People

Richard Krebs Senior Associate Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property

Orange County

Rich Krebs is a litigator and trial lawyer with a passion for taking complex legal issues and making them interesting and comprehensible to clients, judges, and juries.  Clients know they can depend on Rich to be a fierce and loyal advocate and a steady hand to guide them through stressful conflicts.

A member of Orrick's Complex Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice, Rich has extensive business litigation experience in federal and state courts and private arbitration and mediation, including various business tort, breach of contract, insurance, licensing, fraud, securities, construction, intellectual property, and class action matters.  

Rich's practice covers all aspects of the litigation and dispute resolution process--from advising clients on whether to file suit, to resolving disputes through trial or settlement, and everything in between.  Rich's dogged determination, creativity, and relentless commitment to winning has repeatedly resulted in successful resolutions for his clients.  

Rich began his career with Irell & Manella in Los Angeles and also spent time with a litigation boutique in Houston before joining Orrick in 2018.  Rich lives in Newport Beach with his wife Rachel and his daughter Olivia.

Keith Kriebel Senior Counsel Energy, Infrastructure

Washington, D.C.

Keith W. Kriebel is resident in the Washington, D.C., and Seattle offices and a member of the firm’s Energy and Infrastructure Group.

He focuses on project finance and energy and infrastructure transactions, particularly the development and financing of large infrastructure projects undertaken using public-private partnerships, as well as the development, financing, restructuring, acquisition, and sale of domestic and international energy projects, including thermal and renewable power projects, gas pipelines, ethanol facilities and utility assets. 

He is experienced in all aspects of project documentation, including design-build and engineering, procurement and construction contracts; operations and maintenance contracts; public-private partnership agreements; asset and share purchase agreements; partnership, shareholder, and other equity agreements; development agreements; turbine and other equipment supply agreements; taxable and tax-exempt financing documents; leases; power purchase agreements; fuel supply agreements; Rule 144A offerings; and privatization and bidding documents. Keith represents sponsors, lenders, contractors, utility offtakers and investors.

From 1983 through 1987, Keith served as a captain in the Office of Chief Counsel of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, where he focused on water and other civil works projects.

Leslie Conard Krusen Managing Associate Public Finance

Seattle

Leslie Krusen is a lawyer in the Public Finance Department in Orrick's Seattle office.

Les is in Associate in the Public Finance practice group in Orrick’s Seattle office. He has served as bond counsel, disclosure counsel and underwriters’ counsel on public and privately placed tax-exempt and taxable debt issued by airports and ports, mass transit agencies, electric and water utilities, industrial development agencies and bond banks, higher education institutions and health care facilities. He has experience in advising clients in such financings in several states and U.S. territories, including Alaska, California, Guam, Nevada, New York, Oregon and Washington.

During the course of his practice, Les has worked on various types of financing structures, including standard general obligation and revenue bond financings, bond and grant anticipation financings, master trust indenture financings, conduit financings, pooled financings, variable rate bonds and current and advance refundings.

Prior to joining Orrick, Les was an associate in the Capital Markets practice group at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York, where he represented major foreign and domestic banks and boutique financial institutions as issuers, depositors, loan sellers, underwriters, initial purchasers and placement agents in connection with approximately $20 billion of public and private offerings of commercial mortgage-backed securities and collateralized loan obligations.

Jeremy Kudon Partner Public Policy

New York

Jeremy is the founder and chair of Orrick’s Public Policy Group. He has built a highly innovative practice that helps disruptive companies protect/secure their competitive advantage at all levels of state government in all 50 states.

Over the past 18 months alone, Jeremy and his team engaged in 125 battles in 45 state legislatures on behalf of a “who’s who” of technology disruptors, Fortune 500 companies, and professional sports leagues. 

Recent examples of Jeremy's experience includes:

• Daily Fantasy Sports. In the fall of 2015, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, FanDuel and DraftKings faced an existential threat from state legislatures and Attorneys General. Jeremy and his team built, implemented and ran a 50-state legislative and regulatory campaign that included on the ground lobbying, public relations support, and grassroots and grasstops activation. As a result of Jeremy and Orrick’s work, 20 state legislatures, including New York where Attorney General Schneiderman issued a cease and desist to the companies, have passed legislation clarifying that daily fantasy sports are legal, creating regulatory oversight and introducing common sense consumer protections.
• Sports Betting. Jeremy and Orrick are coordinating a multi-state campaign on behalf of Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the PGA Tour to ensure that sports betting legislation addresses the leagues integrity and intellectual property concerns. Over the past six months, Orrick has engaged on the leagues’ behalf in 20 state legislatures.
• Secondary Life Insurance. Responsible for developing and implementing a multi-state legislative and regulatory campaign on behalf of Fortress Investment Group to bring certainty to the secondary life insurance market. In 2014, Jeremy and his team helped pass affirmative legislation in Minnesota that gives investors the right—for the first time—to go to court and obtain a declaration that a policy has a valid insurable interest.
• Satellite TV and OTT Tax. For the past decade, Jeremy and his team have coordinated a multi-state campaign on behalf of DISH, DIRECTV, and Sling TV to defeat anti-competitive satellite TV and over-the-top TV taxes. The team’s record is nothing short of spectacular. Since 2009, Orrick has helped the satellite TV industry defeat 85 bills in 35 states, which has translated into billions of dollars of savings.
• Ocular Telehealth. Represent Warby Parker and Simple Contacts before state legislatures to protect against anti-competitive ocular telehealth legislation.

Kelsey Kummer Managing Associate Real Estate

San Francisco

Kelsey Kummer is a managing associate in the San Francisco office and is a member of the Real Estate Group.

Kelsey advises institutional investors and developers on real property investments, development, secured financing, acquisitions and dispositions of real estate portfolios, joint ventures, leasing and construction agreements.

Sakon Kuramoto Managing Associate M&A and Private Equity, Corporate

Tokyo

Sakon Kuramoto is a managing associate in Orrick's Tokyo office and a member of the M&A and Private Equity Group.  Sakon has used his experience residing in the United States and Singapore to provide practical advice to emerging and established companies on a wide range of matters involving domestic and cross-border investment/M&A, compliance, finance, venture capital transactions, dispute matters and crisis management.  His comments have often been introduced in legal articles of the Nikkei Newspaper, a high prestigious business paper in Japan.  He received the 6th Shinnippon-Hoki Inc. Foundation Incentive Award (Award of Excellence).   He is one of the Candidates for Advisory Panel Membership in the Grievance Mechanism for the Tokyo 2020 Sustainable Sourcing Code.  He is also a Fellow of the Business Ethics research Center in Japan.

He also has extensive experience in finance and day-to-day legal matters, giving practical advice to emerging companies which are engaged in AI, IoT and FinTech businesses.  Additionally, he has been responding to the needs of Japanese companies advancing overseas by giving advice on the establishment of a corporate governance structure, the enhancement of global compliance system and ESG related legal matters.  He is familiar with various countries' regulations aiming to rectify supply chains, international rules and standards regarding corporate governance/CSR including “Business and Human Rights” issues and related ILO Conventions.  He is familiar with the ESG investment such as green bond and social bond.

Jerry V. Kyle, Jr. Partner Legislative/Regulatory Participation, Public Finance

Austin

Jerry practices in the public law area. With a focus in public finance, he serves as bond counsel or underwriters' counsel in tax-exempt bond transactions.

 Jerry has been active in traditional bond financings for governmental entities such as school districts, cities, counties and special-purpose districts, advising them on general obligation, ad valorem tax-secured financings and special or limited obligation financings, such as utility system revenue-secured financings, conduit financings, financings for state agencies and financings for entities authorized to act on behalf of the State of Texas and its political subdivisions, including tax and revenue anticipation and general obligation and special-purpose facility revenue financings.

Matthew D. LaBrie Managing Associate Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution, Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation

Boston

Matthew D. LaBrie is a litigation associate in Orrick's Boston office. His practice focuses on complex commercial disputes as well as cybersecurity litigation and incident response.

In his commercial litigation practice, Matthew routinely assists clients at all stages of the litigation process, through motions practice, discovery, witness preparation, and trial. His litigation experience is broad, including data security litigation, securities litigation, shareholder derivative litigation, and class action defense, as well as commercial arbitration. Matthew also currently represents several companies defending against mass tort and products liability suits.

In his cybersecurity practice, Matthew counsels clients across the globe through all stages of a privacy or data security incident, navigating the relevant legal regimes, managing the response to and investigation of an incident, and handling any litigation or regulatory investigation resulting from the incident. Matthew spent a year based in Orrick's London office developing and coordinating Orrick's worldwide data breach incident response and litigation capabilities.

Matthew maintains an active pro bono practice. He has assisted individual clients with family law matters, advocated on behalf of veterans' rights, and represented human trafficking survivors in a series of federal cases*.

Brendan LaFountain Managing Associate Public Finance

Sacramento

Brendan LaFountain, a Managing Associate in the Sacramento office, is a member of the Public Finance Department.  Brendan has served as bond counsel, disclosure counsel, underwriters’ counsel and issuer’s counsel on tax-exempt and taxable financings.

Brendan's practice is focused primarily on transactions for municipal issuers, including the State of California and the California Department of Water Resources.  Brendan's experience includes advising on a variety of governmental financing structures, including general obligation bonds, revenue and lease revenue bonds, certificates of participation and land-secured bonds.  Brendan also focuses on tax-exempt healthcare finance for 501(c)(3) organizations, including both stand-alone hospitals and hospital systems, and serves as issuer’s counsel to the California Statewide Communities Development Authority for its 501(c)(3) conduit financings.  Brendan has worked on many of the structures available in public finance, including fixed and variable rate bonds, tax-exempt and taxable bonds, publicly offered and privately placed bonds, master trust indentures, insurance, letters of credit, conversions, reofferings and commercial paper programs.

Douglas Lahnborg Partner Antitrust & Competition

Brussels; London

Douglas Lahnborg's practice focuses on EU and UK Antitrust and Competition Law.

Douglas has represented clients before the European Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority for more than 20 years in all areas of competition law. He provides multinational clients with innovative solutions on high-profile complex matters including merger control, abuse of dominance, private damages actions and cartel investigations, often involving multiple jurisdictions. He founded our Brussels office. 

Douglas has acted for clients in a broad range of industries, including software, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, consumer goods, energy, healthcare, defence and national security.

Douglas features in both the Chambers UK and Chambers Europe editions where he is recognised as a leading antitrust and competition practitioner. He is known for being "skilled, easy to work with and very service-minded" Douglas is also ranked as a leading competition lawyer in Legal 500.

Frederic Lalance Partner Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution, White Collar, Investigations, Securities Litigation & Compliance

Paris

Frédéric Lalance, Office Leader of the Orrick Paris office, is also the Head partner of the Paris Litigation Group. He focuses on commercial, corporate, banking, and merger and acquisition related disputes before the French courts, as well as arbitration and alternative dispute resolution.

Recognized by Chambers & Partners as a top litigator in France, Frédéric Lalance is praised by clients for being “a very sharp and intelligent lawyer” and “able to take a quick overview of situations and creative in finding new solutions." He has been involved in many of the highly publicized corporate cases over the past few years. He notably advised CDR on the Executive Life Matter and recently successfully argued, before the French Court, the Asian Development Bank’s absolute immunity from jurisdiction as an international institution.

On the international scene, Frédéric Lalance has a broad experience advising and representing French and foreign clients on multi-jurisdictional matters. He has also experience in Africa, where he currently represents several players in the mining industry in shareholders’ disputes related to joint ventures agreements.

Frédéric’s wide range of expertise also includes international investigation and compliance, as well as Internet fraud litigation.

Frédéric Lalance was a Litigation partner at the premier French boutique Rambaud Martel before it combined with Orrick’s global platform in 2006. Frédéric previously served at Cleary Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP.

William Lamb Managing Associate Corporate, Technology Companies Group

San Francisco

William Lamb is an associate in the San Francisco Office and a member of the firm's corporate group.

Prior to joining Orrick, William was an associate in the corporate / mergers & acquisitions practice of Hogan Lovells US LLP in Silicon Valley.