People

Jay Wilder Schau Senior Associate

San Francisco

Jay represents high growth technology companies in several areas, including corporate and securities law, formation, and venture capital financings.

Jay received his JD from the University of Michigan in 2017. He is also a 2014 graduate of the University of Alabama where he double majored in Economics and Finance.

Prior to joining Orrick, Jay worked as a Bates Fellow at The Silicon Cape Initiative in Cape Town, South Africa, where he worked to grow the tech and entrepreneurship ecosystem in and around the Western Cape.

Dr. Christian Schröder Partner

Düsseldorf

Christian helps clients consider the privacy and artificial intelligence implications of new technology, supports their compliance programs, and helps them stay ahead of enforcement trends. One particular focus of his work deals with internal data transfer agreements, external data transfers with external providers, and product launches that comply with international data protection standards, as well as privacy requirements for connected cars. Furthermore, Christian provides guidance on privacy and data protection considerations for developing, acquiring, using, licensing and selling technology, data and intellectual property, including M&A transactions and IP focused joint ventures. He supports companies on the set-up of webshops, outsourcings, license agreements, in cases of trademark or unfair and deceptive trade practice issues, as well as on hard and software license and information technology (IT) project agreements.

Christian maintains strong working relationships with German data protection authorities and EU regulatory authorities with jurisdiction over privacy and data security matters. He effectively defends companies in cybersecurity and privacy-related investigations initiated by EU regulatory authorities. He also engages with authorities on behalf of clients and helps clients avoid proceedings and possible litigation. When litigation can't be avoided, Christian vigorously defends his clients.

For companies facing global cybersecurity incidents, Christian helps with crisis mitigation, including counseling on notification requirements, coordinating media strategies, and representing clients before data protection authorities in related regulatory investigations.

Christian regularly contributes practical thought leadership to global privacy industry publications and German privacy books and journals. Christian authors the Chapter V (international data transfers) of Germany’s leading GDPR commentary Kühling/Buchner (4th ed.) and is co-author to the Corporate Privacy Handbook (Betrieblicher Datenschutz). As an active member of the Sedona Conference, Christian drives the development and understanding of cross border privacy. He also participates in, hosts and moderates speaking programs with fellow private practitioners, EU data protection authorities, and academics focused on privacy and data security. Legal 500 Germany named Christian one of the top 15 practitioners in 2023 and noted that he is "a pioneer in the legal field, a data protection guru." They also recognized Christian and Orrick as "truly global" and how that it is "vital as they require the various leaders of each region to participate and bring issues to the table as a forum".

Prior to working in private practice, Christian interned with the German Federal Data Protection Commissioner and www.epic.org.

Amanda Schwartz Managing Associate

San Francisco

Amanda works on matters involving trademark and patent infringement, as well as trade secret disputes in both state and federal court. In her commercial practice, she works with technology companies on contract disputes and issues arising under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Amanda also has a robust pro bono practice and has earned High Honors through the DC Courts' Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll.

Amanda graduated with honors from The George Washington University Law School. While in law school, she externed with the Department of Justice Civil Division's IP Litigation Section.

Prior to law school, Amanda worked as a paralegal and investment management analyst at another large international firm, where she worked on regulatory and transactional matters involving mutual funds and registered investment advisers.

Lauren Seaton Innovation Attorney Litigation

Orange County

Lauren supports and leads projects aimed at optimizing client service delivery and increasing efficiencies. Based in Orange County, she collaborates across offices, practice groups, and departments to streamline legal processes through the integration of technology, automation, and data-driven solutions. Her responsibilities include developing best practices, supporting the firm’s data strategy, and spearheading the rollout and adoption of legal technology within the business units.

Prior to moving into this role, Lauren was a Senior Associate in Orrick’s Securities Litigation group, where she represented and advocated for clients in complex litigation, government regulatory matters, and internal investigations. These experiences have made Lauren well-suited to design and improve client-facing solutions, create tailored workflows, and enhance collaboration with clients and third parties. Her familiarity with legal technology and enthusiasm for leveraging AI in legal services align perfectly with Orrick’s commitment to innovation.

Her diverse legal experience, combined with her proactive and innovative approach, positions her as a key player in Orrick’s ongoing efforts to lead the industry in delivering high-quality, efficient legal services.

Ryan Selis Of Counsel

Washington, D.C.

An experienced corporate lawyer and strategic advisor, Ryan specializes in guiding high-growth companies and investors through the legal complexities of the startup ecosystem.  With deep experience in the technology sector, he provides comprehensive legal counsel to emerging companies throughout their lifecycle, including startup formation and structuring, venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate and securities law compliance. Ryan also has significant expertise in representing venture capital and private equity investors in financings, growth equity investments, and buy-side and sell-side M&A transactions.  His ability to navigate the fast-paced and evolving technology landscape has made him a trusted partner to clients building transformative businesses.

Ryan's company-side representations include Mercor (AI-powered hiring platform), Magic.dev (automated software engineering), Sapien (autonomous coworkers for financial analysis), Taktile (decision-making models for risk assessment by fintechs), Flower (federated AI framework), Paradigm (AI-powered spreadsheets), 15Five (continuous performance management platform), Certa (third-party vendor compliance and risk management), Uprise (AI-powered financial advisory optimization), Archer Faris (multi-agent security), Better Trucks (last mile carrier), Allium (enterprise blockchain data platform), Coda Project (acquired by Grammarly), Enter Health (AI-first revenue cycle management), and many other exciting startups.

Select Engagements:

• Magic AI - $320 million Series C financing, with contributions from Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, CapitalG, Eric Schmidt, and others
• Mercor.io - $30 million Series A financing, led by Benchmark with participation from General Catalyst, Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, Adam D'Angelo, and others
• Sapien - $8.7 million Series Seed financing, led by General Catalyst with participation from Neo
• Coda - sale to Grammarly 
• Taktile - $20 million Series A financing, co-led by Index Ventures and Tiger Global
• Flower Labs - $20 million Series A financing, led by Felicis Ventures and First Spark
• 15Five - $52 million Series C financing, led by Quad Partners with participation by Next47, Origin Ventures, Edison Partners and others
• Certa - $35 million Series B financing, co-led by Fin VC and Vertex Ventures
• Allium - $16.5 million Series A financing, led by Theory Ventures, and $4.25 million Series Seed financing co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Amplify Partners
• Better Trucks - $15 million Series A financing led by Lobby Capital, Corazon Capital, Venture 53 and others
• Uprise - $3.3 million Seed financing, led by Blank Ventures
• Medicxi, Aditum Bio, Atlas Venture – $20 million Series B investment in Versanis Bio and acquisition of Versanis Bio by Eli Lilly for $1.925 billion
• Marcy Venture Partners - Investment in The Long Drink Company
• Louis Dreyfus Company CVC - Investment in Natural Fiber Welding
• Humaans - $15 million Series A financing, led by Lachy Groom
• Quell - $10 million Series A financing, led by Tencent, Khosla Ventures, Heartcore Capital and others
• Telmai - $5.5 million Series Seed financing, co-led by Glasswing Ventures and .406 Ventures
• Simpl - $40 million Series B, led by Valar Ventures and IA Ventures
• Atalaya Capital Management - Formation of private equity vehicle with Waterfall Asset Management and strategic growth investment into OnPoint Warranty Solutions
  
• HPS Investment Partners – Formation of private equity vehicle with with Wildcat Capital Management and strategic growth investment into Sculptor Real Estate
  

Mark Seneca Partner

Silicon Valley

Mark has a particular focus on the technology sector, having led hundreds of buy-side and sell-side transactions involving prominent high-tech serial acquirers, unicorns and venture back companies. His sell-side work involves multiple acquisitions by Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com, VMware, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Adobe, Yahoo! and Twitter. These deals include his high profile work for Mosaic ML on its US$1.3 billion acquisition by Databricks, Cruise Automation in its acquisition by General Motors, Nest Labs in its US$3.2 billion acquisition by Google, and Instagram in its US$1.0 billion acquisition by Facebook, which was ranked one of the top 10 largest valued private tech M&A deals in the U.S. in 2012. In an interview with Bloomberg Law for a “Rainmakers” episode, Mark provided a substantive analysis of the Instagram deal, including its industry precedent and influence (click here).

On the buy-side, Mark has served as lead M&A counsel for top public company acquirers (Yelp, Google, Yahoo! and Intellisync) as well as private company serial acquirers (Stripe, Pinterest and Social Finance).

Nathan Shaffer Partner

San Francisco

Nathan represents leading technology companies and achieves results in cases where their most valuable assets are on the line. Nathan’s practice includes federal and state court litigation with an equal split between plaintiff and defense-side representations. He has obtained multiple preliminary injunctions for his clients, won dispositive motions, and represented his clients on appeal.

Nathan focuses on issues at the intersection of high technology and intellectual property law. He regularly represents and counsels clients in disputes involving software licensing, emerging aspects of trademark and copyright law, IP ownership, disputes involving technology products and IP, and open-source licensing.

As a trade secret litigator, Nathan has protected his clients’ intellectual property in fast-paced scenarios involving emergency forensic investigations followed closely by obtaining temporary restraining orders and injunctions.

Prior to joining Orrick, Nathan served as a law clerk to Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge John A. Mendez of the Eastern District of California.

Marc R. Shapiro Partner

New York

Marc represents clients in federal and state court at the trial and appellate levels with a particular focus on class actions, multi-district litigation, and mass joinders. Among Marc’s current engagements, he represents Johns Hopkins University and Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America in over a dozen class actions arising out of a data breach of the MOVEit file transfer software; University of Washington in a pandemic-related class action seeking refunds of tuition and fees on behalf of students; ZoomInfo Technologies LLC in a data privacy class action alleging unlawful disclosure of personal information under federal and state laws; Goldman Sachs in a pay and promotion gender discrimination class action; NCAA in concussion and injury-related cases throughout the country; Marathon Oil Corporation in nationwide climate change litigation; and multiple foreign defendants in a class action arising out of allegedly defective drywall.

Recently, Marc successfully prevailed at trial before the Delaware Chancery Court and earned Litigator of the Week recognition by Law.com for defeating claims by Netflix star Julia Haart that she owns half the shares of Elite World Group; secured dismissal of a dozen class actions against the University of California and Santa Clara University brought by students seeking refunds of tuition and fees due to COVID-driven transition to remote instruction; and defeated class certification and secured affirmance on appeal by the Ninth Circuit in an employment discrimination class action against Microsoft.

Marc served as a law clerk to Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to joining Orrick, Marc worked as an appellate and post-conviction attorney for the Equal Justice Initiative. In that capacity, he engaged in trial level and appellate representation of clients in both state and federal court, including two cases that were briefed and argued before the United States Supreme Court.

Geoffrey Shaw Senior Associate

Los Angeles

Geoff's experience litigating and advising clients covers a range of substantive areas. He especially focuses on complex issues of constitutional law and civil procedure.  He is passionate about partnering with public defenders and using his appellate experience to help death sentenced prisoners. 

Geoff received his law degree from Yale Law School. Before joining Orrick, he clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Geoff previously graduated from Yale College and earned a doctoral degree from Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. 

Jeremy D. Sherer Partner

Boston

Jeremy advises clients on the full range of regulatory health care issues facing digital health stakeholders. His depth and breadth of experience enables him to help established and early-stage companies navigate a complex and ever-changing business and regulatory landscape. As one client’s CEO explained, “Jeremy is one of the best thought partners, and hands down the best legal navigator, I’ve found in the digital health space.”

His telehealth experience includes advising on compliance with state licensure requirements for physicians and non-physician practitioners, corporate practice of medicine issues, remote prescribing (including controlled substances), patient consent and Medicare, Medicaid and commercial reimbursement. He advises clients on compliance with laws against fraud and abuse, including federal and state anti-kickback and self-referral laws, as well as privacy issues arising under HIPAA and its state-level counterparts.

Jeremy has substantial experience pertaining to structuring, operationalizing and scaling “PC-MSO” arrangements across all 50 states. He also advises venture capital and private equity firms conducting regulatory diligence associated with investments in digital health and health care technology ventures, from seed stage funding to nine-figure raises.

Daryl E. Shetterly Mng Dir of Orrick Analytics

Wheeling, W.V. (GOIC)

Daryl manages a team of 40+ tech-savvy attorneys, 100+ contract attorneys, analysts that handle project management, perform big data analysis and statistical modeling, and technologists that build bots, scripts and tools that increase quality and reduce human effort. Daryl’s team designs processes, workflows, templates and document automation used by dedicated project managers to deliver project plans and enable data driven budgeting and decision-making. As an early adopter of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Daryl’s team uses technology to augment due diligence and drafting tasks, TAR and continuous active learning for litigation projects, and advanced tools for concept and sentiment analysis.

Daryl’s mission is straightforward: enhance accuracy, speed and security of scalable legal work, generate insights specific to the engagement and reduce client cost.

Daryl helps administer Orrick's Legal Technology Innovation Initiative. 

Prior to joining Orrick, Daryl was a Partner at LeClairRyan in Virginia.

Jeannie J. Shin Partner

San Francisco

Jeannie advises private and public companies on a full range of their corporate needs, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, corporate restructurings and capital raising transactions. In particular, Jeannie has extensive experience with cross-border transactions. Jeannie has acted as lead M&A counsel in numerous transactions representing clients both on the sell-side and buy-side. She has extensive experience representing clients in a wide range of industries, including software, internet, life sciences, energy, semiconductors, and consumer products and retail. As a member of Orrick’s Technology Companies Group, Jeannie also represents high growth technology companies and venture capital and other investors and has extensive experience with start-up companies in their formation, debt and equity financings, private placements and general corporate counseling.