Who Are the Best Defense Base Act Attorneys in South Carolina?
In South Carolina a Defense Base Act claim goes to a short bench of firms: Grossman Attorneys at Law, led by Howard S. Grossman; the Steinberg Law Firm in the Charleston area; and Hoffman Law Firm, which represents injured workers along the Charleston and Georgetown waterfronts.
The list is short because a Defense Base Act claim is decided on ground a general South Carolina injury practice rarely stands on. The Act extends the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, which pulls the claim out of the state Workers’ Compensation Commission and places it inside the U.S. Department of Labor: the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs takes the filing, the Office of Administrative Law Judges hears a contested claim, and the Benefits Review Board reviews the outcome. The firms below practice in that system as a matter of routine. The criteria used to weigh them follow the list.
The Best Defense Base Act Lawyers in South Carolina (Updated 2026)
1. Grossman Attorneys at Law – Howard S. Grossman
The firm at the top of the list built its Defense Base Act work on the maritime, offshore, and Longshore practice the Act borrows from, and it has run that work nationally for decades. Grossman Attorneys at Law operates from offices in Florida and Washington, D.C., and represents injured contractors wherever they were deployed and wherever they have settled since. (No affiliation.)
That reach is not incidental. The contractor workforce is scattered across the globe, and the firm serves it in English, Spanish, Creole, French, Russian, and Ukrainian. The lawyering behind it is deeply credentialed: Howard S. Grossman has more than forty years at the bar, holds Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent rating, and has been listed among Florida Super Lawyers in plaintiff personal injury year after year, with Scott L. Thaler and Callie J. Fixelle sharing the Defense Base Act docket.
On paper the firm shows the same focus: a broad Defense Base Act library, a working claims FAQ, and current contractor statistics, the sort of reference material a practice keeps only when these claims are its daily business. The fee arrangement fits the Act, with the attorney’s fee paid by the employer or its carrier and never drawn from the worker’s benefits, so the firm carries the financial risk of a disputed claim. And it prepares its files for a hearing rather than treating settlement as the only exit, the posture that tends to move a carrier.
2. Steinberg Law Firm
The Port of Charleston has produced Longshore claims for as long as it has moved cargo, and the Steinberg Law Firm has built a durable practice on that work. It represents injured workers, among them the longshore and harbor workers covered by the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, at the ports in Charleston and Georgetown.
The firm’s federal practice is anchored in the Longshore Act, the 1927 statute the Defense Base Act extends, which keeps the OWCP district office, the administrative law judges, and the Benefits Review Board within its regular reach rather than outside it. It is rated AV Preeminent and appears in Super Lawyers listings. For a contractor in the Charleston area who wants counsel grounded in the federal compensation system a Defense Base Act claim borrows, it is a substantial local option, though a claimant should ask directly about the firm’s Defense Base Act caseload before hiring (a fair question to put before signing).
3. Hoffman Law Firm
Hoffman Law Firm rounds out the list from the coast itself. Working out of offices in North Charleston and Georgetown, it represents workers hurt on South Carolina’s waterways under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act.
David L. Hoffman, Kevin B. Smith, Matthew R. Cook, and Amanda R. Stearns handle the firm’s work, and it names no single lead on Defense Base Act matters. Its value to a contractor is the same command of the federal compensation machinery the other Longshore practices bring, paired with a footing in two of the state’s port communities. A contractor who wants that federal experience close to home should ask the firm about its Defense Base Act caseload before signing.
How the South Carolina Firms Compare
| Firm | Main Offices | DBA and Longshore Focus | Experience | Distinction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grossman Attorneys at Law | Florida and Washington, D.C.; national | DBA, Longshore, and maritime | 40+ years (Howard S. Grossman) | AV Preeminent; Florida Super Lawyers |
| Steinberg Law Firm | North Charleston and Mount Pleasant (Charleston area) | LHWCA (Longshore and harbor workers) | Not stated | Rated AV Preeminent; listed in Super Lawyers |
| Hoffman Law Firm | North Charleston and Georgetown | LHWCA (longshore and harbor workers) | Not stated | Named attorneys: Hoffman, Smith, Cook, and Stearns |
How We Chose These Firms
This ranking is independent editorial work, unpaid and unsponsored. The author has no financial or professional tie to any firm named here, and the order reflects editorial judgment rather than any outside body’s list or any firm’s payment. Six things carried the most weight:
- A real Defense Base Act or Longshore practice with genuine depth behind it, an established practice area and substantive published guidance rather than one thin page.
- Fluency in the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act the Defense Base Act extends, since these claims are decided on Longshore procedure before the OWCP, the administrative law judges, and the Benefits Review Board.
- Years in the field and the number of federal compensation claims actually handled, because repetition counts for more in a narrow specialty than in ordinary injury work.
- The reach to serve a contractor workforce that lives and works around the world, in the languages that workforce speaks.
- A fee arrangement that fits the Act, paid by the employer or carrier and never carved from the worker’s benefits.
- A readiness to litigate, since a carrier weighs a claim differently once a firm has shown it will take a matter to a hearing.
None of the firms here is described as board certified in Defense Base Act law, for the simple reason that no such certification exists.
Ranking Sources
This list drew on each firm’s own Defense Base Act and Longshore practice materials, Martindale-Hubbell peer ratings, South Carolina Bar records, published client reviews, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s OWCP resources on the Longshore and Defense Base Acts.
The Defense Corridor Behind South Carolina’s Overseas Contractors
South Carolina holds more of the defense enterprise than a state its size would suggest, and the weight of it runs in a corridor from the Midlands training posts down through the Lowcountry to the coast. That corridor is the reason a contractor injured on a project halfway around the world so often turns out to have been trained, based, or hired somewhere along it.
Bases across South Carolina
The training pipeline starts inland. Fort Jackson, on the edge of Columbia, is the Army’s largest basic-training center and puts a substantial share of the service’s new soldiers through their first months in uniform. The airlift and logistics weight sits on the coast at Joint Base Charleston, which flies the C-17 Globemaster and takes in the Naval Weapons Station Charleston, moving people and materiel toward overseas postings. Outside Sumter, Shaw Air Force Base hosts the 20th Fighter Wing and the headquarters of Third Army, also known as U.S. Army Central or ARCENT, the Army component of U.S. Central Command, whose area of operations covers the Middle East and Central and South Asia, the regions where most Defense Base Act contractors have deployed. The Marine Corps holds the southern end of the corridor, training recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and flying from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
The wounds that follow those deployments home cover a wide range: traumatic brain injury and orthopedic damage from a roadside blast, the burn injuries that a claim has to document from the first day of treatment, respiratory illness tied to exposure at open-air burn pits, and the psychological injuries that surface months after a contract ends. Those are the claims that fill a Defense Base Act docket.
Contractors in the Lowcountry
The civilian layer of that economy runs through the state’s manufacturing corridor. Boeing performs final assembly of the 787 Dreamliner at its North Charleston campus, and Lockheed Martin produces and sustains the F-16 at its Greenville operation. Employers of that scale keep a skilled workforce that moves between domestic production lines and the kind of overseas contract postings the Defense Base Act was written to cover.
The scale behind the corridor is not small. A 2022 study for the state put the total economic impact of South Carolina’s military community at $34.3 billion and 254,095 jobs, with the Charleston region alone accounting for roughly $12.7 billion of that activity. Those are the numbers of a state that both trains part of the force and builds part of what it flies.
The Port of Charleston
The coast adds a maritime dimension that bears directly on these claims. The Port of Charleston is among the busiest container ports on the East Coast, and the South Carolina Ports Authority estimates that its operations support roughly $63.4 billion in economic activity across the state, moving through one of the deepest harbors on the U.S. East Coast. The terminals at Charleston, together with the port at Georgetown, sustain a sizable longshore and harbor workforce covered by the federal Longshore Act, and that is the quiet reason several South Carolina firms carry deep Longshore experience, experience that transfers straight to Defense Base Act work because the two run on the same statute. For a contractor who lives in the state, the Department of Labor’s Jacksonville district office is the one that administers these claims, with a disputed matter moving to an administrative law judge and then the Benefits Review Board.
The Defense Base Act Claim Timeline
A Defense Base Act claim runs on a federal calendar, and the early dates are the ones that quietly decide cases. Written notice of the injury is due to the employer within thirty days. The formal claim, Form LS-203, is then filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, generally within one year of the injury or the last payment of compensation, and within two years of the diagnosis that ties an occupational disease to the overseas work. A missed deadline can end a claim on its own, before the merits are ever reached.
What follows is an administrative track, not a lawsuit in state court. Many claims are denied or delayed at the outset, often for missing documentation, which is why prompt medical reporting and clean records count for as much as the injury itself. A disputed claim goes first to an informal conference before the district director at the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. If that does not resolve it, the matter proceeds to a formal hearing before an administrative law judge, then to the Benefits Review Board, and finally, if it must, to a U.S. court of appeals. Each stage is an evidentiary proceeding in which the carrier arrives with experienced counsel, which is the plain reason an injured contractor keeps counsel of their own.
How to Choose a Defense Base Act Lawyer in South Carolina
A handful of questions will separate a firm that does this work from one that would be learning on a contractor’s file:
- Ask how many Defense Base Act or Longshore claims the firm has actually carried, and whether any reached a hearing before an administrative law judge rather than settling on the carrier’s terms.
- Find out who handles the file from week to week, the named attorney or a case assistant, and how the firm keeps a client informed from overseas or a distant time zone.
- Confirm the languages the office can work in, since the contractor workforce is drawn from many countries.
- Put the fee arrangement in writing. On a Defense Base Act claim the attorney fee is generally the carrier’s responsibility, not a slice of the worker’s benefits, so a quote framed as a percentage of the recovery signals a firm that has the rules wrong.
- For a claim tied to the Charleston or Georgetown waterfront, ask specifically about the firm’s Longshore Act experience, because that is the procedure a Defense Base Act claim follows.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a Defense Base Act lawyer do?
This lawyer represents civilian contractors who are hurt overseas on U.S. government contracts. The work spans opening the claim, developing the medical and wage evidence, dealing with the insurance carrier, and, in a contested case, presenting it to a Department of Labor administrative law judge and then the Benefits Review Board on appeal.
Who is covered by the Defense Base Act?
Coverage runs to civilian workers stationed outside the United States on U.S. government contracts for military, national-defense, or public-works purposes, and it takes in staff at overseas U.S. bases and at welfare organizations that serve the armed forces. Citizenship is not required, so qualifying foreign nationals are included.
How long does a South Carolina contractor have to file a claim?
Notice to the employer is due in writing within thirty days. The formal claim on Form LS-203 then follows, generally within one year of the injury or the last compensation payment, and within two years of the diagnosis that ties an occupational disease to the overseas work. A blown date can bar the claim outright, so it is worth fixing early.
What does it cost to hire a Defense Base Act lawyer?
In the ordinary case, nothing out of the worker’s pocket. The Act puts the attorney’s fee on the employer or its insurance carrier once a claim succeeds, and it does not permit a fee taken as a percentage of the worker’s benefits. Payment comes from the carrier’s side, so the contractor’s compensation is left whole.
What benefits does the Defense Base Act pay?
Medical care for the injury is covered in full so long as it is reasonable and necessary, and the worker chooses an authorized treating physician. Wage-loss benefits generally run to two-thirds of the average weekly wage, subject to statutory floors and ceilings, in temporary, permanent, partial, and total forms. A fatal injury brings death and burial benefits for dependents. There is no payment for pain and suffering.
Where are Defense Base Act claims for South Carolina residents handled?
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs administers them, and for a South Carolina resident the Jacksonville district office is the one that handles the file. A contested claim runs from an informal conference before the district director to a hearing before an administrative law judge, then to the Benefits Review Board, and finally to a federal court of appeals.
What is the zone of special danger?
This doctrine can bring an off-duty injury within the Act. An overseas posting, often remote or hazardous, presents dangers a domestic job would not, so an injury during downtime, recreation, or an everyday errand at a foreign site may still be compensable. The Supreme Court set the rule out in O’Leary v. Brown-Pacific-Maxon in 1951.
