Sacramento
Katie collaborates with employers to resolve challenging litigation and avoid risky compliance issues. She defends employers against PAGA, class, multi-plaintiff, and single plaintiff actions involving a variety of claims ranging from complex wage and hour disputes to contentious discrimination and harassment claims. Katie has jury trial experience and practices before a variety of forums, including state and federal trial courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and private arbitration and mediation. She understands the challenges that employers face and helps them to navigate ever-changing state, federal, and local laws. Katie has significant experience litigating and advising on wage and hour issues; exempt/non-exempt classification; discrimination, harassment, and retaliation; arbitration agreements; independent contractor classification; business expense reimbursement; compensation; Section 17200, and more. She also works with clients to resolve employment disputes prior to litigation.
Katie earned her J.D. from the University of California, Davis School of Law, where she graduated Order of the Coif.
San Francisco
San Francisco
Patricia is a trusted resource for her clients and leads complex negotiations to provide innovative solutions with regard to benefits design, administration and compliance. Patricia provides substantive knowledge in the defense of benefits litigation matters, has substantial experience with the employee benefit aspects of sales and acquisitions of businesses and is well-versed in the Affordable Care Act and HIPAA.
Patricia regularly advises general counsel, executive management, CEOs, boards of directors, retirement and health plan committees and key leadership of Fortune 500 companies on complex questions and issues regarding the operation of their domestic and international employee benefit plans and compliance with federal and state law.
Before joining the firm, Patricia acted as Senior Manager of National Employee Benefits at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and formerly served as Senior Counsel-Benefits and Executive Compensation at AirTouch Communications, Inc. (now Vodafone).
Patricia also acted as Legislation Counsel on the Joint Committee on Taxation within the United States Congress working extensively on the Clinton health care proposal and other benefits legislation. Prior to the Joint Committee, Patricia was an associate at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop).
San Francisco
Victoria serves as bond counsel and disclosure counsel on a variety of public finance transactions, including general obligation financings, conduit bond financings, sales tax revenue financings, and lease revenue financings for public agencies. Her practice spans across industries, with a particular focus on local government and affordable housing financings.
In collaboration with Orrick's Strategic Advisory & Government Enforcement group, Victoria advises financial institutions and community development practitioners on Community Reinvestment Act and fair lending matters.
Before practicing law, Victoria worked in outreach and operations for Mercy Corps' Community Investment Trust, an innovative communal ownership model designed to help local residents of all income levels invest in commercial real estate.
Munich
He has many years of experience advising private equity investors, established companies and family offices as well as startups and scale-ups. He counsels clients on complex and often cross-border transactions, restructurings, joint ventures and buy-outs and other partnerships and investments in the tech sector and beyond.
Before joining Orrick, Damien worked for an international law firm in Munich and Frankfurt for more than eight years.
Paris
Nicole has more than 20 years’ experience representing clients in international arbitration and all forms of dispute resolution. Dual trained in both civil and common law jurisdictions, Nicole has conducted arbitrations under all the main international arbitration rules including the ICC, AAA, SCC, UNCITRAL, ICDR and ICSID as well as local European arbitration institutions such as the Vienna Chamber (VIAC), CEPANI, Swiss Chamber and DIS. Her cases have spanned a variety of industries including oil and gas, nuclear energy, aviation, construction, technology, food and beverages, transportation, and insurance.
Nicole has worked on multi-billion dollar gas price review arbitrations for major European producers and several bet the company construction arbitrations, including an US$8 billion ICC arbitration for the world’s largest shipbuilder. She is frequently nominated to act as arbitrator and speaks and publishes regularly on questions of international commercial and investment arbitration, including The International Comparative Legal Guide to: Investor-State Arbitration 2019 – Country Questions and Answers: France. Nicole is a former member of the Executive Board and Global Boards of ICDR Y&I and practices in English, German, French and has a working knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese.
Prior to joining Orrick, Nicole practiced in one of the biggest law firms in the world in New York for six years, an Austrian firm in Vienna for five years and a major U.S. firm in Paris for seven years.
San Francisco
Before his retirement as a partner, he was also the Partner-in-Charge of Lawyer Development for a number of years. While still practicing, he served at times as the firm’s General Counsel, Executive Director, Peer Review Committee Chair and member of the Partner Compensation Committee. He still acts as an advisor to the firm on matters affecting lawyer development.
Tom concentrated his practice in banking and commercial transactions. He represented banks and other financial institutions in a variety of transactions, including syndicated and single-lender credit agreements (both secured and unsecured), project financings, public finance transactions, and “synthetic” and other lease arrangements. As a lecturer and panelist, Tom frequently spoke at seminars on a range of topics related to his practice.
He served for several years as co-counsel of the International Bankers Association in California. He has been a member of the State Bar of California’s Business Law Section’s Financial Institutions Committee and Uniform Commercial Code Committee. In addition, he has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony’s Business Gifts Committee.
Before joining Orrick, Tom was Vice President and Counsel at California First Bank (now Union Bank of California) in San Francisco. He was a visiting attorney at Clifford-Turner (now Clifford Chance), Solicitors, in London.
Seattle
Her experience includes representing borrowers, sponsors, investors and lenders in a variety of financing and equity arrangements, including project and portfolio M&A, development financing, equity investments and joint ventures with wind, solar and other alternative energy projects.
New York
Richard has substantial experience advising clients across a wide range of cases, with particular focus on matters involving novel or complex constitutional, statutory, administrative, or other public-law issues, appeals, and legal and strategic counseling. A former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and to Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the D.C. Circuit, Richard served both as a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General and as an Attorney-Adviser in its Office of Legal Counsel. During that time, he regularly counseled federal government attorneys on appellate and legal strategy issues and provided written and oral advice to the White House, the Attorney General and other executive branch offices on a broad spectrum of constitutional, statutory, and regulatory questions. He also practiced as an appellate litigator in the New York office of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering from 2001-03 and, more recently, as of counsel in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Before his appointment as Dean, he was a tenured professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he was Vice Dean from 2015-16.
Richard teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, criminal justice, and corporations. His published work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the University of Minnesota Law Review, among other journals. He twice—in 2013 and 2015—received the Best Professor Award from Cardozo’s graduating class. He has been quoted on legal developments by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC News, Slate, and other media.
Milan
She advises startups, investors, and corporate clients on venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters. Based in Milan, Claudia works across a variety of industries, with a strong focus on the tech, life sciences, and a particular passion about fintech. Her practice includes advising on both domestic and cross-border transactions, supporting clients throughout the full investment cycle.
Claudia has worked on a broad range of deals, including early-stage financings in sectors such as AI, healthtech, and SaaS, as well as growth capital rounds for companies developing advanced digital and industrial technologies. She has also been involved in strategic acquisitions and exits, including transactions in the energy, cybersecurity, and enterprise software fields.
Washington, D.C.
Nicole graduated from Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law in May 2023. She focused her studies on trial advocacy, earning a Trial Advocacy Certificate and serving as a Teaching Assistant in the trial advocacy program.
Prior to law school, Nicole worked as a Paralegal for Buckley LLP in its Washington, DC office. Having satisfied the requirements of the firm's Paralegal Law School Bonus Program, she received an offer to return as a Summer Associate after completing her first year in law school. Following her 2L year, having accepted a second offer for a Summer Associate position, she again returned to Buckley. Today, Nicole is an Associate in Orrick's Washington, DC office.
New York
In recognition of Peter’s career trial work, he was inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2015. Juries have compared him favorably to Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey. Clients laud Peter, telling Chambers USA 2020-2022, “He’s a standout trial lawyer and an outstanding advocate overall. He appreciates the client’s needs and advocates for them everywhere.” Another client notes, “He is brilliant in the courtroom under the most intense pressure,” “a master of seeing the full chessboard.” That praise is echoed by sources saying, Peter is “one of these lawyers that really turns big cases; he’s a real trial lawyer,” and calling him “one of the most gifted trial lawyers that I have ever seen.” Clients go on to applaud his trial experience and strategic approach saying, “Peter really knows his way round a courtroom. He's a great trial tactician.” “He is an outstanding advocate who appreciates the client's needs and reputational questions involved.” A peer in the trial bar told Law360, “What is most impressive is his ability as a true Field General – calmly directing his team’s efforts.”
With precedent-setting trial wins in intellectual property, commercial and products liability litigation, Peter has amassed honors from annual top rankings in Chambers USA, Legal 500, and Benchmark Litigation, to awards for excellence, such as New York “Litigation Star,” “Law360 MVP,” “Litigator of the Week,” and “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America.”
It is Peter’s versatility that sets him apart. He brings a combination of deft courtroom skills, strategic acuity and team leadership. In July 2023, a leading company in the biotech agricultural space, Corteva Agriscience, retained Peter as lead trial counsel in a high profile intellectual property lawsuit Corteva filed against Inari Agriculture, Inc. and Inari Agriculture NV to protect its highly valuable patent protected genetically modified seeds. As noted in the complaint, the lawsuit "…seeks to prevent Inari from continuing its brazen efforts to steal Corteva's groundbreaking work." Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Inari deliberately used a third-party agent to obtain protected Corteva seeds, illegally exported the seeds out of the United States, made slight genetic modifications of the biotech traits and is seeking U.S. patents for those modified traits. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court, Delaware and is in discovery. In May 2022, when faced with a headlining trial over control of the leading international model and talent company, Elite Worldwide Group, the company and its Chairman tapped Peter as lead trial counsel to parachute in just 45 days before trial. Our complete trial win for the client earned Peter and the team Litigators of the Week Runner-Up honors from the American Lawyer. Louis Dreyfus Company turned to Peter recently as lead trial counsel once they saw that a massive, high stakes trial was on the horizon with over $1 billion at stake amid class action claims alleging manipulation of the cotton futures market. DISH Network brought Peter in shortly before trial when the FTC and various state attorneys general sought $700 billion in damages and penalties for alleged telemarketing violations. He achieved an astounding trial victory for DISH limiting recovery to less than one percent of the exposure. For Johnson & Johnson, Peter has been part of a small group of market-leading outside counsel overseeing the defense of more than 15,000 talc-related cases, including product liability trials, consumer class actions, and cases brought under California’s Prop 65; handling multiple trials, SEC, DOJ, and AG investigations; and representing senior executives in major depositions, at trial, and before Congress.
Peter served as co-head of the firm's Global Litigation practice and is a former member of Orrick’s Board and Management Committee. Before joining Orrick, Peter was a partner at Donovan Leisure. He captained his college tennis team to a national ranking, has successfully competed in major national sailboat competitions, and serves on the Board of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program. With his wife Linda, he has three children: Avery, Isabelle and Phoebe.
Silicon Valley
No stranger to the courtroom and having handled complex litigations for technology giants including Synopsys, Brocade, Applied Materials and Oracle, Denise seamlessly and efficiently manages large teams to secure victory. Clients appreciate her transparent collaboration and instinct for developing a strategy that ensures the right evidence is presented in the best manner.
The jury verdict Denise’s team obtained in the Netgear v. Ruckus Wireless patent trial, for example, surprised most because the team took over the case just weeks before jury selection, earning the number one place on that week’s “Top Jury Verdicts.” Prior to the Ruckus trial, Denise’s team similarly received accolades as “Top Verdict of the Year” for its jury win on behalf of Brocade against A10 Networks involving patent and copyright infringement. These victories were preceded by a trade secret win for MGA in the “Barbie v. Bratz” epic battle against Mattel, which earned Denise the “California Lawyer of the Year” award for her contributions.
In addition, Ms. Mingrone has led numerous software piracy matters, obtaining full relief whether through negotiation or litigation. Her work in this area encompasses both confidential as well as public investigations, all designed to ensure clients secure the protection of their intellectual property rights and receive appropriate relief when those rights are infringed.
As a former law clerk to several federal judges, Denise appreciates that cases do not turn on facts alone. She has waged and won numerous courtroom battles both obtaining and defending pre-trial injunction motions. As one opponent noted, “She’s a fierce advocate who will go to the mat for her client’s position.”