Bill Beaver has 40 years’ experience practicing law in the Seattle area handling a wide variety of matters ranging from advising companies on employment relations and business matters to litigating large multistate commercial disputes and major environmental cleanup efforts.  After completing a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals clerkship with the Hon. Jerome Farris, he practiced law at the Seattle firm of Karr Tuttle Campbell where he was a partner and focused on federal and state court litigation, often in the employment and environmental areas. He also served as chair of the firm’s employment relations department and he was routinely recognized as a “Super Lawyer” by Washington Law and Politics.

In 1999 the owners of the Olympic Pipe Line Co. (BP and Shell) retained Mr. Beaver to manage all of the numerous criminal, civil and administrative matters stemming from the June 10, 1999 pipeline explosion in Bellingham, Washington as its outside “Chief Legal Advisor”.  This included significant property and environmental damage claims, wrongful death actions, business interruption litigation, criminal charges under the Clean Water Act and Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act, litigation with the owner operator, and insurance coverage litigation.  Mr. Beaver was also responsible for managing all of the Company’s interaction with the media over the incident, leading the company’s investigation into the cause of the accident and its responses to the NTSB as well as managing the company’s efforts to obtain federal government approval to restart the pipeline.

In 2005, after the last of the legal matters stemming from the 1999 pipeline explosion was concluded, the pipeline was restarted and the pipeline company was successfully reorganized, Mr. Beaver took a short sabbatical.  After his sabbatical Mr. Beaver accepted a position as Vice President/General Counsel with Intelius, Inc., a then small startup in which he was a significant investor.  He held this position from shortly after the company’s inception until successfully completing a sale of the company in 2015 to a private equity firm for in excess of $100,000,000. While at Intelius, Mr. Beaver managed all of the company’s business, regulatory and securities related matters, civil litigation and corporate governance.

After completing the sale of Intelius, Mr. Beaver co-founded Wrench, Inc. in 2015 with several of his fellow former Intelius executives and managed all of its legal and operational matters, including three successful rounds of financing (its investors include Madrona Venture Group, Tenaya Capital, Vulcan Capital, Bridgestone Americas, and Marubeni Corporation).  Wrench is now the largest automotive services marketplace in the United States with operations in all 50 states as well as some operations outside the country.  Mr. Beaver left Wrench in late 2017 to provide full time care for his terminally ill wife.

Mr. Beaver is a passionate cyclist who counts RAMROD (Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day) as his favorite local ride which he has completed seven times.  He also enjoys wilderness trekking and white water canoeing as favorite pastimes.  He has previously served as President and Chairman of Community Services for the Blind and has served as a Board member of the University of Washington’s School of Information.

Representative Cases

Mr. Beaver has represented numerous entities in federal and state court litigation regarding responsibility for remediating environmental contamination including being lead trial counsel in the successful federal court litigation against ASARCO for cleanup of contamination caused by its Tacoma smelter.  He has also litigated many employment related cases in federal and state courts including large multi-state “class actions” brought by the EEOC against members of the telecommunications and airline industries.  He has extensive experience representing entities before various federal and state administrative agencies including the NTSB, FTC, SEC, FERC, DOT and the Washington UTC.  Mr. Beaver was also retained by the owners of the Olympic Pipe Line Company to manage all of the criminal, civil and administrative matters stemming from the tragic June 10, 1999 pipeline explosion in Bellingham, Washington.