Amanda Galton

Partner

San Francisco

Amanda, leader of Orrick’s San Francisco office, supports high-growth companies and their investors to overcome obstacles before and when they arise. With her creative and collaborative solutions, clients can focus on their true passion – innovation.

Amanda uses her legal experience, business acumen, professional network and industry knowledge to see down the pike and navigate anticipated and unforeseen obstacles and developments. She advises at material stages of the corporate life cycle (formation, financings, and exits, including M&A’s and public offerings); and provides guidance and trusted governance advice on founder, board, advisor, employment, separation, and other commercial and transformative matters. To further help companies thrive, Amanda keeps clients informed about recent developments in their industries and connects entrepreneurs and investors with one another and other thought leaders. Amanda has also served in other leadership roles within Orrick including as Deputy Chair of Orrick’s Corporate Business, and co-leader of Orrick’s Technology Companies Group practice.

Amanda started her post-undergraduate professional career in West Africa as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer – a place where she got to deploy her French and Arabic language skills. Though the focus of her service was health education and community development, she also developed friendships and spent time in her village with Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees interested in, among other things, implementing windmill technology. Her time in the Peace Corps remains a foundational experience for how she approaches her work today — and she continues to be inspired by the power of technology, and those who are bold and want to solve problems.

Now, at Orrick, Amanda works with companies, entrepreneurs and investors in a number of industries including advanced manufacturing, financial services, food and agriculture, mobility, energy infrastructure, climate tech, and health and biotech.

In addition to her practice, Amanda also dedicates time to advancing women in leadership in the U.S. and abroad. She has served as a cultural and professional resource for emerging women leaders from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa through Tech Women, a U.S. State Department initiative dedicated to empowering technology leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and has previously served on the Board of CodeChix, a non-profit corporation which recruits, retains and inspires women in science and engineering.

True to her professional roots in Peace Corps service, Amanda remains actively committed to advancing global economic development. As a member of Orrick’s Impact Finance and Investment group, she supports investors and entrepreneurs who make social and environmental impacts alongside financial returns.

Prior to joining Orrick, Amanda was a corporate associate at the Menlo Park, California office of Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP.