People

Amy Chan Senior Associate Structured Finance, Mortgage Related Securities

New York

Amy Chan, an associate in the New York office, is a member of the Structured Finance Group. Amy represents a variety of market participants, including sponsors, issuers and underwriters, in public and private offerings of commercial mortgage-backed securities.

Roland Chang Senior Associate Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution, FCPA & Anti–Corruption

San Francisco

Roland Chang is a lawyer in Orrick's White Collar, Investigations, Securities Litigation & Compliance group.  He represents foreign and domestic clients in connection with government enforcement actions, FCPA compliance monitorships, internal investigations, and criminal and civil litigation.  Roland has hands-on experience with all aspects of investigations, monitorships, and litigation, including jury trials, handling witness interviews, drafting reports, taking and defending depositions, and managing large teams.

Roland is a regular contributor to Orrick’s Trade Secrets Watch.  Prior to joining the firm, he was an Orrick Attorney Fellow at the Public Interest Law Project in Oakland, California, where he engaged in impact litigation related to affordable housing and public benefits programs. 

Roland is committed to diversity and inclusion initiatives—he currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA), the largest APA bar association in the United States. 

Cathleen Chang Managing Associate Tax, Public Finance

Houston

Cathleen is a managing associate specializing in tax-exempt bond financing.

Cathleen provides services for local governments, state agencies, and school districts in connection with infrastructure, financings and related projects. She also has experience in bond financings for health care facilities, multifamily housing, non-profit organizations, and public utilities, as well as experience in tobacco revenue securitizations. In addition to tax-exempt financings, Cathleen also represents clients in IRS audits and non-profit corporation tax matters.

Stephen E Chao Associate Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate

Silicon Valley

Stephen Chao is an associate in Orrick's Silicon Valley office and a member of the Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity group.

Prior to joining Orrick, Stephen worked for Google, where he performed due diligence on M&A transactions and supported the Google Cloud Platform and global datacenter operations legal teams in negotiating and executing contracts.

Following his first year of law school, Stephen worked as an intern at LinkedIn, where he supported LinkedIn’s legal team on a variety of corporate, privacy, commercial and IP matters.

At Berkeley Law, Stephen served on the editorial boards of the California Law Review and Berkeley Technology Law Journal. Stephen received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Christina Charemi Managing Associate International Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property

Geneva

Christina Charemi is an associate in Orrick's Geneva office, whose practice focuses on international dispute settlement and intellectual property.  Her case experience has encompassed high-value international commercial and investment treaty arbitrations in a range of industrial sectors, including technology, banking, international trade, construction and energy.  Prior to joining Orrick, Christina worked as an associate in the dispute resolution department of a magic circle law firm in both Germany and Hong Kong, and as Counsel at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. 

Christina has acted for clients in both ad hoc and institutional arbitrations under most major procedural rulesets, including the ICSID Convention, UNCITRAL Rules, ICC, LCIA, HKIAC and the Swiss Rules.  She has represented a range of clients, including major financial institutions, technology groups, Fortune 500 companies and commodities traders.  She has also acted as Tribunal Secretary in emergency international arbitration proceedings under the HKIAC Rules. 

Christina's experience in arbitration is complemented by her practice and background in intellectual property.  Having studied and worked in the Silicon Valley, Christina has frequently written and advised on matters of international intellectual property law, particularly those at the junction with international arbitration. 

Chris Chavez Senior Counsel Real Estate, Real Estate Finance

San Francisco

Practical real estate lawyer with a focus on tech and clean energy sectors, a long history of representing institutional investors and lenders, and a deep commitment to enhancing diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.

Chris has experience in acquisition, disposition and financing of large portfolios of commercial real estate; distressed debt; negotiation of joint ventures for development projects; construction contracts; data center leasing/co-location; office leasing; and transactions involving multi-family housing.

Chris has a long history of service to Orrick’s diversity initiatives and has served as a co-chair of the San Francisco Diversity Committee for many years. She is also very involved in diversity efforts at Berkeley School of Law.

Chris was resident in the firm's Tokyo office from 1999-2002.

Sara Chehrehsa Managing Associate Technology Companies Group

San Francisco

Sara Chehrehsa is a lawyer in the San Francisco office and a member of the Technology Companies Group.

Sara focuses primarily on representing high growth technology companies in general formation, venture capital and private equity financings, and mergers and acquisitions.

Annie H Chen Managing Associate Employment Law & Litigation

Los Angeles

Annie Chen is a Managing Associate in the employment litigation department in Orrick’s Los Angeles office.  She represents corporate clients in complex employment litigation, including wage-and-hour class actions and PAGA representative actions, as well as single plaintiff discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination claims.

Annie has experience in all facets of litigation, including factual investigations, preparing witnesses for depositions, taking depositions, and pretrial briefing and motion practice.  She also advises clients regarding compliance with employment laws, including revising employee handbook provisions and employee commission agreements, leave of absence issues, requests for accommodations and employee terminations.

Yanlin Cecilia Chen Associate

Orange County

Cecilia Chen is a litigation attorney in Orrick's Orange County office with a focus on general commercial litigation.

Ching-Yin Chen Associate Technology Companies Group

Silicon Valley

Ching-Yin Chen is an associate in the Silicon Valley Office, and a member of the Technology Companies Group.

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.

Joseph Chern Senior Intellectual Property Career Associate Patents, Intellectual Property

Orange County

Joseph Chern is a lawyer in Orrick’s Orange County office and a member of the Intellectual Property Group. His practice focuses on due diligence with an emphasis on open source licensing and patent law, including patent prosecution, intellectual property portfolio management and patent litigation.

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.

Richard Chirls Partner Tax

New York

Richard Chirls, a New York tax partner, focuses his practice on the tax aspects of public finance transactions.  He has served as the head of Orrick’s nationally recognized Public Finance Tax Group.

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.