Bess Blumenfeld Managing Associate
Santa Monica
Santa Monica
Santa Monica
Bess advises high-growth technology companies and venture capital firms in many areas, including venture financings, secondary transactions, corporate formations, and day-to-day legal needs of executive teams. Bess represents companies and their investors across a variety of industries, including software, financial technology, consumer goods, aerospace, and life sciences. She is a trusted advisor to founders, boards, and venture investors, helping them anticipate challenges and capitalize on opportunities.
New York
Jolie also plays a leadership role in the firm’s client relationship program. She works with the firm’s relationship partners and client teams globally to ensure optimal communication, offer value added relationship benefits, and meet clients’ service and relationship expectations in the fast-changing legal market.
Jolie has more than 20 years of experience in law firm communications and business development. She began her career at the New York-based international law firm of Rogers & Wells, where she built the firm’s marketing and communications department and served on the senior team that orchestrated Rogers & Wells’ three-way combination with U.K.-based Clifford Chance and Germany-based Punder. As head of Business Development for the Americas Region at Clifford Chance, she led the rebranding of the Americas practice and collaborated with colleagues internationally to integrate the combined firm through the introduction of a global client relationship program and consistent, client-focused approaches to business development.
She is a competitive cyclist, a less competitive road runner and a novice mountaineer.
Paris; Paris Tech Studio
Paris; Paris Tech Studio
Olivier advises startups and high growth technology companies throughout their lifecycle, from formation to financings, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, as well as venture and growth capital investors. He has significant cross-border and U.S. transaction experience in venture capital markets. Olivier also advises on complex cross-border M&A transactions in the tech sector. Outside his practice, he lectures on venture capital at the EDHEC Business School. Olivier has worked in Orrick’s Paris, San Francisco and Menlo Park offices.
Olivier’s company-side representations include Aledia, Alice & Bob, Another Brain, Bellman, Dataiku, Finary, Ganymed Robotics, Gatewatcher, Highlife, Murfy, Myr.ai, Payfit, SESAMm, SiPearl, Tehtris, Upowa, Volta Medical, Xelan, XXII, Yescapa.
In addition to his company-side representations, Olivier has represented leading venture capital firms and other strategic investors, including Airbus Ventures, Alven, Astanor, Bpifrance, ETF Partners, Felix Capital, NGP Capital, One Peak, Princeville Capital, Raise Capital, Seedcamp.
Before joining Orrick, Olivier worked in the Corporate department of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher Paris.
Paris
He advises on a range of lender-side and borrower-side transactions, including leveraged acquisition financings with a specific focus on private credit, and special situations and distressed financings. He also has experience with corporate finance matters, debt restructurings and venture debt financings for high-growth companies.
Igor is fluent in French, English, Ukrainian and Russian.
München
Christoph ist regelmäßig für Private-Equity-Sponsoren, Unternehmens- und strategische Käufer, Eigentümer und Managementteams tätig.
Er wird häufig von Legal500, JUVE und Handelsblatt/Best Lawyers Germany für M&A- und Private Equity-Transaktionen empfohlen. Von JUVE wird er als "sehr erfahren, schnell, sowie lösungsorientiert" beschrieben.
Christoph Brenner leitet die Orrick-Büros in Deutschland gemeinsam mit Stefan Schultes-Schnitzlein.
München
Inhaltlich liegt sein Fokus auf der Beilegung von komplexen Post-M&A- und Gesellschafterstreitigkeiten, wobei er besonders auf seine langjährige Erfahrung als Transaktionsanwalt zurückgreifen kann.
Daneben berät Sebastian Meul seine Mandanten in Streitigkeiten auf dem Gebiet des Anlagenbaus, der Managerhaftung sowie in sonstigen kommerziellen Streitigkeiten.
Er verfügt zudem über umfangreiche Erfahrung bei der Begleitung von M&A Transaktionen und auf dem Gebiet der gesellschaftsrechtlichen Beratung.
Zusätzlich befasst sich Sebastian Meul vor allem auch mit aktuellen Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der Legal- und Blockchain- Technologie und veröffentlicht regelmäßig Beiträge in juristischen Zeitschriften ebenso wie in den sozialen Medien.
Vor seinem Wechsel zu Orrick war Sebastian Meul in dem Münchener Büro einer renommierten deutschen Wirtschaftskanzlei sowie bei einer kanadischen Wirtschaftskanzlei in Toronto tätig.
München
Er berät regelmäßig Gründerteams bei der Etablierung einer zweistufigen US-deutschen Holdingstruktur, sei es im Zusammenhang mit der Aufnahme in einen US-Accelerator oder für einen besseren Zugang zu frühphasigen Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten im reichhaltigeren US-Finanzierungsökosystem.
Während seiner juristischen Ausbildung arbeitete er in der M&A-Praxis einer Big Four Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft und der Rechtsabteilung eines großen deutschen Technologieunternehmens in Deutschland und Kanada. In 2022 war Onur Öztürk im Rahmen eines dreimonatigen Secondments aus unseren Büros in San Francisco und Menlo Park heraus tätig, um noch tiefer in die Start-up Community des Silicon Valley einzutauchen.
Miami
Matthew concentrates his practice on mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, and securities transactions. He also counsels clients on corporate governance.
New York
Major players across technology, life sciences, financial services, retail, sports and transportation hire Eric again and again. Chambers USA describes him as "pulling all the pieces together and thoroughly prepared and ready to advocate" and "one of the foremost experts in antitrust law." Praised for clear communication and his "encyclopedic knowledge of antitrust," he is described as "driving cases forward and rolling his sleeves up." Clients commend him as a "really good trial lawyer," who is "skilled, savvy, and practical.” Lawdragon names him among the 500 "Leading Litigators in America."
Eric has played a pivotal role in shaping modern antitrust law through his involvement in significant cases challenging important business or industry-wide practices and transformational acquisitions. This has ranged from securing a complete defense verdict in the rare antitrust jury trial attacking an asset swap transaction – a case American Lawyer dubbed “An Antitrust Unicorn — With $800M on the Line”; to defeating a government merger challenge based on the novel “potential competition” theory that a “Big Tech” firm should enter a new market by “building versus buying”; to achieving a multi-hundred-million-dollar verdict for a leading pharmaceutical company in connection to antitrust claims to restore the market for the treatment of cardiovascular disease; to upholding a private equity firm’s ability to do “joint bids” for investment opportunities; to securing the dismissal of an alleged “no poach” class action by avoiding automatic or per se scrutiny of a distribution arrangement at the outset of the lawsuit – a win highlighted in American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Week” column; to achieving a landmark class action settlement against a copyright collective with 20 years of licensing and royalty rate-setting conduct relief after regulators declined to bring an enforcement action. This work often involves the testimony of C-suite witnesses, opinions of leading economic experts, and the intersection of antitrust law with employment and intellectual property laws.
A member of the Executive Committee of the Antitrust Section of the New York State Bar Association, Eric speaks regularly before antitrust bar associations and at PLI and GCR programs.
Chicago
Amanda’s practice centers on all types of intellectual property matters including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret litigation. Amanda also handles other civil litigation matters including commercial and contract-based disputes.
Amanda clerked for Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Judge Arenda Wright Allen of the Eastern District of Virginia. During her tenure on the fast-paced “rocket docket,” Amanda assisted Judge Allen in all aspects of presiding over several jury trials and in managing her weighty civil docket. While clerking on the Ninth Circuit, Amanda was intimately involved in oral argument preparation, case strategy, and opinion drafting for both en banc and three-judge panel proceedings. Both clerkships give Amanda invaluable “behind the scenes” experience and an understanding of persuasive writing and argument techniques as well as the mechanics of judicial decision making. Amanda uses these insights and her ability to quickly identify the tipping point of complex cases to clearly and concisely draft the most compelling argument on behalf of her clients.
Prior to clerking, Amanda was previously an associate at another national law firm, where she handled commercial, appellate, and intellectual property matters. She also served as a PILI Fellow at the National Immigrant Justice Center while studying for the bar examination.
During law school, Amanda served as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Law and Policy and her student note—(Il)Legal Violence at the Border: A Comparative Analysis of LGBTQ+ Asylum Claims in the United States and Europe—was published in the same. She also earned a Certificate in Public Interest Law and authored the top-ranked Respondent’s brief in the Wiley Rutledge Moot Court Competition.
Amanda is deeply committed to pro bono work. She has successfully represented several asylum seekers from around the world as well as incarcerated individuals alleging civil rights violations.
Los Angeles
Marc partners with government bond issuers, nonprofit organizations, and universities, and has experience assisting leading affordable housing professionals, public power agencies, private universities, museums, and charter schools with their financing goals. Marc provides reliable, sought-after advice to issuer and underwriter clients in transactions involving both long- and short-term, fixed and variable rate obligations, commercial paper, credit and liquidity enhancement, and revenue bonds.
Prior to becoming an attorney, Marc was an economics consultant at Deloitte & Touche LLP and Arthur Andersen LLP. Marc obtained his JD/MBA at the University of Southern California.
New York
Kim represents companies and individuals in a variety of complex commercial matters, including breach of contract, securities and stockholder litigation, borrower-lender disputes, trade secret misappropriation, and bankruptcy proceedings. She also has significant experience in white collar criminal and regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, as well as internal investigations. Kim regularly appears in courts across the country; before arbitration panels; and before regulators including the SEC, DOJ, and CFTC.
Kim maintains an active pro bono practice, including matters ranging from prisoners' rights to immigration issues and constitutional law.
Kim graduated from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She earned her B.A., with honors and distinction, and M.A. from Stanford University, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Before joining Orrick, Kim practiced in the litigation departments of Milbank LLP and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.