Walt Baskakov
Paralegal
“Drawing on an international industry perspective, I aim to contribute a meaningful dimension to the firm’s work as we help our clients navigate the complex legal challenges of the maritime and commercial world.”
About Walt
Walt joined Peacock Piper Tong + Voss in 2025, assisting on litigation and transactional matters involving maritime operations, vessel interests, marine terminals, transportation, insurance, energy, and commercial disputes. He works across a broad range of litigation and transactional matters.
Before joining the firm, he worked internationally in legal roles across Europe and the Middle East, advising on maritime, energy, and infrastructure projects. His background offers practical insight into vessel operations, shipyard practices, commercial arrangements, and matters involving vessel and marine-insurance interests.
Walt graduated from Fordham University and USC Gould School of Law. He is fluent in English and Ukrainian, holds the RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Ocean (Sail) certification and a Diploma in Superyacht Operations from the Maritime Training Academy in the UK. He is a member of the American Sailing Association.
Office
100 West Broadway Suite 610
Long Beach, CA 90802 USA
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Contact
Email: [email protected]
Direct: +1 (562) 392-6909
Main: +1 (562) 320-8880
Fax: +1 (562) 735-3950
Education
USC Gould School of Law
Fordham University
Admissions
CA Bar Candidate (2026)
Affiliations
Practice Areas.
Maritime, Marine Terminals + Transportation.
Al has over 31 years of experience representing vessel owners, charterers and P&I Clubs along the West Coast of the United States and Hawaii. He has extensive experience responding to major and minor marine casualties including groundings, allisions, fires, heavy weather incidents, oil spills, and personal injuries and deaths. He has investigated casualties and defended vessel interests in Coast Guard, National Transportation Safety Board and Flag State investigations. In addition, he has been involved in subsequent civil penalty actions and limitation of liability proceedings before the National Pollution Fund Center. Al has also tried to verdict in both state and federal courts over a dozen maritime personal injury and death cases involving Jones Act seamen, longshoremen and harbor workers.
Construction and Engineering.
Al has handled complex construction and engineering cases throughout the United States involving the design and construction of light rails, refineries, breweries, aircraft hangars, jails, courthouses and multi-use developments. This includes claims for breach of contract, professional negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, products liability and licensing violations. He has tried to verdict six of these cases in the last 10 years involving claims for hundreds of millions of dollars. As a result, Al knows what to look for in evaluating these cases, how to conduct cost effective discovery and most important of all, how to simplify these complex cases for judges and juries.
Energy.
Al has been involved with environmental law claims for over 30 years both maritime and land based. He has been involved in major marine oil spills including the OMI DYNACHEM, EASTERN LION, KUROSHIMA and COSCO BUSAN spills. In addition, Al also has experience dealing with land-based spills involving underground tanks and pipelines.
Product Design, Manufacturing + Retail.
Al has over 35 years of experience defending product manufacturers and distributors in products liability and toxic tort cases including individual personal injury and mass actions. Al has defended manufacturers of commercial and industrial equipment including industrial saws, conveyor belts, presses and process heaters as well as consumer products such as home heaters, car windshields, weapons, tools and ladders. Al has also defended design professionals, component part suppliers and manufacturers in cases involving refineries, powerplants and commercial aircraft. This included involvement in the 2009 Paramount Refinery explosion, the 2000 Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash and the 1985 Mojave Power Plant explosion. Al has also been involved in mass actions and multi-district toxic tort claims for petroleum, MTBE and asbestos exposure and the silicon breast implant litigation.