ABOUT

Joe Pipinich is a maritime injury and wrongful death lawyer. He represents injured seamen and their families. Joe has built a reputation of taking on difficult cases and achieving successful results.

LEGAL BACKGROUND

From the beginning of his legal career, Joe began representing injured maritime workers and families of workers who were wrongly killed at sea; Joe started working in Louisiana and Texas, representing maritime workers and their families in the oil & gas maritime sector. There, he worked for a Houston-based law firm representing the families of the deceased crew members from the infamous BP Transocean Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, which occurred off the Louisiana coast in 2010. Within a few short years Joe started his own maritime law practice in his hometown of Seattle, and quickly earned a reputation for achieving highly favorable results in difficult cases. Some examples include successfully defending a $22 Million maritime claim brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, recovering over $3 Million on behalf of a small maritime business from a maritime insurance company for bad faith, and successfully prosecuting international liquid cargo contamination claims in in the U.S. and in London arbitration valued in the tens of millions. Before long many of the country’s leading maritime companies sought him out to represent them in their commercial business cases. Joe then accepted an offer from one of the largest maritime employers in the United States, a Saltchuk family company (Saltchuk is a U.S. multi-billion dollar maritime & logistics corporation), to be the Vice President and General Counsel for their maritime petroleum and energy companies. There, Joe learned the inner workings and business operations of the world’s largest maritime companies, oil exploration and distribution companies, commercial fisheries, insurance conglomerates and maritime P&I clubs – and how these organizations’ legal, safety, risk management and cost control operations are conducted.

In 2018, Joe chose to leave the corporate world to fight for workers and families.  Since that time Joe has already recovered many millions of dollars for his clients. His work has influenced maritime companies to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect their workers. Joe continues to build Pipinich Law into the premiere maritime injury law firm in the country. Because maritime law is universal, Joe practices nationwide.

EDUCATION

Joe Pipinich earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial & Labor Relations at Cornell University, where he was consistently on the Dean’s List. He earned his J.D. at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. There, Joe earned his certificate in Maritime Law, was a member of the moot court board, was a member of the admiralty moot court team where he received honors in oral argument, and he was named to the national Order of Barristers for top honors in his class for excellence in oral advocacy and brief writing.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Joe lives in Edmonds, Washington, with his wife Emily, their sons Dylan and Dean, and their dog Edie. Joe was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. Joe is the first lawyer in his family. He is a former junior and college ice hockey player. He has lived in Alaska, Canada, New York, New Orleans, and New Mexico.