September.04.2018
Orrick announced today that Bill Hughes has joined the firm to serve as Co-Head of the Capital Markets practice with Christopher Austin. Formerly with Fenwick & West, Bill is the 12th tech-focused partner and 34th partner overall to join Orrick this year. He is based in the San Francisco office.
Bill focuses on securities offerings, counseling public and late-stage private companies, and the full range of securities law compliance advice. He is a veteran of scores of IPOs and other registered offerings. His IPO experience includes issuer-side representation of Sonos, Adesto Technologies and Alteryx and underwriter-side representation of GDS Holdings, MobileIron and TubeMogul, among many others. His public company work includes regularly representing Cisco Systems and Symantec in notes offerings collectively raising more than $25 billion.
“We’re delighted to add another leading tech sector advisor to the Orrick team,” said Orrick Chairman Mitch Zuklie. “Bill is called on by the most sophisticated public companies for his capital markets advice and brings a strong record on tech company IPOs. We also welcome his voice and experience to our leadership team.”
“Bill is a tremendous addition to our team, counseling late-stage tech clients as they complete venture financings and prepare to go public,” added John Bautista, a partner in Orrick’s Tech Companies Group and member of the firm’s Board.
Orrick counsels more than 1,800 high-growth companies, including 20% of $1 billion+ valued U.S. unicorn technology companies. The firm represents 10 of the world’s 25 largest public tech companies. In 2017, we helped clients raise $12.4 billion through our work on 650+ venture financings, ranking us the #3 most active law firm for VC financings globally, a ranking we have maintained through the first half of 2018 (PitchBook). Our team also ranked top 15 globally for M&A transactions in 2017 (Bloomberg).
Earlier this year, Orrick launched, with the Long Term Stock Exchange, IPO Ready, a first-of-its-kind IPO assessment tool that gives tech executives the ability to evaluate their company’s corporate health and readiness to go public.
Bill’s arrival follows several additions to the firm’s tech sector team this year, including Geoff Willard from Cooley, Ellen Ehrenpreis, formerly with Wilson Sonsini and Edgewood Law Partners, Jared Bobrow from Weil, Clem Roberts from Durie Tangri, and Amy Ray from Cadwalader.