San Francisco
Cathy also engages in complex commercial litigation including employee mobility, breach of contract, and fraud cases. Her matters are often high-profile and industry-changing. Cathy's practice also includes trade secrets investigations as well as counseling on joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, third-party vendor relationships, and emerging technology to help minimize the risk to companies. Cathy has significant experience in actions arising from the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which created the first federal civil misappropriation of trade secrets claim in May 2016. Cathy has helped shape DTSA law on behalf of her clients through her involvement in some of the earliest DTSA litigation. Many of her trade secrets cases involve parallel criminal proceedings.
For her achievements, Legal 500 recognized Cathy as a "Leading Lawyer" in trade secrets in 2024 and 2025. The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association also honored Cathy as a 2019 Best Lawyer Under 40. This annual list recognizes individuals within the APA community who have achieved prominence or distinction in their field and demonstrated a strong commitment to the APA community or civic affairs.
Cathy also regularly speaks and writes about trade secrets issues. She previously served as the Co-Vice Chair of the Trade Secrets Interest Group of the California Lawyers Association's (formerly of the California State Bar) Intellectual Property Section and she writes an annual column about trade secret hot topics in the CLA's "New Matter" publication.
Cathy is very active within the firm and her community. Cathy previously served as the Hiring Partner for the San Francisco office. Orrick selected Cathy to serve as the firm's 2020 Fellow for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, and Cathy previously served as the Co-Chair of the Asian American Bar Association's Judiciary Committee, which is focused on increasing representation on the bench.
Cathy also maintains an active pro bono practice. Cathy's dedication to pro bono service was demonstrated by her work in an asylum merits hearing representing a Salvadoran religious activist persecuted by gangs in El Salvador. For her work on this matter, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights honored Cathy with the Father Cuchulain Moriarity Award. In addition, the Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco recognized Cathy as an Outstanding Volunteer in Public Service in 2014 through 2020 for her work with helping homeless clients remove outstanding warrants barring them from access to housing and employment.
San Francisco
Todd regularly advises companies and their boards on corporate governance best practices and fiduciary and disclosure duties, and has extensive experience in responding to shareholder litigation demands and other shareholder activism.
Before joining the firm, Todd was an associate at the San Francisco office of Clifford Chance US LLP. In his spare time, Todd is a musician, screenwriter and father to three fantastic kids.
San Francisco
Rick has first-chair jury trial, bench trial and arbitration experience and has prevailed as lead partner in lawsuits in state and federal courts. He also leads internal investigations, SEC and DOJ matters, M&A and corporate disputes arising under Delaware corporate law, and other matters creating corporate governance risk. Prior to becoming our Chief Practice Officer for Litigation and IP, Rick was an Orrick partner and was also the co-Managing Partner of the California offices of another top AmLaw firm.
Rick’s clients include public companies, private equity funds, portfolio companies, mutual funds, investment advisers, hedge funds, VC funds, private investment funds, board members, officers and other individuals across several industries. He has particular expertise in the technology, life sciences, private equity, and investment management areas.
Rick has been named for multiple years in the The Best Lawyers in America and in the Legal 500 for Litigation.
San Francisco
John advises issuers, borrowers and underwriters on financings for higher education, solid waste disposal (including waste-to-energy facilities), and utilities (including water, wastewater and energy facilities). He actively advises clients in such financings on a national basis, including in California, Hawaii, Guam, Nevada and Texas.
John has been recognized as a leading lawyer by multiple organizations, including as a Chambers USA, Band 2 attorney for California Public Finance, and as one of California's top 50 development lawyers by The Daily Journal.
San Francisco; Santa Monica
San Francisco; Santa Monica
Anik has represented leading tech companies across industries ranging from enterprise software and AI to fintech, energy tech, mental health and others, including Betterment, Confluent, Convoy, Fireworks, HashiCorp, Inspire Energy, Mux, Pinterest, Sourcegraph and Two Chairs. Selected clients that Anik has advised from the earliest stages through acquisition include Connectifier (sold to LinkedIn), Cove (sold to Dropbox), Expanse (sold to Palo Alto Networks), Nest (sold to Google) and Yammer (sold to Microsoft).
More recently, Anik has followed his clients’ example and is focused on applying technological innovation to legal work and client service. Beyond his home office in San Francisco, Anik helped open Orrick’s Santa Monica office as well as a workspace in Oakland to better serve clients located in the East Bay.
A native Ohioan and former New Yorker, Anik lives with his family in Berkeley.
San Francisco
Some of Mike's clients have included:
Mike also represents a number of venture capital firms, including Blumberg Capital, Evok Innovations, Griffin Gaming Partners, iGlobe Partners, Illuminate Ventures, Marcy Venture Partners, Ridge Ventures and Walden Venture Capital.
San Francisco
San Francisco
Erin's practice focuses on water, wastewater, public power, solid waste, airport and port financings, primarily in California and the territory of Guam. In addition, Erin has experience working on complex public-private-partnership (P3) transactions.
Erin also serves on the Board of Directors of the Asian Americans in Public Finance.
San Francisco
Michelle’s dedication to these cutting-edge areas of the law and technology over the past 20 years has earned her recognition from Chambers for Privacy & Data Security Litigation and as an up-and-coming lawyer in Privacy & Data generally – where she is described as “equally capable in both compliance and enforcement elements of privacy regulation.”
As a litigator, Michelle is adept at developing novel legal arguments to protect clients in a world where innovation is outpacing regulation. She brings deep experience representing companies in regulatory investigations, data breach and privacy litigation involving the increasing web of statutes that pose statutory damages exposure to companies, such as the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA), the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), and the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), and other complex commercial claims. As a crisis manager, she also represents companies in incident response and enjoys working with diverse groups of stakeholders to mitigate business and reputational risks and achieve positive outcomes.
Michelle resides in California with her three children.
San Francisco
Ryan is a lawyer in the Energy and Infrastructure Group, which was recognized as Band 1 in Energy Transition by Chambers USA (2024) and was named by Chambers USA as the 2024 Energy and Projects Law Firm of the Year.
He has experience representing sponsors, investors and lenders in project development and finance (including debt and tax equity), mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and general corporate matters, including in the renewable energy, hydrogen/ammonia, renewable natural gas (RNG), sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), conventional energy, and maritime industries. Prior to joining Orrick, he practiced in Houston, Texas, at another global law firm and was the Managing Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Ryan also enjoys volunteering and has provided several hundred of hours of pro bono legal advice, primarily on small business and non-profit transactional needs.
San Francisco
Clients count on J.P.’s versatility to guide them through all types of employment litigation ranging from thorny single-plaintiff disputes to large-scale class and representative actions. J.P.’s strategic mindset draws from his experience across all phases of litigation in state and federal courts, arbitration, and before government agencies. His experience spans a breadth of issues including those related to wage-and-hour laws, the California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), trade secret theft, restrictive covenants, contract disputes, pay equity, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, disability accommodation, leaves of absence, and wrongful termination.
Additionally, J.P. regularly counsels employers on best practices to meet their business goals in a way that minimizes legal risk. He partners with clients to address employment issues such as wage-and-hour compliance, high-risk personnel decisions, mass workforce changes, the development of compliant policies, the drafting of complex employment agreements, and recent changes in employment laws.
San Francisco
Erin's practice covers all aspects of employment law. She defends employers in class actions and other complex cases, as well as in systemic investigations and audits by the EEOC, DOJ, and the California CRD. Erin has led dozens of internal pay equity analyses and is a trusted advisor for several of the nation's most prominent employers on developing areas of employment law, including pay equity and pay transparency, DEI best practices, and the use of AI in employment decision making.
Erin also is an accomplished first chair trial lawyer. She has tried several cases before juries and in arbitration, and has obtained numerous defense summary judgment rulings and other favorable resolutions in state and federal court. Erin led the trial team that obtained a complete dismissal for Oracle in OFCCP v. Oracle, the largest pay equity case ever brought by the US Department of Labor, which garnered national media attention and earned Erin recognition as a "Litigator of the Week" by the American Lawyer and a 2021 Employment MVP by Law360. As lead counsel, Erin also successfully obtained decertification in a statewide California pay equity class action, Jewett v. Oracle.
Erin's clients include leading technology and Fortune 500 companies, including: Oracle, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Workday, PayPal, Sony Interactive Entertainment, NVIDIA, Airbnb, SiriusXM, Dropbox, Zendesk, Splunk and Goldman Sachs.
Erin frequently speaks on California and national employment law issues. She is currently a Council Member with the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section (LEL) and is the Conference Chair for the American Employment Legal Council (AELC). She is also a faculty member with the Institute for Workplace Equality (IWE), and formerly served as the management chair of the ABA Equal Employment Opportunity Committee. Erin also previously served on the Board of Directors for the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF), as well as BASF’s Justice & Diversity Center (JDC). She has published numerous articles and papers on employment law issues in publications around the country. She also provides employment law training and conducts internal investigations on employment-related matters.
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.