Eastham, Watson, Dale & Forney is a maritime law firm based in Houston, Texas

Mr. Klawetter was born and raised in Texas. After serving in the United States Marine Corps from 1971 to 1975, he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in 1978 and his Juris Doctorate degree from Baylor University in 1981. Mr. Klawetter is licensed to practice in all Texas state and federal courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a Proctor member of the Maritime Law Association, and a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Defense Research Institute, the Texas Association of Defense Counsel, and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Mr. Klawetter has a litigation practice specializing in the defense of maritime injury and death cases. He has several dozen jury and non-jury trials to his credit, as well as numerous appellate arguments. In the course of more than two decades of practice, he has served as lead counsel for shipowners in a number of high profile cases, including the Guevara case (in which the en banc Fifth Circuit overturned the venerable Merry Shipping decision and effectively abolished punitive damages from the law of seamen), the 1990 explosion of the M/T MEGA BORG off Galveston (in which he also acted as spokesman for vessel interests before the national and international news media), the 1996 incident involving the M/V MAERSK DUBAI in which Romanian stowaways were allegedly thrown overboard on the high seas of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Motts case (in which the Fifth Circuit held that the Death on the High Seas Act applies where the decedent is injured on the high seas, even if the party's negligence is entirely land-based and begins after the injury). Additionally, in a non-maritime context, Mr. Klawetter successfully resolved a case by over 1,000 home and business owners in the Rio Grande Valley in 1998 in which almost one-half billion dollars was sought for property damages allegedly caused by seismic exploration activities conducted by one of the world's largest geophysical contractors. Mr. Klawetter is also a frequent lecturer in both the United States and abroad and has written numerous articles dealing with personal injury and wrongful death litigation.