About Walter Walker

Skip Walker has had more than 65 jury trials and tried more than 100 cases in various forums. His landmark trials have included those involving the Alpine Meadows Avalanche, the World Airways Jetliner crash into Boston Harbor, the largest personal injury verdict in Plumas County, and the “Great Cow Case” of San Mateo County.  He has briefed or argued approximately 75 cases in courts of appeal throughout the country, including Bonanno v. Central Contra Costa Transit Authority (2003) 30 Cal 4th 139, which established that the location of a bus stop can constitute a dangerous condition of public property; and Holmes v. Syntex (1984) 156 Cal App 3d 372, which at the time was the leading case in California on forum non conveniens.

Together with his partners Peter Koenig and Beau Burbidge, Skip was San Francisco’s Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2018 based on their work in Willis v. City of Fresno, a police abuse of power case that went on for nine years. In 2003, he was a finalist for California Trial Lawyer of the Year for his work in Bonanno, a case that went to trial three times, the court of appeal three times and the Supreme Court once, resulting in a $3.89 million verdict as well as new law. In 2010, he was a finalist for San Francisco Trial Lawyer of the Year and in 2017 he was a finalist for Marin County Trial Lawyer of the Year.  He has been designated as one of the Top 100 Lawyers of Northern California.

Originally from Massachusetts, he still has a summer home on Cape Cod. He is a graduate of the Northfield Mount Hermon School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He played football and baseball in college, played rugby for 25 years in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., participates in various distance bicycling events, has rafted most of the whitewater rivers in the West, travels extensively, and is a bad golfer