A. Ilyas Akbari is an attorney at Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman and concentrates his practice on commercial transportation accidents resulting in catastrophic personal injury or wrongful death as well as pharmaceutical drug product liability and class action cases.

Ilyas’ bioengineering degree has proven very beneficial in the trials in which he assists, as well as with the handling of his cases in general. In fact, Ilyas is in his element when he can blend his expertise in science and law.

Whether it is finding the chemical reaction associated with pharmaceutical side effects, the mechanism of injury and lasting effects of traumatic brain injuries, or the engineering flaw that caused an aircraft crash, Ilyas devotes himself to the investigation and discovery involved in litigation. Ilyas recently traveled to South America with a team of experts to inspect the wreckage of the first Robinson R66 helicopter crash. Our firm is representing the families of two men killed in that crash, which occurred in Colombia, South America.

Ilyas also has participated in many of the firm’s most successful cases. He was part of the team of Baum Hedlund lawyers who obtained one of the largest verdicts for the death of an unmarried person in Ohio State’s history in a truck accident case. He was also an integral part of the firm’s trial team which tried an aviation accident product liability case against Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. Ilyas is currently a member of the trial team in a case involving the crash of a Robinson R44 helicopter that claimed the lives of four people near Easton, Washington.

In addition, Ilyas has served in numerous Plaintiffs’ Committees, including the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee for the 2009 Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, which killed 50 people, and the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committees for the Bisphenol-A (BPA) Polycarbonate Plastic Products Liability Litigation and the Heparin Products Liability Multi District Litigation. Ilyas also served as a member of a small team of attorneys prosecuting a 2008 Hawker 800 crash in Owatonna, Minnesota, which killed eight people during a failed attempt to abort a landing.

When looking back at Ilyas’ success and fortitude, one would never know the struggles his family faced as refugees from Afghanistan. When Ilyas was just three-years-old, his family escaped the dangerous and war-torn country of Afghanistan to pursue the American Dream. Having spent their entire life savings to smuggle their young family to California, the Akbaris had nothing. With sheer determination Ilyas’ father built a life for his family and always did what he could for others. This example has driven Ilyas to fight for people who have lost it all: their lives or the lives of loved ones.

His harrowing and uplifting story was featured on Superlawyers.com in 2010.  Below is an excerpt from the article:

At a time when children were prohibited from leaving the country, the Akbaris drugged their [three] and 2-year-olds, stuffed them into suitcases, and spent their life savings bribing their way out of Afghanistan. Akbari’s father was a prosecutor and his mother a teacher when they fled Kabul, but they didn’t know English; so they worked multiple jobs, took English classes, and Akbari’s father became an auto mechanic. Through sheer determination and hard work, he opened his own shop and now employs several people. Part of his American Dream was to send his son to college, and he did.

Ilyas earned his B.S. degree in Bioengineering in 2000 from U.C. San Diego.  U.C. San Diego’s prestigious Bioengineering Department is consistently ranked as one of the top five programs in the world.  While at U.C. San Diego, he was the founding Vice President of the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers. It was through this society that Ilyas met several scientist-attorneys, who inspired him to continue on to Southwestern University School of Law.  While at Southwestern, he served as President of the Student Bar Association. He was also a Certified Law Clerk at the District Attorney’s Office in East Los Angeles, where he conducted preliminary hearings and misdemeanor trials. 

Having worked as a defense lawyer for the first few years after law school, Ilyas has a unique perspective into the opposing side. This experience, coupled with his scientific training and his passion to help others, has proven invaluable to his practice.