People

Ching-Yin Chen Managing Associate

Silicon Valley

Ching-Yin represents high growth technology companies and venture capital firms in many areas, including corporate and securities law, formation, ongoing corporate matters, mergers & acquisitions and venture capital financings.

Ching-Yin received her JD/MBA from the University of Michigan in 2018. While at Michigan, she was part of the Ross School of Business' Social Venture Fund, where she assisted with the Fund’s investments in U.S.-based businesses working in the areas of education, food Systems & environment, health, and urban revitalization, including Matterhorn and Chirps.

Tom Chen Of Counsel

Orange County

Tom joined Orrick after serving for several years as an investigative attorney in the Office of Unfair Import Investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission, where he was lead counsel representing the public interest in numerous Section 337 investigations involving allegations of patent infringement, trade dress infringement, and false advertising. During his tenure as an investigative attorney, Tom successfully first-chaired numerous evidentiary hearings and claim construction hearings, and he also was responsible for briefing all procedural and merits issues before the administrative law judges and the Commission.

Before his government service, Tom was associated with international law firms, where he successfully litigated life sciences patent matters involving large molecule and small molecule therapeutics in patent infringement disputes in district court, inter partes review proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and patent appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Early in his career, Tom served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Alvin A. Schall of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and to the Honorable Leonard P. Stark, then of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Tom earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the Virginia Law Review and the Virginia Journal of Law & Technology, and won numerous internal and external writing awards and competitions. Before law school, Tom completed a master’s degree in biotechnology from the Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and pharmacology from Duke University.

Debbie Chen Managing Associate

Orange County

Caroline Cherkassky Partner

Santa Monica

Caroline advises emerging and high growth companies throughout their lifecycle, as well as venture funds and other investors, across a variety of industries. Her practice focuses on venture financings and corporate governance matters, and the general day-to-day legal needs of startups. She has also counseled companies on M&A, securities and technology transactions matters.

Caroline is a frequent speaker on fundraising essentials for emerging growth companies and sits on the board of the Los Angeles Venture Association.

Prior to joining Orrick, Caroline was a Partner and Co-Chair of the Venture Capital & Emerging Growth Practice at Stubbs Alderton & Markiles.

Joseph Chern Senior IP Career Associate

Orange County

Joseph has experience drafting and prosecuting patents in several technical fields, including signal processing, memory control, optical medical devices, computer networks, database management, thermal conductivity and geomechanics, nanostructuring, e-commerce, capacitive touch panels, complex circuit designs, data security/encryption, semiconductors, in-flight entertainment systems, power systems, neural networks, and software applications.

Joseph's practice further includes conducting intellectual property due diligence to assess the quality and quantity of intellectual property assets.  For example, Joseph has represented several clients in open source licensing matters and provided counseling to develop open source software strategies.  He also has extensive experience in intellectual property and technology matters related to mergers and acquisitions.

Joseph also has substantial experience in patent infringement litigation cases in federal district courts and the United States International Trade Commission (ITC).  Joseph also has represented clients in post-grant opposition procedures with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including ex parte reexaminations and inter partes reviews (under the America Invents Act).

Joseph began his career as a summer associate at Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zaffman, LLP, in Los Angeles, and an attorney at One, LLP, in Newport Beach, Calif. Prior to law school, he worked as a software and systems engineer for a diversified systems and services company in transportation, defense and RFID markets worldwide.

Travis Cherry Senior Associate

New York

Travis advises companies and underwriters on a broad range of capital markets transactions, including offerings of equity and debt securities, de-SPAC transactions, securities law compliance and corporate governance issues.

Richard Chirls Partner

New York

With more than 30 years of experience, Richard is widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities, having broad experience with tax exempt financings and related transactions involving governmental and not-for-profit entities.  His skill and stature in the public finance community was recognized by the National Association of Bond Lawyers’ highest award for his career of distinguished service in public finance. 

Richard focuses on new products, including the development of new and creative financing techniques for governments, non-profits and investment bankers. He regularly works on transactions throughout the country.  However, in his home office in New York City, he leads the relationship with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, serving as counsel on well over 100 transactions over a period of more than 20 years and has headed the tax work in connection with every financing of a cultural facility relating to museums and performing arts in New York City over this same period.  Richard has worked on the tax aspects of several of the largest and most complex public private partnership (P3) transactions in recent years.  He frequently acts as special tax counsel to issuers and underwriters of municipal finance issues.

Kamilyn Choi Managing Associate

Washington, D.C.

Before joining Orrick, Kamilyn was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a litigation associate at Cleary Gottlieb, where she focused on foreign-sovereign litigation and other cross-border matters.

Kamilyn is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she served on the officer board of the Yale Law Journal and as a member of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the federal Indian law clinic.  As a member of the law school's appellate litigation clinic, Kamilyn argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, securing a victory for an incarcerated appellant.

Kelly Choo Managing Associate

Singapore

Kelly’s practice focuses on project development, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate matters with a particular focus on renewable energy infrastructure projects.

Prior to joining Orrick, Kelly practised for 5 years in local law firms in Singapore where she advised multi-national corporations and private companies on private M&A transactions as well as corporate and commercial agreements. Thereafter, Kelly served as Legal Counsel of a renewable energy infrastructure asset development platform. During that time, she was seconded to the company’s Australian offices where she was actively involved in advising on the projects in that region.

James Chou Senior Associate

Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining Orrick, James was an associate at Buckley LLP. Previously, he spent nearly 10 years as a Defense Analyst and a Senior Operations Research Analyst for the U.S. Army, where he focused on cybersecurity, defense policy, and program analysis. He also spent more than three years in the defense industrial base as an IT Project Manager and Policy Analyst.

James is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP), and a Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE). He is conversational in Mandarin.

Michael C. Chow Partner

Orange County

Michael has worked on matters for companies including Canon Inc., Ricoh, Panasonic, eBay, eBay Enterprise, Foxconn, Robert Bosch, Realtek, Anker, Fujitsu Limited, and NVIDIA Corporation covering technologies such as eCommerce, Bluetooth, automotive technology, optical networking and telecommunication, graphics processing, and signal equalization.

Prior to law school, Michael was a mechanical engineer with M-E Engineers, Inc., in Culver City, Calif., where he designed the HVAC systems, including sizing equipment and devising airflows, for hospitals, sporting venues, and office buildings. His projects included Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, Calif., and Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario, Calif.

Mark Christy Partner

Chicago

Mark has nearly 15 years of experience in project finance. His clients include major financial institutions (tax equity investors and infrastructure funds), lenders, developers, and sponsors, particularly those active in the renewable energy sector. He regularly advises clients on opportunities stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically Section 6417 direct pay opportunities and Section 6418 tax credit transfers.

Mark also advises clients in a wide variety of structured finance, including transactions relating to CLOs, warehouse/leverage facilities, and other securitization structures, real estate mortgage investment conduits (REMICs), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), and real estate investment trusts (REITs).