People

Dr. Sven Greulich, LL.M. (Cantuar), EMBA Partner

Düsseldorf

Sven advises technology companies on complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and venture capital as well as growth investments, and provides general corporate counseling.

His clients include technology companies of all stages and their investors. Supported by a global and cross-practice team, he also counsels major corporations and scale-ups on international expansion and growth projects and has a special focus on in- and outbound German/US investments and joint ventures.

Sven is passionate about building a bridge for his clients from Germany to the US and other international technology hubs and to help them succeed in the international market. With a dual background in business and law, an entrepreneurial spirit, and experience in over 300 M&A transactions and financing rounds across many industries, Sven has a unique perspective, which inspires him to find the best strategic and commercially viable solution for his clients.

Sven volunteers with entrepreneur groups at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management and the RWTH Aachen and regularly lectures at the WHU and the RWTH incubation and innovation centers on venture capital financings, start-up growth and corporate venture capital.

Sven's work has been repeatedly awarded, inter alia

• Chambers ranks him as one of the top 3 venture capital lawyers in Germany (2025);
• the leading German market publication JUVE lists him as "frequently recommended" for M&A, private equity, as well as corporate advice and - since 2019 - ranks Sven as one of Germany's top 15 attorneys for venture capital, the highest recognition for this category awarded by JUVE (2024/2025);
• Legal500 Deutschland includes Sven as "frequently recommended" for M&A (mid-sized deals) as well as private equity (mid-sized deals) and ranks him as a "leading individual" for venture capital (2025); and
• in the 2017 edition of its Innovative Lawyers Report Europe, the Financial Times named Sven's work to connect start-ups with Germany's Mittelstand (mid-sized companies) a standout “for making bridges between Silicon Valley and Germany”.

Christopher Grew Partner

London

Drawing from his comprehensive experience, network and passion for all things geek, Chris forms an integral part of the European tech ecosystem. Chris advises companies in venture capital transactions, public offerings and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He also advises high-growth companies, investment banks, and venture capital firms on fundraising, international business operations and transactions.

As noted in the engagements below, Chris works closely with those powering the next generation of technology, from revolutionary AI companies to influential investors. His track-record and industry-wide reputation were noted in the most recent Legal 500 edition, which describes Chris as “excellent,” accompanied with a band 1 ranking in venture capital investment by Chambers and Partners 2021.  

Rebecca Harlow Partner

San Francisco

Rebecca’s practice includes all aspects of class action and other civil litigation in areas including privacy and data security breach litigation and arbitration and insurance litigation. She has represented multiple companies in class action litigation involving claims by consumers, employees, and institutions relating to security, privacy, and other issues. She also advises clients facing insurance coverage disputes and arbitration of contractual disputes. She has defended litigation arising out of data breaches involving claims by consumers and financial institutions and class actions bringing wiretapping and other claims against companies relating to the use of online technologies and tools like cookies, pixels, and session replay software.

Rebecca has assisted multiple clients across several industries in seeking, obtaining, and disputing the denial of insurance coverage. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she has advised clients on insurance, contracting, and other unique issues that have arisen. Recently, Rebecca served as the senior associate in a fraud trial that was tried in-person during the height of the Omicron variant and settled after a week of trial. Rebecca’s pro bono practice focuses on immigration and civil rights issues.

Prior to joining Orrick, Rebecca was a litigation associate in the San Francisco office of another international law firm. She previously served as a pro bono fellow at Greater Boston Legal Services representing low-income clients in disputes over state cash and food assistance benefits.

Daniel Healow Senior Associate

Silicon Valley

Daniel has experience working with clients of all sizes with varying industry and regulatory footprints, from startups to mature technology companies to large financial institutions, in various transactional settings, such as mergers and acquisitions, carve-outs, service provider arrangements, development arrangements, strategic partnerships and commercial contracts. In addition to standalone transactions, Daniel provides ongoing client support concerning post-transaction business integration, IP portfolio management, artificial intelligence tooling usage, open source software usage, compliance with privacy laws, internal and external-facing policy management and data management strategy.

Prior to joining Orrick, Daniel was an Associate in the IP and Technology Transactions Group at Skadden. Prior to law school, he was part of the Legal Online Operations team at Google where he managed and developed policies to address government requests for user data.

Jacob M. Heath Partner

Silicon Valley

With a focus on the intersection of cybersecurity, privacy, online safety and intellectual property, Jake is a trusted advisor to one of the largest technology companies in the world and a major cloud-based communication product and service provider. His recent experience includes representing a major social media platform in litigation related to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Jake is adept at helping clients develop cutting-edge legal strategies and connect with judges and juries to support their online services, platforms or products while threading the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. As he sees it, every battle—whether it involves cybercrime, fraud, brand violations, IP infringement, trade secrets or a cybersecurity breach—is an opportunity to help clients problem-solve and future-proof their business. Jake brings a breadth of experience defending clients in a wide range of matters, including commercial and tech transaction litigation, in state and federal court and regulatory investigations.

Gregory Heibel Partner

Silicon Valley

Greg's practice focuses on the formation, financing and strategic guidance of rapidly growing technology companies, the representation of venture capital firms and other investors in private and public offerings, as well as other complex transactions related to high growth companies.

Greg has completed many hundreds of financings, mergers, acquisitions and intellectual property transactions for young companies in the networking, wireless, Internet, software, life sciences and consumer sectors. He regularly advises some of the largest technology companies in the world, including a Fortune 10 technology leader, in their global strategic investments into innovative startups. Additionally, Greg has represented numerous publicly traded companies in their public offering, mergers and acquisitions and ongoing corporate governance needs, including Life360 (ASX:360), Foundry Networks, Virage Networks, Adeza, Laserscope, Intellisync and Preview Systems.

Greg also was an Assistant Investment Manager for Genevest, a venture capital firm based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he participated in the first organizational meeting of the European Union World Wide Web Consortium. Prior to practicing law, Greg worked with a number of venture capital backed technology companies in operational and advisory roles, including Intellimeter, eT Communications and Metering Technology Corporation. 

Dolph Hellman Partner

San Francisco

Dolph concentrates his sophisticated practice on private equity investor representation and fund formation as well as representing financial institutions and corporations in privately negotiated debt transactions. Dolph counsels some of the largest public pension plans in the United States and other institutional investors and helps them achieve their business goals with respect to various U.S.-based and international alternative investments (including funds focused on real estate, buy-out, venture capital and mezzanine investment opportunities) as well as sponsors in fund formation.

In addition, Dolph has a broad range of experience in commercial lending transactions, including secured financings, unsecured and asset-based financings, vendor and customer financings, subscription credit facilities, project financing, venture debt financings, letters of credit, receivables purchase financings and leasing. Dolph's clients include various financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies and numerous start-up companies (the latter group of which he represents in dozens of venture debt financing transactions each year for which he is recognized as one of the leading company-side counsel in the San Francisco Bay Area).

Johannes Hsu Senior Associate

Orange County

Johannes's practice focuses on patent litigation, especially in the fields of electronics, circuits, computer and network systems, software, and telecommunications. He has litigated in district courts, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the U.S. International Trade Commission. He also leverages his technical and operational experience in data-privacy and data-security matters.

Before joining Orrick, Johannes clerked for the Honorable R. Gary Klausner in the Central District of California. He assisted Judge Klausner on a wide variety of civil matters. In particular, he worked on many intellectual-property disputes involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Johannes began his legal career primarily as a patent prosecutor at one of the largest intellectual-property boutique firms in the United States.

Before becoming an attorney, Johannes worked for over 20 years as an engineer in high-tech and aerospace industries. He held increasing responsibilities and was last a manager and a senior principal engineer at one of the top two fabless-semiconductor companies in the world. His work in those positions had a direct and significant impact on virtually every chip of a one-billion-dollar product line.

A technical leader and a functional manager, he interacted regularly with upper management in engineering and marketing and worked closely with cross-disciplinary teams. His substantial engineering experience encompasses a wide array of technologies, from communication systems, digital-security systems, to hardware and embedded-software design. In addition to developing digital-security technologies, Johannes also set operational security policies for his engineering organization and developed a secure infrastructure which he led through a successful third-party audit.

Patrick Hubert Partner

Paris

This breadth of experience has allowed him to become a leading authority in the field of antitrust, but his background helps him borrow ideas from anywhere – finding imaginative solutions for the legal and business challenges his clients face.

Patrick has long been a trailblazer in his field. For example, years before private compliance programs became commonplace, Patrick persuaded his clients to dedicate resources to compliance policies, thus being one of the first to encourage proactive rather than strictly reactive actions. In France, he was one of the first to launch antitrust recovery claims and to work on a private standalone claim, without any precedent from the regulator. Acting on the plaintiff side, he obtained what was at that time the highest fine ever imposed on a dominant company (350 M€).

He is currently handling private claims totaling more than 5 billion euro, advising global tech companies and other multinationals in French and EU competition matters, including merger control filings, cartel and abuse of dominance investigations, state aid and compliance work, as well as private damages actions before the French courts. In addition, he serves as vice chairman of the competition commission of the International Chamber of Commerce and chairs its merger control working party.

Annette Hurst Partner

San Francisco

Annette is an experienced trial lawyer who has tried copyright, trade secret, trademark, patent and business tort claims. As a risk analyst and problem solver with deep proficiency in the software industry, Annette is a go-to counselor and speaker regarding the legal issues surrounding access and use of datasets in the development of machine learning algorithms. She was named “Litigator of the Week” by The American Lawyer for her work as co-lead counsel on the Mattel/MGA case. Chambers USA ranks her in Band 1 for Trademark, Copyright & Trade Secrets, with clients reporting that she is “smart, creative and terrific at oral argument” and “a very well-known authority in copyright law, a great advocate and a great trial lawyer.” Chambers reports: “Clients agree that Annette Hurst is ‘a very powerful and experienced trial lawyer for copyright cases, and a good team leader who is reliable before judges,” and “Peers consider Annette Hurst a ‘remarkably intuitive’ lawyer who ‘brings unique perspectives to soft IP cases.” Since 2018, The Legal 500 has recognized Annette as a “Leading Lawyer” in copyright law, and she was named “Female Litigator of the Year West” by Benchmark Litigation in 2013. Annette has been repeatedly named one of the top 75 IP litigators in California by The Daily Journal.

Annette’s community and professional activities include past service on the Northern District of California Patent Local Rules Committee, President of the Lafayette Elementary School PTA, and past membership on the Board of Directors of the Volunteer Legal Services Program and Board of Directors of the Bar Association of San Francisco for which she was chair of the Finance and Investments Committee. She also is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco and the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, Northern California Chapter, as well as a past president of the Barristers Club.

Blake Ilstrup Partner

Seattle

Blake brings a unique and invaluable mix of in-house, entrepreneurial, and law firm experience, having served as General Counsel and senior executive of a software company and two biotech companies (co-founding one of them), as well as outside corporate counsel in elite AmLaw Global 100 law firms.

Blake’s experience spans multiple industries, including life sciences, software, hardware, mobile, fintech, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and retail. He has counseled fast-growing companies on hundreds of venture capital financings and M&A transactions, numerous public offerings, as well as service as a trusted advisor to management teams and Boards on both strategic and day-to-day matters.

Blake is proud to have worked with a variety of technology and life science companies, venture capital firms and investment banks, including AppSheet (acquired by Google; Nasdaq: GOOGL), Arris Composites, Barclays, Cloudhopper (acquired by Twitter; NYSE: TWTR), Critical Insight, Coatue Management, fatfoogoo (acquired by Digital River; Nasdaq: DRIV), Ikaria, IronPort Systems (acquired by Cisco; Nasdaq: CSCO), Kineta (Nasdaq:  KA), Lighter Capital, Oculus (Nasdaq: FB), OncoSenX, PATH, Qpass (acquired by Amdocs; NYSE: DOX), Varian Medical (NYSE: VAR), Xcimer Energy, and Zipwhip (acquired by Twilio; NYSE: TWLO).

Prior to his legal career, Blake served with distinction in the U.S. Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer, Fire Control Officer, and Air Warfare Coordinator, including two combat deployments to the Persian Gulf, where he was decorated for his performance during Operations Southern Watch and Desert Strike.

Scott M. Iyama Partner

Silicon Valley; San Francisco

Scott leverages his technical experience as a member of research teams at Genentech (Virology R&D) and the NASA Ames Research Center (Advanced Displays Lab) to provide a unique business and legal perspective to companies commercializing disruptive solutions in technology and healthcare. In recognition for such work, The Recorder named Scott one of its “Lawyers on the Fast Track.”

Scott has represented a majority of such companies from inception, with many of the companies founded by leading entrepreneurs and scientists at University of California, Stanford University and Harvard University.  He also works with non-profit entities, including the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Bay Area.  Scott’s practice has included representation of numerous high growth companies, including:

Technology

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Nervana Systems
• Planet Labs
• ResearchGate

Life Science/Healthcare

• Cortexyme
• CyberHeart
• EpiBone
• GRO Bioscience
• Virta Health

Stemming from his experience and deep knowledge in the life sciences and technology industries, Scott is a frequently sought after advisor, speaker and author on technology companies. He routinely volunteers his time with entrepreneur groups and frequently lectures at forums such as the National Cancer Institute, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford Technology Venture Program, the University of California, Los Angeles and the California Life Sciences Association.