Vanessa Tzoannos swotted for a year, mostly studying in the evenings at home after her regular work was done. And when the time came for exams, she had to fly all around the world to take them.
“It took me two days and a half, just to get from Greece to the Marshall Islands,” said Tzoannos, a senior associate in the Piraeus office of Ince & Co. “It was a proper and very tough five-hour exam,” she added.
Last year, she became the first Greek national to qualify as counsel to practise law in the Marshall Islands.
The jurisdiction is becoming ever more relevant to globalised shipping companies. As the Pacific republic’s flag expands, aspects of its law increasingly crop up in corporate and shipping finance contracts.
Tribal culture
Aspiring counsels are required to familiarise themselves with the island’s tribal institutions, often in the local language.
“There’s the dri-bubu, which is the magician, and the iroij, which is basically the king. You have to learn the terminology and the whole history behind it and how land rights and titles are inherited,” she added.
Having the corporate law of the US state of Delaware as its base, Marshall Islands law is similar to Liberian law, on which Tzoannos can also advise.
With Liberian and Marshall Island-based entities being part of many shipping transactions, there is strong demand for legal opinions from qualified lawyers. These apply to a range of questions, from whether mortgages are enforceable, to checking compliance of corporate articles or bylaws with Marshall Islands legislation.
“I realised there was a gap in the Greek market … I saw it as a great opportunity, so I went for it,” said Tzoannos, who initially trained in Greek law, studied at Oxford and then qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales.
The time and energy that went into Tzoannos' qualification was well worth the effort, said Paul Herring, head of Ince & Co’s Piraeus office. “When we’ve been telling both our shipowning and our finance clients about this capability, we have certainly found real interest on their part,” he added.
