Harry Clark Partner

Washington, D.C.

Harry is experienced in areas such as CFIUS/Exon-Florio examinations of foreign investment, military and “dual use” export control regulations (ITAR/EAR), economic sanctions administered by the U.S. Treasury Department (OFAC), customs regulations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering rules, anti-boycott requirements and defense industrial security requirements. He executes internal corporate investigations regarding trade and investment rules and advises on such rules in the context of corporate transactions.

Additionally, Harry has extensive experience with government contracting matters. His government contracting work has included, for example, design and implementation of U.S. Defense Department renewable energy projects. He also represents broad industry coalitions on major trade litigations and international negotiations. His experience in these areas includes a leading role in what is often considered the largest-ever international trade dispute: the controversy regarding unfair softwood lumber imports from Canada. It has involved myriad administrative proceedings before federal agencies, NAFTA panel appeals, WTO dispute proceedings, judicial proceedings and international settlement agreements.

Harry has represented a coalition of major U.S. oil companies in antidumping and countervailing duty litigation. As a related matter, he pursues policy issues with congressional and executive branch officials and advises on international trade rules (e.g., GATT, WTO agreements and NAFTA).

Chambers 2022 recognizes Harry as a leader in the field of export controls and economic sanctions (Chambers Global and Chambers USA), as well as CFIUS (Chambers USA). Previous editions have also recognized Harry’s achievements regarding his work related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Clients note that Harry provides “accurate, straightforward guidance incredibly efficiently” and “he has an ability to translate complex legal requirements and rules into business-friendly jargon.”

Louise Gibbons Partner

San Francisco

Louise has significant experience in the electric power sector, including wind, solar, storage, natural gas, and other forms of renewable energy. She also has experience working in the fuel sector on green hydrogen and renewable natural gas projects.  She regularly represents project developers, sponsors, borrowers, lenders, investment banks, private equity funds and other capital providers and investors in the energy industry.

Louise was named by Legal 500 as a Next Generation Partner in Energy Transactions: Electric Power in 2023 and a 2020 Euromoney Rising Star as part of Euromoney's Americas Rising Star Awards.

Thomas Glascock Partner

San Francisco

Tom’s practice has an emphasis on representing sponsors, developers, lenders and investors in a variety of energy and infrastructure financing transactions for both fossil fuel-fired and renewable energy projects, including solar, wind, energy storage, geothermal, landfill gas and biomass projects.

Tom has been recognized by Euromoney as one of the World’s Leading Project Finance Lawyers and one of the World’s Leading Energy and Natural Resources Lawyers, and he is listed as a leading financing lawyer in the International Financial Review. Tom has also been recognized by Chambers and the International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers as one of the leading project finance lawyers in the U.S. and is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Project Finance Law.

Giji John Partner

Houston; Singapore

He has extensive experience representing project sponsors through development (including through the negotiation and drafting of power purchase agreements and other long-term offtake agreements, physical and financial swaps, engineering, procurement and construction contracts, operation and maintenance agreements, management services agreements and site services agreements), acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures and financings. His representation has included transactions involving LNG facilities, methanol facilities, petrochemical refineries, carbon capture and sequestration facilities, natural gas processing and storage facilities, natural gas and CO2 pipelines, wind energy, solar energy, natural gas-fired peaking and combined-cycle power plants, thermal and battery energy storage, transportation, aviation and ports.

His prior experiences include a two year secondment to International Finance Corporation’s Office of General Counsel where he worked on multi-currency corporate financings, project financings and equity investments in infrastructure projects in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Turkey.

Giji is currently ranked as a Projects Leading Lawyer in Chambers Global and Chambers USA, and has been recognized for excellence by numerous leading industry and legal publications, including being named one of 34 "Groundbreaking lawyers" by Public Utilities Fortnightly.

A. Cory Lankford Partner

Washington, D.C.

Cory is recognized as a notable practitioner by Chambers USA, where clients describe him as "thoughtful, responsive and careful in his advice," "a subject matter expert on the regulatory side," and as an attorney who "provides swift and precise advice."

Cory's clients include developers of renewable energy and battery storage projects, electric utilities, financial institutions, and corporations with renewable energy targets.  He advises clients on their rights and responsibilities under the Federal Power Act, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, and the Public Utility Holding Company Act.  In addition, he frequently represents clients in proceedings before FERC to obtain and maintain authorization to sell energy, capacity and ancillary services at negotiated or market-based rates and to purchase and sell direct or indirect ownership interests in energy projects.  Drawing from his broad energy regulatory experience, Cory assists clients in developing and implementing programs to comply with evolving rules, regulations and standards administered and enforced by FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

Before joining Orrick, Cory served as an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at FERC, where he led numerous multidisciplinary teams in the development and drafting of many Commission orders addressing Regional Transmission Organizations, compliance with open access requirements, transmission, generator interconnection and qualifying facility certification.  Among his accomplishments at FERC, Cory provided legal counsel on rulemaking proceedings to revise FERC's pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff and to evaluate national and regional mandatory reliability standards proposed by NERC and its regional entities.  In addition, Cory coordinated with staff at the U.S. Department of Energy to draft the National Action Plan on Demand Response and the corresponding Implementation Proposal to Congress. 

Christopher Moore Partner

New York

His practice focuses on financing renewable energy projects with a particular emphasis on tax equity transactions with and without construction and back-leverage debt. Chris's experience includes structuring and documenting tax equity transactions (e.g., disproportionate partnership flip and other structures utilizing PTCs and ITC), a wide variety of debt financings (including construction, back-leverage, holdco, and other types of portfolio financings) and leasing transactions (both single investor and leverage leases).

With more than 25 years in the energy and power sector and over 20 years in the renewables market, Chris represents many of the leading and most active players in the renewable sector and the power market generally. Having been across the table from almost all the tax equity and debt participants in the renewables market, Chris’s deep understanding of their motivations and objectives enables him to anticipate their concerns. While Chris typically represents sponsors, developers and strategic investors, he has also represented public power authorities, electric cooperatives and other types of investors.

Wolfram Pohl Partner

San Francisco

Wolf represents many of the country’s most prominent developers and financing parties in structuring transactions to take advantage of tax credits, Treasury cash grants, depreciation benefits, and other available tax benefits. He has represented developers and tax equity investors in financings of both wind and solar projects, as well as on tax planning for energy storage, carbon capture, and carbon sequestration projects. 

Kristin Seeger Partner

San Francisco

Her experience spans projects across the United States and Canada and includes award-winning transactions. She is recognized nationally as Chambers USA Band 3 for Projects: Power & Renewables: Transactional (2023) and as a Leading Lawyer: Energy-Renewable/Alternative Power by Legal 500.  Clients describe her as “solutions-oriented, experienced, efficient and really easy to work with."  Kristin is a key member of Orrick's energy transition practice, which was recognized as Band 1 in Energy Transition by Chambers USA (2023).

Eric Stephens Partner

San Francisco

Eric helps clients design and build successful renewable energy businesses by advising on how projects and portfolios large and small can maximize their value through well-informed negotiation, efficient diligence and acquisition techniques, and responsive and creative problem solving.

Eric has particularly deep knowledge in helping developers strategically procure the equipment and services necessary to develop, construct, commission, operate and sell renewable energy projects of all sizes, and in helping investors evaluate the development work of potential investments. Development and procurement managers excel at sourcing and pricing a project’s needs, and Eric can build on this by bringing these contracts to completion with deep market knowledge, in a way best suited to the client’s commercial objectives and so that they withstand the scrutiny of project investors, lenders and buyers. Eric balances work for utility-scale projects with the growing distributed energy generation and storage sector, both of which recently include negotiation of contracts to “safe harbor” equipment or construction activities to preserve higher levels of ITC or PTC. He has represented energy project developers, equipment suppliers and installers, publicly-owned utilities, private equity investors and other parties in developing energy projects from very early stages of securing technology and land/resource rights to buying and selling operating assets, and everything in between.

Minako Wakabayashi Partner

Tokyo

Minako has significant experience advising international and domestic sponsors and developers on complex and innovative projects. She was called upon by the Japanese government in structuring the renewable Feed-in-Tariff scheme in Japan and prepared the government’s model contracts for specific contracts (power purchase contract/interconnection contract), which are a key component of the Feed-in-Tariff scheme in Japan. Recently, she has also been handling numerous corporate PPA projects.

She was appointed as Auditor of the Japan Wind Power Association (JWPA) in May 2022.

Minako practiced at Orrick’s New York office in 2004-2005. She also worked as a public prosecutor in Japan for four years and served as a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Supervising Committee for Public Bidding (Tokyo-to Nyusatsu Kanshi Iinkai) for eight years. She is serving as Audit of Veritas In Silico Inc since March 2022.

Ashley Walter Partner

Seattle

As Partner-in-Charge, ESG, Ashley assists public and private companies and their boards in establishing effective oversight of ESG matters, preparing ESG disclosures, addressing ESG commercial requirements, managing investor engagement with respect to ESG matters, and ensuring compliance with ESG laws and regulations. He also works with investment funds to develop fund-level and portfolio company ESG programs that address the full investment cycle, that are responsive to limited partner expectations, and that are appropriate for the stage, industry and business model of portfolio companies. He leverages a firm grounding in ESG substantive issues, significant experience in the design and implementation of ESG policies and procedures, and sector-specific knowledge to develop practical ESG solutions for clients in the tech sector and beyond.

Ashley is a co-founder and past chair of the Corporate Social Responsibility Law Committee of the ABA Business Law Section, has taught the course “Corporate Social Responsibility” as a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, and is a co-editor of The Lawyer’s Corporate Social Responsibility Deskbook, a resource for legal departments and outside counsel to address ESG performance and risk. He has co-chaired the Practicing Law Institute's annual full-day ESG program for the last two years, has served as a moderator at the Stanford Directors' College, and has spoken on private company ESG for a workshop delivered by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.

Adam Wenner Senior Counsel

Washington, D.C.

As Deputy Assistant General Counsel at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Adam was instrumental in the development of the federal programs and policies that fostered the independent power industry, and his experience includes representing regulated electric utilities, independent power generators -- including some of the largest wind and solar projects in the United States -- as well as merchant transmission companies, before FERC, state utility commissions and NERC Regional Reliability Organizations. 

Adam also advises power project developers and financial institutions in transactions involving the development, financing, sale and purchase of energy projects, and he advises some of the largest U.S. companies in the development and implementation of FERC and NERC compliance programs.

Adam has authored many articles about the power industry in publications including Global Utilities Finance Report, International Power Finance Review, International Financial Law Review, Public Utilities Fortnightly, Electricity Journal and Energy Economist.

Helen Aki Senior Associate

San Francisco

She advises clients on a wide variety of matters, including energy storage and power purchase agreements, debt and tax equity financing, and project acquisitions and sales. She also spent several months on secondment to the project finance group of a major U.S. renewable energy developer. 

As a law student, Helen worked as a summer legal intern in the Administrative Law Judge Division of the California Public Utilities Commission, as a senior business analyst with Pacific Gas and Electric Company and as a legal trainee at Positive Planet UK.

Before practicing law, she led programs with state and local governments and ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs to advance the adoption of clean technologies, including battery storage, virtual power plants, commercial and industrial lighting and advanced building control systems.

Gohshun Kawamura Senior Associate

Tokyo

He focuses on the development, acquisition and financing of solar, wind and other renewable energy projects in various regions of Japan. He has experience related to the FIT/FIP system and other laws and regulations related to the electric power industry, as well as negotiations with relevant government agencies, and the preparation and negotiations of related contracts.

In addition, he is involved in establishing schemes and negotiating contracts for the corporate PPAs of non-FIT renewable energy projects, as well as preparing on-site PPAs and general terms and conditions for electricity retailers.

He is the co-author of Orrick’s “Japan Renewables Alert".

Prior to joining Orrick Tokyo Office, he was an assistant judge at the Tokyo District Court and the Matsuyama District Court, where he gained experiences in a variety of cases, including civil, administrative and criminal matters.

Grace Lentz Senior Associate

Houston

Grace counsels energy clients on a wide range of transactions in the energy industry with a particular focus on renewable energy matters. Grace regularly advises clients on project development matters, including power purchase agreements and other long-term offtake agreements, physical and financial swaps, engineering, procurement and construction contracts, equipment supply and warranty agreements, and operation and maintenance agreements, as well as mergers and acquisitions involving energy companies and assets.

Gil Shefer Senior Associate

San Francisco

He advises developers and sponsors operating in the energy sector on a wide variety of matters, including tax equity financings, energy storage acquisitions, power purchase and sale agreements, and EPC and supply agreements. Prior to joining Orrick, Gil worked as an economic consultant for the World Bank in their Kigali, Rwanda, office.