Will Baldwin is co-leader of the firm’s Maritime Industry Group and leader of the firm’s maritime transactional team, where he focuses on maritime transactions and marine finance. Will also serves as co-chair of the firm’s offshore wind initiative. Will advises and represents clients on a wide range of complex marine transactional matters, including financings, ship mortgages, the purchase and sale of marine assets, Jones Act compliance, and governmental approval for maritime restructurings.
He has experience negotiating offshore vessel construction and rebuild agreements, charter parties, and various offshore support services agreements. In the marine finance area, Will is frequently called on to counsel clients in complex ocean and inland domestic and international vessel financings and flagging of vessels in the US and in open registries such as Liberia, Marshall Islands, and Vanuata. Will has over a decade of experience representing borrowers, lenders, and agents as maritime counsel in marine finance deals ranging from less than $100 million to multiple deals in excess of $1 billion.
He also handles leveraged lease financing deals involving marine assets. On the project development side, Will advises on commercial and regulatory matters that involve maritime-related issues. Will’s practice in the project development space includes both pre-operational and operational advice, primarily in connection with terminals and facilities with water access.
He has experience with terminaling agreements, throughput agreements, port liability agreements, tug services agreements, and berthing agreements. His experience includes representing a port in the development of a multibillion-dollar container terminal along the Lower Mississippi River. In the offshore energy space, he represents multiple stakeholders in the offshore wind industry, including the developer of the first potential commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Mexico.
Will was a lead attorney for the project, which included a projected $4 billion to $5 billion capital expenditure, with grid connection and alternative energy offtake plans. Will also represents joint venture partners, vessel owners and operators, and other maritime participants in the marine supply chain for offshore wind in the United States, on the east coast, Gulf of Mexico, and west coast. He has been engaged on the front-end of multiple marine financings and related transactional matters for new, purpose-built vessels in the United States offshore wind market.
