People

Ciarra Carr Managing Associate

San Francisco

Ciarra’s practice includes white collar criminal defense, global investigations across a broad range of industries, and developing anti-corruption compliance programs. She has extensive experience conducting internal investigations and representing companies against the U.S. government in response to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and sanctions compliance inquiries.

Ciarra's practice also includes online safety, including advising companies regarding statutory reporting and legal reporting in the data privacy space.  Her experience involves best practices with regard to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), cyber harassment, sexual exploitation, and terrorist/hate speech.  Ciarra's expertise includes providing strategic advice to clients with respect to quickly evolving online safety issues such as reporting obligations for social media and internet platforms as well as content moderation and identity verification controls.

Ciarra remains committed to serving her community through varied pro bono matters, including the Criminal Justice Act where she has experience advising individuals charged in large racketeering conspiracies and other federal criminal statues. Most recently, Ciarra served as one of Orrick's inaugural Racial Justice Fellows, working for fifteen months in Howard University School of Law's Civil Rights Clinic. During this time, she assisted the Clinic in filing five amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, achieved a meaningful settlement on behalf of the family of a man killed by police officers in Greenville, Mississippi (after convincing the district court to deny qualified immunity for the officers involved), and published an academic article about the genesis of Section 1983 and the Ku Klux Klan Hearings of 1871.

Prior to joining Orrick, Ciarra graduated from Brooklyn Law School where she received a distinction in criminal law. While there, she authored timely CLE materials as a Center for Criminal Justice Fellow. She also interned with various non-profit and government agencies, including the Bronx and Kings County district attorney’s offices in the child abuse and sex crimes bureau.

Steffi Chan Senior Associate

San Francisco

Steffi has participated as bond counsel, disclosure counsel and underwriter’s counsel on a variety of transactions including general obligation bond financings, revenue bond financings and lease financings for school districts, community college districts, local government and state agency clients.

Stephen E Chao Senior Associate

San Francisco

Stephen represents public and private companies in M&A transactions in a wide range of industries, including technology, fintech, insurance and defense. Stephen has experience advising clients on the buy-side and sell-side in mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, divestitures, equity investments and dissolutions. 

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.

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.

Ching-Yin Chen Managing Associate

Silicon Valley

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.

Eugene Clark-Herrera Partner

San Francisco

In addition to traditional project finance, revenue, general obligation and other tax supported municipal bonds, Eugene has experience with a variety of financing structures and characteristics, including private activity bonds, structured products, securitizations, pension obligation bonds, swaps and synthetic fixed rate bonds, and various reinvestment vehicles. Early in his career, he pioneered capital markets access for California public charter schools and advised governmental issuers, foundations, advocacy groups and policy makers in the development and expansion of public charter school access to tax-advantaged financing.  He has also structured innovative philanthropic investments designed to lower facilities financing costs for public charter schools across the country, 

Eugene serves on nonprofit organization boards, including: the Mural Music & Arts Project, an arts-based youth development organization he founded in East Palo Alto, California, to educate, inspire and empower teens through the arts; California Lawyers for the Arts, serving the creative arts community statewide; and the Flywheel Fund, an income sharing-based law school tuition assistance program.  He also serves on the steering committee for the Just the Beginning Foundation's San Francisco Bay Area youth education and pre-law programs.

Prior to joining Orrick, Eugene was a public school teacher and science curriculum developer in the South Bronx and Washington Heights neighborhoods of New York City from 1993 to 1998. He is an alumni of the Teach for America Corps.

Thomas Coleman Senior Counsel

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.

Erin M. Connell Partner

San Francisco

Erin's practice covers all aspects of employment law. She defends employers in class actions and other complex cases, as well as in systemic investigations and audits by the EEOC, DOJ, and the California CRD. Erin has led dozens of internal pay equity analyses and is a trusted advisor for several of the nation's most prominent employers on developing areas of employment law, including pay equity and pay transparency, DEI best practices, and the use of AI in employment decision making.

Erin also is an accomplished first chair trial lawyer. She has tried several cases before juries and in arbitration, and has obtained numerous defense summary judgment rulings and other favorable resolutions in state and federal court. Erin led the trial team that obtained a complete dismissal for Oracle in OFCCP v. Oracle, the largest pay equity case ever brought by the US Department of Labor, which garnered national media attention and earned Erin recognition as a "Litigator of the Week" by the American Lawyer and a 2021 Employment MVP by Law360. As lead counsel, Erin also successfully obtained decertification in a statewide California pay equity class action, Jewett v. Oracle.

Erin's clients include leading technology and Fortune 500 companies, including: Oracle, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Workday, PayPal, Sony Interactive Entertainment, NVIDIA, Airbnb, SiriusXM, Dropbox, Zendesk, Splunk and Goldman Sachs. 

Erin frequently speaks on California and national employment law issues. She is currently a Council Member with the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section (LEL) and is the Conference Chair for the American Employment Legal Council (AELC). She is also a faculty member with the Institute for Workplace Equality (IWE), and formerly served as the management chair of the ABA Equal Employment Opportunity Committee. Erin also previously served on the Board of Directors for the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF), as well as BASF’s Justice & Diversity Center (JDC). She has published numerous articles and papers on employment law issues in publications around the country. She also provides employment law training and conducts internal investigations on employment-related matters.

Justin Cooper Partner

San Francisco; Sacramento

Justin's practice is focused primarily in the following areas:

• affordable multifamily rental housing (local and state housing agencies);
• lending, including leveraged lending, with public agency borrowers;
• short- and long-term working capital financings;
• public higher education;
• transportation;
• single-family housing;
• workouts and restructurings; and
• cannabis industry financing opportunities.

Justin is on the Board of Directors of the California Housing Consortium and is a past Chairman of the Bond Buyer's California Public Finance Conference. He speaks frequently at conferences and other industry events.

Justin is known in the affordable housing community in particular for being a solution-oriented lawyer who understands the business fundamentals of affordable housing and real estate finance as well as being fully versed in the applicable laws and regulations. He frequently collaborates with developers and other participants in the development of new financial structures and products designed to lower overall financing costs for housing providers and thereby increase both the supply and quality of available affordable housing.

Brett Cooper Partner

San Francisco

In the corporate finance and securities areas, his experience includes a range of public and private equity and debt financings, representing U.S., Canadian, European and Asian issuers and underwriters. His transactions have included over one hundred SEC registered and Rule 144A public offerings of securities, ranging from investment grade and high yield debt offerings, convertible note offerings, initial public offerings, follow-on equity offerings and preferred securities offerings, venture capital financings and issuer tender offers.

In the mergers and acquisitions area, Brett has represented clients in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions transactions involving public and private companies, including friendly mergers, leveraged recapitalizations, tender offers, spin-offs, restructurings and purchases and sales of divisions and subsidiaries.

Dean Criddle Of Counsel

San Francisco

His broad experience ranges from “stranded cost” securitization financings for investor-owned electric utilities to tax-exempt financings for utilities owned by investor-owned companies, nonprofit corporations, states, local governments and federal power marketing agencies.

Dean has advised Bonneville Power Administration in connection with its efforts to refinance and extend the maturities of a portfolio of approximately $6 billion of tax-exempt and taxable notes and bonds issued for its benefit by Energy Northwest (formerly known as Washington Public Power Supply System).

In addition to working on transaction-specific capital markets matters, Mr. Criddle provides ongoing tax, regulatory and general business law advice to a variety of clients, including:

• Bonneville Power Administration
• Pacific Gas and Electric Company
• California Independent System Operator Corporation
• Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Washington
• Public Utility District No. 1 of Chelan County, Washington
• Florida Public Service Commission

Margaux Curie Senior Associate

San Francisco

Margaux routinely counsels financial industry clients on matters involving regulatory compliance, licensing, and consumer disclosures across the broad spectrum of federal consumer financial laws and regulations, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), and laws prohibiting unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices. She also assists clients with regulatory examinations, and represents financial institutions before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and other federal and state regulators.

Sarah Davis Counsel

San Francisco

Sarah has particular expertise defending challenges to overdraft fees, including challenges to authorize positive, settle negative (“APSN”) transactions, and has represented Capital One, U.S. Bank, First Hawaiian Bank, and Union Bank in putative class actions challenging APSN fees. Separately, Sarah has defended two large national banks in enforcement actions related to overdraft fees and obtained a non-public resolution of voluntary remediation.

Sarah also has a robust practice defending both small and large companies against allegations of food mislabeling. She has successfully defended or reached favorable settlement terms regarding challenges to “all natural,” “no sugar added,” and “non-GMO” claims.