Frederick C. Leiner is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he earned an M.Phil. in international relations from Cambridge as a Thouron Scolar and later received a law degree from the University of Virginia. The author of a dozen articles on maritime and legal history published in American Neptune, the Mystic Seaport Log, the American Journal of Legal History, and other journals, he was awarded the 1993-94 Vice Admiral Edwin P. Hooper Prize by the Naval Historical Center to support his research.