People

Mark Parris Partner

Seattle

"An outstanding trial lawyer, very strategic, very responsive and very creative," according to Chambers USA's Guide to America's Leading Lawyers for Business.

His experience includes representing Fortune 500 and other clients from various industries (e.g. technology, financial services, chemical/manufacturing, energy, retail). The litigation has involved IP, Securities, Insurance, Employment, Products Liability, Class Actions and significant contract disputes in Federal and State courts and before arbitration panels throughout the United States. He has been a speaker nationally at various seminars on litigation, arbitration, mediation and trial techniques. Mark has tried dozens of cases – both jury and non-jury trials – and mediated and arbitrated 75-plus cases. He has argued numerous appeals in Federal Circuits across the country and has served as an expert witness on multiple occasions. Mark has also served as National Counsel to a number of clients involved in multi-state litigation. He has been recognized as one of America’s Top 100 Bet-The-Company Litigators, is one of two IP litigators in Washington selected as an Amazing Attorney by Washington CEO magazine and was recently recognized as one of the top 30 Trial Lawyers in Washington.

In addition, Mark is a member of the firm’s Insurance Recovery Group. He has been named as the leading policy-holder side attorney in Washington State. He has represented several Fortune 500 companies as well as the State of Washington, the Washington Association of Municipal Attorneys and several cities, counties and port authorities in insurance coverage disputes.

Prior to joining Orrick, Mark was a partner at Heller Ehrman.

Naomi Pen Managing Associate

New York

Naomi provides clients guidance on implementing global privacy programs and advises on the U.S. state privacy laws in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Virginia and other states. She assists clients in breach investigations and cybersecurity incident response, including advising on breach notification, regulatory investigations and managing cybersecurity policies and procedures.

Naomi draws on her experience in fixed income trading technology when advising on cybersecurity and compliance risks within business operations. During law school she externed at the Center for Reproductive Rights focusing on privacy in the context of international human rights.

Christopher Perry Senior Associate

Londres

With a significant investor-side practice, Chris has extensive experience advising market leading investors including Kinnevik, VNV, VEF, Amadeus, Coatue, Paypal, Updata, Lightrock, Sony Innovation Fund and Salesforce Ventures with a focus on UK, pan-European and US centred transactions along with a growing practice in emerging markets.

Chris has represented a wide variety of companies at all stages of the growth lifecycle, ranging from early-stage startups to unicorn companies. 

Chris regularly works on complex cross-border transactions and is familiar with a wide variety of transaction structures including tranched financings and ratchets. In addition to equity financing rounds, Chris advises clients on other corporate transactions including bridge financings, secondary transactions, venture debt, cross-border flip transactions and group reorganisations.

As part of a market leading team, Chris works with his colleagues to provide the full breadth of legal services to technology companies including commercial and customer agreements, intellectual property and employment arrangements.

Prior to joining Orrick, Chris trained and worked at a major international law firm where he advised on several large M&A transactions as well as a number of private equity and venture capital investments.

Josh Pollick Partner

Santa Monica

Josh represents high-growth technology companies and venture capital firms in many areas, including corporate and securities law, corporate formations, venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, secondary offerings and SPAC transactions.

Josh has been recognized by Chambers and Partners USA, Legal500, and Super Lawyers for his work representing startups and venture capital funds.

Josh’s company-side representations include Crexi, Dave, Deel, FabFitFun, GlossGenius, Grow Therapy, Retool, Stripe, Volley and Workstream.

In addition to his company-side representations, Josh has represented leading venture capital firms and other strategic investors, including Bonfire, Coatue, Darsana Capital, D1 Capital, Pathbreaker Ventures and Wonder Ventures.

Josh has significant buy-side and sell-side M&A experience, including representing Deel in its acquisitions of CapBase, Legalpad, Roots and Zeitgold.

Bianca Ponziani Managing Associate

New York

She has partnered with start-ups and Fortune 500 companies to develop comprehensive privacy and cybersecurity policies and procedures that comply with U.S., EU and UK law and self-regulatory frameworks, including U.S. state privacy laws; the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); the CAN-SPAM Act; the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA); the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act); and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Bianca helps clients prepare for and respond to crisis security incidents, including by advising on personal data breach notification obligations, working closely with cyber forensics experts, engaging with law enforcement, and responding to regulatory inquiries.

She also provides clients with practical guidance in complex and multijurisdictional corporate transactions to help navigate attendant privacy and cybersecurity risks.

Hari Raman Partner

San Francisco; Santa Monica

Hari represents private equity firms and public, private, emerging and late-stage technology companies in a variety of domestic and international transactions. His experience spans the range of M&A activity, including cross-border deals, SPAC transactions, majority/minority investments, restructurings and general corporate matters. He works closely with serial acquirers implementing their buy-side M&A strategies, and with venture-backed companies, founders and investors in M&A exits and other liquidity transactions.

Hari has extensive experience leading companies in core technology markets through all aspects of the M&A process. He understands the unique issues, deal terms and trends at play in technology M&A, allowing him to optimize for efficiency, transaction execution and results for his clients.

Hari has also previously worked in Asia and the Middle East on complex, cross-border M&A, and leverages that experience in leading M&A transactions across the globe, including China, India, Israel and the United Kingdom.

Prior to joining Orrick, Hari was an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He is qualified to practice in both California and New York.

Taylor Ranfos Associate

Boston

Taylor represents clients at all stages of their life cycles and in a variety of technology and science-driven industries, including cleantech, SaaS, gaming, energy, hardware, entertainment, Internet, media, semiconductor and media.

Taylor has experience drafting commercial, licensing and other intellectual property and technology agreements. She also assists clients with intellectual property issues in connection with a range of large commercial transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and strategic investments

Georgia C. Ravitz Partner

Washington, D.C.

Georgia also has extensive experience in assisting clients with product recalls, crisis management and government enforcement. Her practice in this sector includes assisting manufacturers, distributors, retailers and importers on all types of FDA regulated products including pharmaceuticals, medical devices and software, wearables, health and wellness products, cosmetics, cell and plant based foods, conventional foods, ag tech, compounded drugs, and dietary supplements.

Georgia’s deep experience and ability to provide practical guidance in FDA and FDA-adjacent regulatory matters allows her to work closely with innovative companies looking to minimize regulatory burdens and maximize U.S. marketing opportunities in the life science and health tech industry verticals. She also conducts regulatory due diligence for private equity and public company transactions involving life science, medtech and innovative companies.

Georgia is a frequent speaker at conferences and events who contributes regularly to leading trade and consumer media outlets.

Amy W Ray Partner

Washington, D.C.

Amy currently represents non-parties in multiple competition enforcement actions pending in federal district court, including in: U.S. v. Google, Colorado v. Google as well as FTC v. Facebook. A Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, she was also featured as one of Global Competition Review’s “40 Under 40 – Class of 2016” antitrust lawyers.

Among her notable transactional representations are matters at the intersection of antitrust and technology, such as her key role in Microsoft's acquisitions of LinkedIn and Skype.

Amy regularly advises both on strategic transactions as well as the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Additionally, she counsels on substantive antitrust issues that may arise in commercial relationships and compliance, such as vertical pricing and distribution.

The Legal 500 US 2020 rankings recently recognized Amy both for merger control and cartel investigations with a client testimonial:

“Amy Ray stands out as someone who has worked hard to understand our business and routinely brings her considerable experience and expertise to bear on important issues for us, always with a client-service focus. A true partner.”

Her pro bono matters include a case for which the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs recognized her team for its contribution to fair housing litigation. She also served for several years on the prestigious U.S. National Women's Law Center Leadership Advisory Committee.

Amy was an inaugural board member of the Law360 Competition Editorial Advisory Board and continues in that role today.

David Rhinesmith Partner

Washington, D.C.

David represents clients in matters involving the False Claims Act (FCA), the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), federal securities laws, and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, among others. He has particular experience handling government investigations and complex civil litigation arising under state and federal false claims acts, including whistleblower-initiated FCA suits. His litigation experience includes oral argument before the First Circuit and state appellate courts, leading briefing in federal and state trial and appellate courts, and deposing senior government officials.  

David routinely leads internal investigations relating to a range of ethics, fraud and corruption issues, including bribery, corruption, accounting fraud, revenue recognition, embezzlement, and other misconduct. David also has extensive compliance experience. He served as Global Investigations & Compliance Counsel at a leading medical device company, and served as Counsel with the Legal Compliance & Investigations team at one of the world's largest technology companies (both client secondments). He played a key role in multiple DOJ- and SEC-appointed corporate compliance monitorships, as both counsel to the Monitor and helping clients successfully navigate monitorships. He routinely works with clients to develop and enhance their compliance programs.

David previously worked as an Assistant Attorney General in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, serving as lead counsel in more than a dozen criminal and civil matters at all levels of federal and state court.  

David is the hiring partner for the Washington, D.C. office and partner in charge of Orrick's D.C. summer program. He serves as firm-wide staffing partner for his practice group and is a member of the practice's professional development committee. He is deeply committed to associate development and mentoring.

In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 David was selected to the Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers Rising Stars list.

Brandon Sanders Of Counsel

San Francisco

Brandon is a corporate attorney in Orrick’s San Francisco office. He concentrates his practice on representing technology and other high growth companies and their investors. Brandon advises companies on day-to-day corporate and transactional matters throughout their growth lifecycle, from formation to early stage and growth stage financings to exit events, and everything in between. In addition, Brandon regularly represents leading private equity, venture capital and other institutional investors on growth, venture and structured equity investments, minority and majority recapitalizations, buyouts and other complex investment transactions. He also has significant experience representing clients in the cleantech and renewable energy industries on securities transactions and joint ventures.

Sarah Schaedler Partner

San Francisco

Sarah’s practice focuses on structuring and negotiating the intellectual property aspects of complex corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, business divestitures and commercial transactions where software and technology are the principal assets. Sarah also advises on intellectual property and technology contracts related questions in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Sarah routinely advises on carve-outs and business separation transactions and helps clients with structuring and implementing their intellectual property and technology separation roadmap.

Sarah has counseled several companies in their preparation for a divestiture and understands the issues a buyer is focused on in the context of intellectual property matters. She regularly helps companies implement remediation steps around their intellectual property assets to help them to a successful closing.

She has significant experience advising private equity funds on investments involving companies that are driven by technology & innovation, as well as intellectual property reliant consumer product companies and companies that are stepping into digitalization.

Sarah is also a member of Orrick’s AI leadership group and involved in thought leadership projects related to AI matters on corporate transactions.

Educated and trained in Germany, France and the United States, Sarah’s international experience provides her with additional knowledge on cross-border transactions and international matters.