Sideways Society

The day after Thanksgiving, James Christodoulou found himself in an impossible situation. The CEO of Stamford, Conn.-based Industrial Shipping Enterprises had just received word that a band of Somali pirates had boarded and hijacked one of his tankers — the Liberian-flagged MV Biscaglia — in the Gulf of Aden. Christodoulou turned to his company’s longtime outside counsel at Seward Kissel for assistance in rescuing the ship’s 28-man crew and putting company investors at ease.