America’s best-known commercial drone litigator—a title that means nothing, at the moment—is a Harvard-trained lawyer with a garage full of model aircraft he’s been flying for 20 years, weather permitting. Brendan Schulman is special counsel at Manhattan law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, which launched an “unmanned aircraft systems practice group” in December. “We anticipate that there will be many different areas of law that will be impacted by the emergence of this new technology,” Schulman says, not unlike the myriad legal issues raised by the Internet’s rapid growth.
As commercial drones expand into industries from agriculture to filmmaking and real estate to utility inspections, the firm says its expects many new business opportunities. It’s not alone. Several large law firms across the U.S. have created similar specialties in recent months, including McKenna, Long & Aldridge and LeClair Ryan. Disputes are likely to arise over privacy issues, air and land-use rights, and matters of insurance, environmental and regulatory compliance for drone operators. But all that is one day in the future, after the Federal Aviation Administration drafts operating rules for smaller commercial drones that weigh less than 55 pounds. That category covers the vast majority of commercial unmanned aircraft on the market today, many of which are powered by batteries. The agency is expected to release its drone safety rules in late 2015, although many enthusiasts in the field anticipate further delays, noting the slow pace of movement in that area.
Still, the work in this area is growing. One new Kramer Levin client is Texas EquuSearch Mounted Search and Recovery, a Texas organization that uses an unmanned, five-pound foam and plastic aircraft to hunt for missing people. In February, an aviation safety inspector with the FAA told Texas EquuSearch to stop its drone flights immediately, prompting the Houston-based group to contact Schulman. He, in turn, is giving the agency until April 16 to rescind the order or face a lawsuit from the group. The agency has told the nonprofit to operate its drones with a group that holds one of the 500 operating certificates issued by the agency, mostly to law enforcement. “In many instances, local rescuers have no access to manned aircraft or helicopters and the model aircraft represents the only option for obtaining an aerial view of locations that need to be searched as soon as possible,” Schulman wrote (PDF) to the FAA’s acting general counsel.
A month ago, Kramer Levin secured its first win in skirmishing with the feds over commercial drone use when a federal administrative law judge, ruling that the FAA cannot enforce its ban on drone flights, overturned a $10,000 penalty assessed against a videographer who used a drone to film a promotional video at the University of Virginia. The FAA is appealing the ruling to the full National Transportation Safety Board.
Schulman attended Yale University as an undergrad and then received his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He specializes in law and technology with a focus on electronic communications in commercial disputes. He has been building and flying model aircraft for some 20 years–the hobby sparked his interest in the legal issues that will inevitably arise someday when thousands of commercial drones will be in use daily.
“I’m more familiar with the term model aircraft but in the past couple years what I know as model aircraft have been referred to as drones many, many times,” says Schulman, who flies his craft at a park near his New Jersey home that is dedicated to model aircraft flying. “That simply means that I have a garage full of drones, much to my surprise.”
