Stephen McCarron

Since 1982, Steve has concentrated full-time representing produce companies in PACA cases in all segments of the produce industry, including growers, shippers, brokers, terminal market receivers, retailers, exporters and importers – from every major shipping and receiving point in the nation, in hundreds of cases before USDA and the federal courts. For many years, Steve has maintained the highest rating by Martindale-Hubbell of AV, which ranked him as “A” (very high to preeminent) in Legal Ability, and “V” (very high) as a General Recommendation.

Steve has also been involved in many legislative and regulatory changes under the PACA since the early 1980s. In 1995, he was an advisor to the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, which spearheaded the 1995 amendments to the PACA before Congress and USDA. In 1999, Steve was appointed to United’s Hunts Point Task Force overseeing industry’s response to Operation Forbidden Fruit. He also was a legal consultant to the trinational group that developed the Dispute Resolution Corporation (DRC), an organization under the auspices of NAFTA dedicated to resolving produce disputes between produce companies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Steve assisted in preparing the By-Laws and Rules of Mediation and Arbitration for the DRC. He has also been appointed as an arbitrator to resolve disputes under the DRC.

In 1995, Steve authored a book on the PACA, which was published by the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, entitled, “A User’s Guide To The New PACA,” to assist produce businesses in understanding and doing business under the PACA. He completed a second revision to this guide in 1998 entitled, “A User’s Guide to the PACA,” which later became the PACA Web Guide. Steve has also authored a bi-monthly op-ed column for the national produce industry newspaper, The Packer, under the title “PACA Perspectives”. These columns discuss current topics under the PACA.

In 2009, the PACA Advisory Committee requested PACA remedy the problem of losing PACA trust rights by agreeing to payment plans after a default. This was a difficult problem for the industry based on a number of court decisions ruling such agreements nullified trust rights. Steve submitted to USDA a legal analysis and proposed change to the PACA regulations so that PACA trust suppliers would not lose their trust rights by agreeing to payment plans. In 2010, USDA published a proposed rule, which did not effectively remedy the problem. Steve worked closely with an industry task force (the PACA Trust Working Group) formed by United Fresh, to submit comments and revised regulatory language. This resulted in a final regulation issued in 2011, assuring that PACA trust rights would not be lost if there was a payment plan.

In 2012, Steve authored a PACA Web Guide which provides a fully searchable and easy-to-understand description of the parts of PACA, and how they work, in non-legal language, with links to other PACA resources.

Steve was admitted to the state and federal bars of Maryland and the District of Columbia in 1979. He is also admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981, and several U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal.