People

James Houghton Senior Associate

Boston

Jim represents clients in federal and state courts (individual and class actions), and in enforcement actions brought by government agencies. Jim’s practice spans a broad range of subject matters, including consumer finance, cybersecurity, state consumer protection statutes, commercial disputes, and white-collar representations.

Prior to joining Orrick, Jim was an associate at Buckley LLP and an associate at an international law firm. Jim also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Timothy E. Meredith on the Appellate Court of Maryland.

Julie Houston Partner

Austin

Julie has served as bond counsel to various state agencies and local governmental entities, including, special districts, cities, counties and public facility corporations; as underwriter and bank counsel to financial institutions that underwrite and purchase tax-exempt and taxable governmental obligations; and as outside counsel to a public facility corporation that owns and operates a convention center hotel and to professional sports teams that lease bond financed sports venue facilities. Julie also has experience representing domestic banks that provide credit and liquidity facilities for tax-exempt financings. Prior to entering private law practice, Julie served as an assistant attorney general in the Public Finance Division of the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas.

Martin Howard Partner

Los Angeles

Marty is a securities, finance and securitization lawyer advising sophisticated financial institutions in the financing, purchase and sale, and securitization of financial assets. Marty advises issuers, underwriters, dealers, placement agents, collateral managers, servicers and investment funds in domestic and offshore securities offerings, both public and private, involving the securitization of mortgage-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations, collateralized debt obligations, manufactured housing contracts, residual interests and credit card receivables.

Marty has extensive experience advising clients with respect to a broad array of mortgage products, including prime and non-prime, closed-end second lien, home equity loans, non-performing and re-performing loans, and seasoned loans. Marty also represents investment banks, bank holding companies and investment funds on warehouse financings, whole loan purchases and sales, sales and securitization of servicing advance receivables and the day-to-day operations of servicing mortgage loans.

During the last 31 years of practice in the global financial markets, Marty has been involved with several innovations in financial products and has lectured to domestic and international audiences on the workings of the securitization process, including the rules and regulations of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Johannes Hsu Senior Associate

Orange County

Johannes's practice focuses on patent litigation, especially in the fields of electronics, circuits, computer and network systems, software, and telecommunications. He has litigated in district courts, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the U.S. International Trade Commission. He also leverages his technical and operational experience in data-privacy and data-security matters.

Before joining Orrick, Johannes clerked for the Honorable R. Gary Klausner in the Central District of California. He assisted Judge Klausner on a wide variety of civil matters. In particular, he worked on many intellectual-property disputes involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Johannes began his legal career primarily as a patent prosecutor at one of the largest intellectual-property boutique firms in the United States.

Before becoming an attorney, Johannes worked for over 20 years as an engineer in high-tech and aerospace industries. He held increasing responsibilities and was last a manager and a senior principal engineer at one of the top two fabless-semiconductor companies in the world. His work in those positions had a direct and significant impact on virtually every chip of a one-billion-dollar product line.

A technical leader and a functional manager, he interacted regularly with upper management in engineering and marketing and worked closely with cross-disciplinary teams. His substantial engineering experience encompasses a wide array of technologies, from communication systems, digital-security systems, to hardware and embedded-software design. In addition to developing digital-security technologies, Johannes also set operational security policies for his engineering organization and developed a secure infrastructure which he led through a successful third-party audit.

Alice Hsu Partner

New York

Alice advises boards of directors, issuers, underwriters and investors in a broad range of transactions, including public offerings; special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs); private placements of equity and debt securities, public mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters.

Alice also provides strategic advice on a myriad of securities regulation, corporate governance and other general corporate matters. She regularly counsels companies regarding Securities and Exchange Commission reporting and disclosure issues, stockholder meetings, proxy statements and proxy mechanics. Her work extends to advising public companies with respect to defensive review matters, including implementation of shareholders rights plans and related issues.

Yali Hu Senior Associate

Beijing

Yali assists local- and foreign-based multinational companies with all aspects of their intellectual property rights in China, Europe and the United States, including Section 337 U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) litigation. Yali has extensional experience in patent, trademark, domain name, copyright and trade secret.

Yali’s intellectual property-related services include patent filing and subsequent maintenance affairs for her clients.

Mimiao Hu Of Counsel

Beijing

Her work has included trademark and copyright protection strategies, intellectual property litigation, unfair competition, intellectual property due diligence, cybersquatting and related technology issues. Mimiao has also advised clients on export regulation of military and dual-use items and customs regulation in China. In addition, Mimiao works extensively on cybersecurity & data privacy issues for both Chinese and international clients.

Prior to joining Orrick, Mimiao was a senior associate in the Beijing and Shanghai offices of a major PRC law firm.

Kane Huang Senior Associate

Tokyo

Kane advises U.S., and Japanese companies on cross-border M&A, joint venture, strategic investments, technology licensing, and energy related transactions, as well as compliance, corporate governance, and general corporate matters.

In addition to transactions between U.S., and Japanese companies, Kane works on a variety of multijurisdictional transactions involving entities and assets in Asia and Europe.

Kane has gained client-side experience from his secondments to a U.S. and Japan joint venture appliances company from 2015 to 2016, a Japan subsidiary of a U.S. based elevator and escalator company in 2016, and a Japan electric utility company from 2019 to 2020.

Kane worked at Orrick’s Silicon Valley office from 2010 to 2012, where he focused on technology sector M&A.