People

Cathleen Chang Senior Associate

Houston; Austin

In public finance matters, Cathleen has served as bond counsel and special tax counsel for a variety of transactions, including health care facilities, multifamily housing, airport, ports, transit authorities, non-profit organizations, public utilities, hospitality projects, as well as 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 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.

Chris Chavez Senior Counsel

Sacramento

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 is very involved in Orrick’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and has served as a co-chair of the San Francisco DEI Committee for many years. She is also involved in diversity efforts at UC Berkeley School of Law and has previously served on its Alumni Board and the Board of the East Bay Community Law Center.

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

Tom Chen Of Counsel

Orange County

Tom joined Orrick after serving for several years as an investigative attorney in the Office of Unfair Import Investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission, where he was lead counsel representing the public interest in numerous Section 337 investigations involving allegations of patent infringement, trade dress infringement, and false advertising. During his tenure as an investigative attorney, Tom successfully first-chaired numerous evidentiary hearings and claim construction hearings, and he also was responsible for briefing all procedural and merits issues before the administrative law judges and the Commission.

Before his government service, Tom was associated with international law firms, where he successfully litigated life sciences patent matters involving large molecule and small molecule therapeutics in patent infringement disputes in district court, inter partes review proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and patent appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Early in his career, Tom served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Alvin A. Schall of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and to the Honorable Leonard P. Stark, then of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Tom earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the Virginia Law Review and the Virginia Journal of Law & Technology, and won numerous internal and external writing awards and competitions. Before law school, Tom completed a master’s degree in biotechnology from the Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and pharmacology from Duke University.

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.

Debbie Chen Managing Associate

Orange County

Annie H Chen Senior Associate

Los Angeles

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.