Law Office of Baker, Burton & Lundy, PC

Above L to R: Front: Laura Isaac, Jeri Munn, Brad Baker, Evan Koch | Middle: Nicole Zackman, Susan Serris, Jenny Wood, Albro Lundy, Cathi Lundy, Alexa Avalos, Brian Selogie | Back: Diane Krause, Clint Wilson, Mary Korkodian, Kent Burton, Cathy Stark, Nicole Munn, Maura Gomez

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Baker, Burton & Lundy is a full-service law firm that assists clients with a wide range of practice areas—from personal injury and probate litigation to employment, estate planning, business and real estate law. The firm was formed in 1976 by Brad Baker and Kent Burton. Albro Lundy joined as a partner in 1997, and the firm now has three more partners: Evan Koch, Clint Wilson and Brian Selogie. Associate attorneys Mary Korkodian and Stephen Semos and longtime paralegal and administrative staff members round out the team.

What is your definition of success?

From our perspective, it is hard to stray far from Coach Wooden: “Having peace of mind knowing that we put in the effort to do the best we could for each client.” Another measure of success is our long-term relationships with our employees and many of our clients. It is common for clients to use our multiple practice areas. Often someone may first come to us because of injury in an accident, and then they come back for help in creating their trust or buying a business or piece of property.

What makes you a trusted advisor?

One of the excellent aspects of working at Baker, Burton & Lundy is that each one of our attorneys is truly a trusted advisor. There is a broad diversity of legal experience here. Whenever a trust question, business question or litigation question arises in the course of business, we have the most experienced advisors in-house. This is one of the reasons Baker, Burton & Lundy stands out and is recognized in the community and legal industry as go-to attorneys.

How does your unique experience enhance the services you provide clients?

Clients usually think that the majority of our work involves researching, explaining and applying the law. In reality, our time is spent fashioning solutions that benefit both sides. The experience and reputation we bring greatly facilitate this process, and the calmness we bring prevents tangential arguments with opposing counsel that can tremendously increase legal fees.

What needs do you meet for clients?

In our profession, there are many legal problems for which we are hired that are stress-inducing. Not only do we meet the legal needs of our clients in areas of business, real estate, trust planning, and personal and business litigation, we also understand the need our clients have to achieve as much peace of mind as possible during their legal ordeal. Working with knowledgeable attorneys goes a long way in reducing our clients’ stress.

What is the #1 way you support your clients?

The #1 way we support our clients is to make sure the client is informed of all significant case developments. More importantly, we make sure all their questions are answered. We are easily accessible and take pride in knowing our clients and their needs.  

What are some recent successes for your clients? 

For us, success in all of our practice areas is when our clients are completely satisfied with the results of their cases. For example, in a recent personal injury case with a traumatic brain injury, we understood the nature and complexity of the injury far more than the client. So we were able to refer our client to the most appropriate medical experts to receive excellent care, as well as securing significant compensation for our client for the injury involved.

Our trusts and estates team recently created and implemented a complex gifting strategy for our client’s $63 million estate that produced millions of dollars in estate tax savings. On the litigation front, our trusts and estates team initiated a lawsuit involving a trust that purported to entirely disinherit our client. We recently reached a settlement that resulted in our client obtaining a 25% interest in the decedent’s estate.

In transactions, our business law team recently negotiated and closed a complex transaction involving the sale and leaseback of a client’s industrial property and improvements. This was followed by the purchase of two office building projects through a 1031 exchange and the sale of business assets involving foreign manufacturers and intellectual property for a total transaction value of over $60 million.

Do you participate in community philanthropy?

Philanthropy is always a given at Baker, Burton & Lundy. We have a long list of charitable interests—from helping our local schools to participating in the Skechers Friendship Walk. On the legal front, many of our attorneys are volunteer mediators who are called on to help resolve cases before they devolve into litigation.

Tell us about your families.

Baker, Burton & Lundy is extremely family-oriented. It is not uncommon to see someone’s children doing homework at a desk at the end of the day. Many of our children have worked in our office over the years. At a recent office family beach party at the Portuguese Bend Beach Club, there were BB&L children from ages 3 to 32 playing volleyball and pickleball together with our attorneys and staff. We are local South Bay and take pride in the family environment that thrives here.