Peter Vallely Dessau

Peter Dessau specializes in construction law, with an emphasis in litigation. Peter represents developers, builders, and prime contractors in payment disputes and defends and prosecutes delay and impact claims against private owners, contractors and public entities. He defends and prosecutes construction defect cases on behalf of homeowners, commercial builders, developers and prime contractors. Peter also counsels members of the industry on risk management techniques to avoid litigation. His peers in the community have given him the highest rating of professionalism and ethics (“AV”) in Martindale Hubble, a prestigious lawyer referral service. He has also been named a 2011 and 2012 Super Lawyer, which is awarded to less than 5% of attorneys by state using Super Lawyers multi-step selection process.

Recent matters Peter has worked on include the following:

Peter represented a major developer in defending a significant 8 figure delay and impact claim from contractor.  He was able to resolve the claim very early in the discovery process and settle the case well within the client's expectations and parameters.

Peter represented an owner of a 300 unit apartment complex that was suffering from water intrusion and damage.  The case settled for millions of dollars and the client was able to pay all of its legal and investigative costs.

Peter represented a general contractor that built several large warehouse facilities in the San Juaoquin Valley in California.   The roof failed, but Peter was able to secure financial and material contributions from the roofer and the roofing material manufactuer to settle the case.

Peter represented the owner of an office building in the Bay Area.  The building leaked due to defectively installed EIFS.  No costly depositions were necessary.  Instead, Peter had the experts in the case work with each other to generate an acceptable scope of repair.  He eventuall settled the case by raising the money from the culpable parties' insurance companies and working with the key subcontractors to perform repairs on the building with the funds recovered from their insurers.

Peter represented a homeowner that purchased a home.  The foundation began to fail due to "heaving" of the soil under the foundation.  Peter favorably settled the case in under 18 months and the homeowner was able to fund and perform reapirs to the home.

Peter served in the U.S. Marine Corps (Artillery) from 1985-1989.