London
In addition to sheer volume of deals, Shawn's incomparable market insight stems from his leadership roles at Orrick, the only global firm focused on technology, and his experience working throughout the UK & Europe, North America and Asia. Shawn serves as a member of the firm’s Board of Directors and leads Orrick's London Corporate practice. These leadership roles complement his practice serving public and private companies in UK multi-jurisdictional and complex corporate transactions, including countless acquisitions and disposals, cross-border mergers, bankruptcy infused asset sales, recapitalisations and reorganisations.
He is also a recognised leader in late stage venture transactions and in early stage private equity transactions in Europe and the emerging markets. Shawn has been recognised as a leading individual in several legal directories, including Chambers and Legal 500, for his expertise and excellence in venture capital, M&A, emerging markets, and fintech. In addition, he has been ranked as a top 5 (by volume) UK M&A lawyer in each of 2017, 2020-2024 by Mergermarket, including a #1 ranking in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
Shawn also advises early stage businesses across a number of sectors – including insurtech, Fintech, Crypto, SaaS, EdTech, HRTech, Marketplace and EnergyTech. He assists them from incorporation through to M&A exit, initial public offerings and other growth opportunities. His participation in the private equity and venture capital sector spans his entire career - with time spent in private practice, in-house and advising investors as well as investor-backed businesses-and affords him a deep knowledge and understanding of the industry and client needs and expectations.
Among the leading investment funds he has represented are ABN Amro Ventures, Acton Capital Partners, ABRY Partners, Accel Partners, Apax Partners, Bain Capital, Balderton Capital, Battery Ventures, Beringea, Bessemer Venture Partners, Black Pearls VC, Black Sheep Ventures, BMWi Ventures, Coatue Management, Columbia Capital, CommerzVentures, Evolvence, FTV Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Stepstone Group, Headway Capital Partners, Innova Capital, Kinnevik, KPS Capital Partners, Marlin Equity Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners, M/C Partners, One Peak, Oxx, Pearson Ventures, Piper Private Equity, Piton Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Sprints Capital, Summit Partners, Updata Partners, VNV Global and VEF.
Sacramento; Silicon Valley
Sacramento; Silicon Valley
Blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies have caused business leaders to rethink the way we own, govern and share the benefits of enterprise. James advises entrepreneurs and investors as they pioneer new, more inclusive operating models in professional sports, finance, social media, gaming, agriculture and other industries.
To do this, James draws from two complementary sources of experience. The first is his practice assisting public companies, private equity funds and venture capitalists with registered and unregistered securities offerings; high-stakes M&A; corporate governance; and Exchange Act reporting. The second is his experience advising clients outside the Wall Street and Silicon Valley mainstream, including cooperatives, limited cooperative associations and nonprofit corporations. By combining these two worlds, James is able to offer unexpected legal solutions to blockchain-based companies as they seek venture financing, design and issue tokens, and select business entities for DAOs.
James also appreciates the inherently global reach of blockchain and cryptocurrency. After law school, he spent two years clerking for the US Court of International Trade in New York City. Before that, James lived for two years in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Dnipro, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Mariupol. James is fluent in Russian and maintains ties with his friends in the war zone.
San Francisco
Jim conducts internal investigations for clients and represents them in regulatory investigations and proceedings before the SEC and state securities regulatory authorities. He has broad experience in jury and bench trial matters before federal, tax and state courts. He has handled numerous class actions and litigated multi-district cases involving claims under RICO and federal and state securities law, as well as professional services malpractice claims and various business torts.
Jim has extensive experience in commercial arbitrations before various arbitration and mediation tribunals, including the American Arbitration Association, the New York Stock Exchange, the National Association of Securities Dealers and privately chosen arbitrators. He acts on behalf of technology companies, venture capitalists, securities issuers, directors, brokers, underwriters, promoters and mutual funds.
Jim has represented Retek, Inc., Touch America Holdings, Inc., RS Investment Management, Inc., Cygnus, Inc., Everen Securities Inc., Chiron Corp., Intevac, Inc., Accel Partners, TA Associates, Kenetech, Pope & Talbot, Citrix Systems, Inc., Everex and The Photonics Fund.
Prior to joining Orrick, Jim was a partner and West Coast Managing Partner at Clifford Chance, a partner and managing partner at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison and a partner at Chickering & Gregory.
Washington, D.C.
Ryan focuses on representing borrowers and lenders in loan origination financing (in mortgage, auto, consumer and other loans, including warehouse and repurchase facilities) and servicing advance financing, acquisition financing (including mortgage servicing rights), syndicated financing, fund financing, working capital financing, litigation financing and asset based financing. He also assists clients with obtaining required applicable agency approvals in connection with these transactions.
Prior to joining Orrick, Ryan was a partner at Buckley LLP. He also was a corporate and securities associate in private practice, where he represented clients in a broad range of local, national and international corporate transactions.
Silicon Valley; Washington, D.C.
Silicon Valley; Washington, D.C.
She focuses on high growth technology companies and represents both public and private companies and venture capital funds in many areas, including corporate and securities law, venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, public company representation and private equity.
Prior to joining Orrick, Elizabeth was of counsel with Clifford Chance and an associate at Brobeck Phleger and Harrison.
Washington, D.C.
An experienced corporate lawyer and strategic advisor, Ryan specializes in guiding high-growth companies and investors through the legal complexities of the startup ecosystem. With deep experience in the technology sector, he provides comprehensive legal counsel to emerging companies throughout their lifecycle, including startup formation and structuring, venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate and securities law compliance. Ryan also has significant expertise in representing venture capital and private equity investors in financings, growth equity investments, and buy-side and sell-side M&A transactions. His ability to navigate the fast-paced and evolving technology landscape has made him a trusted partner to clients building transformative businesses.
Ryan's company-side representations include Mercor (AI-powered hiring platform), Magic.dev (automated software engineering), Sapien (autonomous coworkers for financial analysis), Taktile (decision-making models for risk assessment by fintechs), Flower (federated AI framework), Paradigm (AI-powered spreadsheets), 15Five (continuous performance management platform), Certa (third-party vendor compliance and risk management), Uprise (AI-powered financial advisory optimization), Archer Faris (multi-agent security), Better Trucks (last mile carrier), Allium (enterprise blockchain data platform), Coda Project (acquired by Grammarly), Enter Health (AI-first revenue cycle management), and many other exciting startups.
Select Engagements:
Washington, D.C.
Adam works closely with founders, directors and venture capitalists from pre-formation through exit and has significant experience leading high growth companies through:
Adam also leverages his unique business and legal perspective to advise venture capital investors (including venture firms, strategic corporate investors and individuals) in evaluating, structuring, and managing their investments throughout the life cycle of disruptive technology companies.
Adam is known for partnering with companies and sharing in their vision for change to provide flexible solutions that meet evolving business needs. He represents companies and their investors in a variety of industries, including space tech, life sciences, digital platforms and software services, transport, artificial intelligence, health and lifestyle and sports tech, among others.
Adam is a proud father of two young daughters and is actively involved with orphanage work in Kenya, helping drive non-profit efforts throughout the region.
Silicon Valley; San Francisco
Silicon Valley; San Francisco
The Daily Journal has named Stephen one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California (chosen regardless of specialty). Stephen was Facebook’s first lawyer and has advised many other leading companies at critical stages of their lifecycles including Anthropic AI, Asana, Instagram, Pinterest, Warby Parker and WETA Digital.
Stephen cares about the teams he counsels and thrives on providing practical business advice. When The American Lawyer named Stephen “Dealmaker of the Year”, it recognized his corporate work and representation of Instagram in its sale to Facebook and quoted a prominent Instagram board member as saying that he “is an outstanding lawyer, but he’s also an outstanding business partner . . . someone who cares about everybody [who's] involved in a company.” In addition to naming Stephen to its list of Top 100 Lawyers in California, The Daily Journal has named him to its Top Emerging Companies Lawyers list, and Chambers and Partners has recognized and ranked Stephen in two separate categories for several consecutive years.
Numerous standout technology companies and their founders have turned to Stephen for corporate representation at all stages of their life-cycles. Most of his counseling is with technology disruptive clients in fast-growth fields such as artificial intelligence, information technology, metaverse, fin-tech, SaaS, gaming, media and entertainment. His recent prominent counseling includes companies in the artificial intelligence, metaverse and gaming spaces. For example he recently advised WETA Digital in its metaverse and gaming related asset sale to Unity Software (for $1.6 billion) and has advised Anthropic AI from formation through each of its financings.
London
She represents clients in the technology, Internet, digital media and marketing, artificial intelligence, fintech, e-commerce and hardware and software industries, and also represents clients in the energy & infrastructure, consumer products, hospitality and financial services sectors.
Katie's experience includes public and private mergers and acquisitions, earn-outs, carve-outs, asset acquisitions and disposals, recapitalisations, management buy-outs and take-private transactions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and minority investments. She has extensive experience with cross-border transactions and is particularly well-known for acting on sales of venture-backed companies to major international trade and financial buyers.
Silicon Valley; San Francisco
Silicon Valley; San Francisco
Prior to joining Orrick in 2017, John was a senior associate in the corporate law practice of Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley.
Miami; Santa Monica; Los Angeles
Miami; Santa Monica; Los Angeles
Andrew works closely with founders and venture capitalists globally on the formation, operations, fundraising and successful exits of technology and other venture-backed companies. Leveraging a unique professional background and skill set as well as the premiere, full suite of services of our global law firm to devise strategic and creative solutions for his clients, Andrew shares their vision for change, and helps them build the vessel that delivers that vision to the world.
Prior to joining Orrick, Andrew served as a legislative adviser to Congress, a lobbyist for the University of Illinois, and a tax fellow for Deloitte advising companies on Sarbanes-Oxley tax compliance and building internal control systems.
London
Jamie acts for both early and late stage companies in intellectual property rich sectors and those who invest in them, including some of the most active venture capital funds, corporate or individual investors.
Jamie has a passion for disruptive technologies, innovation and entrepreneurial business. He has acted on countless transactions across a broad range of sectors both in the UK and internationally, but is most known for his experience in acting on investments into fintech and Artificial Intelligence companies.
Jamie has deep knowledge of the practice area in which he operates and market trends, which he leverages to provide clear and concise advice on a range of corporate issues taking high growth technology companies from start-up through to exit.
He presents on corporate law and venture capital to clients and at seminars in the City, including practitioners’ conferences on practical legal issues in venture capital transactions and SEIS/EIS investments.
An active participant in the venture capital community, Jamie Moore has contributed to industry standard form documentation, acted as a mentor for various Seedcamp portfolio companies and hosted office-hours for the Barclays' TechStars cohort.