as the country of origin. And there, I mean, it just, as you said, makes it so incredibly complex. And since it is complex, clearly, there are probably some big misconceptions out out there that have to do with this when somebody is kind of taking a top-level glance at this case. So what are some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about treasure hunting and maybe the legality surrounding it?   JJ Foley: I do love, Todd, because this is where my wife doesn't let me tell my daughters about the nuances here because she doesn't want me to take away the whimsy. But a big one is there's not really finders keepers. I think that's a big one. So one major misconception is that anyone who finds a shipwreck or treasure automatically owns it. But in reality, the ownership and salvage rights are subject to these treaties, national laws, historic claims that we talked about. So it can get kind of messy. So I would say that's definitely one of them that we look at as saying, hey, you found it, it's yours. No, actually, it's contrary to what you believe in a lot of ways. Another one is that, you know, sunken warships are still sovereign territory. Warships can be centuries old and remain the property of that. But thanks to sovereign immunity, which is a concept that I work with pretty extensively. So that means if you find a Spanish galleon or something from the 1700s, it may still legally belong to Spain. So Duncan worships are still sovereign territory, which is a foundation that we practice as a Navy and beyond. But there's also a treaty for all this stuff, I guess. UNESCO, a convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage, talks a lot about this. I think I mentioned earlier, you know, there's some protectionism in it. And there is a treaty. We think about this stuff. People think about this stuff. The UN thinks about it. And then I would say the other one where people think like after a long period of time, like how long do you got to wait for this to just expire, right? It's time doesn't always expire on your ship. So you think that after like 200 years, all bets are off. But we still have heirs to shipping companies that have successfully claimed cargo centuries later after. It was lost. So I think those are a lot of the ones.   Lindsey: And then, you know, one movie I tend to sometimes, you know, ruin for people is The Goonies. I know my child would.   JJ Foley: So, you know, the kids find the one-eyed Willie's treasure and, you know, it's going to, you know, they found the loot, right? But in reality, it would raise serious questions. So it's like, you know, was the treasure bandit? Who owns the ship? Was it a protected heritage zone? But, you know, it's these movies and I think the whimsy around finding treasure that make it in so many popular films. But I tend to enjoy picking apart some of the ones. And people always say, like, you know, as a jag, what do you think about A Few Good Men? And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, think it's a great movie. was a great recruiting tool for us. And then anybody who practices in a courtroom will tell you what was on and off. But I think, you know, the reason why there's so many shows, Jag being one of them, one of the most popular ones, I would say, you know, for a stretch there in the 90s, is. That the courtroom provides drama. And then this treasure law, a component of it too, treasure, you know, provides the whimsy and the interest. So I think, you know, marrying the two together, it's interesting.   Lindsey: I don't know if we'll ever, Lindsey, don't know if we'll ever see a treasure law sitcom movie or anything that's really deep into the practice. But if Hollywood comes knocking, I'd be happy to help them write that script. And I think it would be a great script because it is, it is complicated. And if you have somebody who is an heir to a treasure that was lost, let's say 200 years ago, they might not even know it exists. If they know it exists, they don't have the resources to go get it. And then you have somebody else who has invested in the resources, had a hunch that something might be down there and has gone and recovered this.