Mitchell Zuklie Orrick Chairman

Silicon Valley

Under Mitch’s leadership, the firm has pursued a strategy to be a leading advisor globally to four sectors: Technology, Energy & Infrastructure, Life Sciences and Financial Services – with a particular focus on how AI and other technologies are transforming these ecosystems. He has led the firm’s emphasis on legal innovation, including AI adoption, the launch of Orrick Labs to develop customized solutions and partnerships with leading legal tech companies and investors. Financial Times has chosen Orrick among the top 3 Most Innovative Law Firm in North America for the past eight years. In addition, Mitch is an active participant in the legal profession dialog about how to retain and inspire top talent.  Fortune has selected the firm among the 100 Best Companies to Work For nine years in a row.

Mitch serves on the Boards of the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity, the Berkeley Center for Law and Business, the Silicon Valley Law Foundation and the Advisory Boards of the Stanford Law School Center on the Legal Profession and the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession. Mitch is also a Trustee of Bowdoin College, Chairman of the Board of the Wild Salmon Center and a Director of CalTrout.

He and his wife, Holly, have been married for more than 30 years. They have two adult children. Mitch posts regularly on social media about Orrick, innovation and other interests. Follow him on LinkedIn, X and Instagram.

Wendy Butler Curtis Chief Innovation Officer

Washington, D.C.

Named the "Most Innovative Lawyer of the Year" by Financial Times in 2018, Wendy is celebrated by clients for her “fresh thinking, legal nuance and practical understanding of the courts.” FT editors noted that “rarely have our panel of judges so quickly homed in on a top candidate for innovative individual.” As Orrick’s Chief Innovation Officer, Wendy leads Orrick’s efforts to operationalize innovation through novel products, streamlined processes, technology and client consulting on tailored solutions. These efforts have contributed to Orrick being named the Most Innovative Law Firm in North America by the Financial Times from 2016-2018 and seven consecutive years being in the top three. In 2018, The American Lawyer also honored Orrick with its first-ever Legal Services Innovation Award.

Wendy leads an innovation team of lawyers, technologists, developers, project managers and business professionals. FT notes that Wendy “understand[s] the diversity of roles that make a team great” and has “introduce[ed] many new technologies and delivery models that have transformed the way the firm operates and works with clients.” She is also recognized by Chambers as a leading individual, nationally, in the area of eDiscovery. Wendy is the chair of Orrick’s eDiscovery and Information Governance Group. She has been engaged by Fortune 100 companies and major financial institutions to create and deploy eDiscovery and records management programs. Wendy has substantial experience in pharmaceutical, product liability and class action litigation. Her litigation experience includes multiple trials, supervision of regional and local counsel, management of complex discovery and meet-and-confer negotiations.

Guy Stevenson Senior Associate

London

In addition to advising established financial services firms, Guy advises new innovative Fintech businesses on UK regulation including whether their activities will require authorisation and how best to launch their business in the UK. He has significant experience advising firms on regulatory issues connected to the selling of financial services products through apps and online journeys.

Guy frequently advises clients on financial crime issues, including AML controls, reporting obligations, failure to prevent offences, anti-corruption and market abuse.

He has a deep knowledge of consumer credit law and excels in providing practical advice on how the law/regulation should be interpreted and applied.

He also advises on contentious matters including regulatory investigations and conduct issues.

Lana Le Hir Partner

Orange County

She focuses on innovating creative solutions for all types of utility scale renewable power purchase agreements and carbon offset and removal agreements. This work includes virtual, physical, master-confirm portfolios, block delivery, aggregation, 24/7 hourly delivery, load following, battery storage, REC agreements, on-site solar, and green tariff direct agreements. Lana leverages her deep sell-side experience as Senior Counsel to one of the largest renewable energy developers in the world, with her extensive corporate buy-side knowledge, and background in electrical engineering, to advise effectively and close deals swiftly. Lana and her team at Orrick are at the forefront of corporate renewable energy procurement and are setting the industry standards for implementation of energy justice and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) considerations.

Prior to joining Orrick, Lana was a Senior Associate at an international law firm where she managed portfolio growth for leading corporate purchasers and developers representing over 3.5 GWs of renewable transactions. She also served as Senior Counsel to Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola Renewables, for 8 years, where she was responsible for its entire US portfolio of power purchase agreements (7.5 GWs). Before her legal career, Lana managed a product engineering team in the development of a new cutting-edge wireless technology for consumer electronics.

Brooks Kenyon Senior Associate

Austin

Brooks has represented innovative, multinational companies—both offensively and defensively—in intellectual property disputes. He has handled an array of technologies in the electrical, medical device, communications, and software spaces. Prior to joining Orrick, Brooks was an associate in the Intellectual Property practice group of a large international law firm.

Brooks graduated from Boston College Law School, where he was a finalist in the Wendell F. Grimes Moot Court Competition, served as a judicial intern for the Honorable Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and served as an executive editor of the UCC Reporter-Digest.

Brooks holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University, where he was a member of the IEEE Honor Society (Eta Kappa Nu).

Andrew Schreiber Senior Associate

Washington, D.C.

Andrew has represented innovative, multinational companies—both offensively and defensively—in patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret disputes. He has handled an array of technologies in the semiconductor, artificial intelligence, electrical, medical device, materials science, communications, and software spaces.

Prior to joining Orrick, Andrew served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Robert W. Schroeder III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He was also an intellectual property litigation associate at a large international law firm in New York.

Andrew graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center where he founded and served as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Law Technology Review. He also externed for the Honorable Jimmie V. Reyna at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Prior to law school, Andrew worked for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee as they considered sweeping reforms to domestic patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws.

Jeremy D. Sherer Partner

Boston

Jeremy advises clients on the full range of regulatory health care issues facing digital health stakeholders. His depth and breadth of experience enables him to help established and early-stage companies navigate a complex and ever-changing business and regulatory landscape. As one client’s CEO explained, “Jeremy is one of the best thought partners, and hands down the best legal navigator, I’ve found in the digital health space.”

His telehealth experience includes advising on compliance with state licensure requirements for physicians and non-physician practitioners, corporate practice of medicine issues, remote prescribing (including controlled substances), patient consent and Medicare, Medicaid and commercial reimbursement. He advises clients on compliance with laws against fraud and abuse, including federal and state anti-kickback and self-referral laws, as well as privacy issues arising under HIPAA and its state-level counterparts.

Jeremy has substantial experience pertaining to structuring, operationalizing and scaling “PC-MSO” arrangements across all 50 states. He also advises venture capital and private equity firms conducting regulatory diligence associated with investments in digital health and health care technology ventures, from seed stage funding to nine-figure raises.

Siobhan Handley Chief of Staff

New York

In collaboration with the firm’s leadership team, she focuses on designing and implementing programs to recruit, inspire and advance the best legal and staff talent.

Siobhan previously served as Orrick’s Managing Director for Resources. In that role, she spearheaded the development of the firm’s innovative talent model—the first of its kind in a major law firm—which replaces the traditional associate lockstep advancement system with merit-based advancement. As chair of the firm’s Talent Committee, she oversees Orrick’s lawyer training and performance feedback program – which is one of the most rigorous in the market. She also has led the creation of a range of new lawyer and professional staff roles.

Siobhan brings to this role extensive experience on the front line of client service, having been a partner in the firm’s product liability litigation and mass tort defense group. For more than a decade, she was a member of the Orrick team that acted as National Counsel to Union Carbide Corporation in connection with asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits and served as lead trial counsel in cases across the country. Siobhan was one of the key trial counsel in the highly-publicized landmark trial in Texas State Court, Brazoria County, where Kelly-Moore Paint Company sued Union Carbide for $1.4 billion in compensatory damages and $4.2 billion in punitive damages that resulted in a complete defense verdict. In addition, she served as trial counsel for significant product liability cases for other clients including Wyeth and Flexible Products.

Carl Lyon Partner

New York

He has long-standing relationships with a great number of utility clients that span many years and complex transactions, advising them on numerous taxable, tax-exempt, and tax-advantaged financings of all types for electric, gas, water and waste water projects and in restructuring and work-outs. These projects include five different nuclear plants, with financing through both the public capital market and through the U.S. Department of Energy.

Carl was one of the leaders in the development of joint action agencies among municipal utilities. He worked on legislation in 20 states to authorize their formation and testified before legislatures and legislative committees in many of these states. He drafted the first modern indenture for cooperative utilities which served as the model that is currently used by almost every generation and transmission cooperative. He worked with TVA in their exit from the Federal Financing Bank program in the 1980’s and in their financings since then. Carl worked with the major generation and transmission cooperatives that have exited the RUS program in structuring and financing their exit.

Carl has also worked with virtually every major investment banking firm and most major domestic and international banks.

Gregory Heibel Partner

Silicon Valley

Greg's practice focuses on the formation, financing and strategic guidance of rapidly growing technology companies, the representation of venture capital firms and other investors in private and public offerings, as well as other complex transactions related to high growth companies.

Greg has completed many hundreds of financings, mergers, acquisitions and intellectual property transactions for young companies in the networking, wireless, Internet, software, life sciences and consumer sectors. He regularly advises some of the largest technology companies in the world, including a Fortune 10 technology leader, in their global strategic investments into innovative startups. Additionally, Greg has represented numerous publicly traded companies in their public offering, mergers and acquisitions and ongoing corporate governance needs, including Life360 (ASX:360), Foundry Networks, Virage Networks, Adeza, Laserscope, Intellisync and Preview Systems.

Greg also was an Assistant Investment Manager for Genevest, a venture capital firm based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he participated in the first organizational meeting of the European Union World Wide Web Consortium. Prior to practicing law, Greg worked with a number of venture capital backed technology companies in operational and advisory roles, including Intellimeter, eT Communications and Metering Technology Corporation. 

David Fuad Partner

Los Angeles; Santa Monica

In trial, litigation, arbitration or mediation, David delivers efficient and favorable results aligned with clients’ business objectives. From health and safety mass tort litigation for the NCAA, to complex, multimillion-dollar international breach of contract claims and countersuits for a global television manufacturer, to high-stakes, precedent-setting employment victories for Oracle, David handles a range of commercial disputes. David was named a “Litigator of the Week” by American Lawyer for achieving a complete defense verdict in a precedent-setting jury trial, and has been named a “Litigator of the Week” Runner-Up twice for securing defense verdicts, including in a $100 million negligence action. In addition to these recognitions from American Lawyer, David was also named to The Recorder's list of Lawyers on the Fast Track in California.

Not all disputes end up in court. David leverages his extensive courtroom and alternative dispute resolution knowledge to provide invaluable risk mitigation counseling to both established and emerging companies. David serves as a business partner and trusted advisor to ambitious start-ups and high-growth companies—helping these innovative clients see around corners to avoid or reduce potential exposures.

In addition to his legal practice, David is committed to challenging inequities through his pro bono work. For Equal Justice Under Law, he helped secure a favorable judgment in a federal civil rights class action, barring indigent criminal defendants unable to pay court-imposed fines and fees from being jailed in a system that was described as a “modern-day debtors’ prison.”

While attending law school, David served as an extern for two Los Angeles Superior Court judges and was a member of the Loyola Entertainment Law Review.

Rene Kathawala Pro Bono Counsel

New York

Rene works with other pro bono counsel and legal services nonprofits to increase the quantity and quality of pro bono representation that is being provided to indigent clients in each of the cities worldwide where Orrick has a presence. In addition, he supervises and directly works on cases in such diverse areas as immigration law, family and matrimonial law, housing law, public benefits law, employment law counseling, impact litigation and nonprofit advice and counseling. Rene has worked on many substantial matters in the federal and state systems over his career that are reported as precedent. He also works with firm attorneys to strengthen the firm's innovative Impact Finance team that he founded and that provides representation in diverse transactional areas to nonprofit, for profit and hybrid organizations dedicated to providing basic services to poor persons around the world in areas including microfinance, water, education, energy, housing and health.

Based on his long-standing commitment to access to justice issues, Rene has been appointed to serve as co-chair of the New York City Bar Association Race Equity in the New York State Courts Working Group, co-chair of the Association of Pro Bono Counsel Transactional Law Working Group, as member of the New York City Bar Association Right to Counsel Task Force, as member of the New York City Bar Association Family Court Judicial Appointment & Assignment Process Work Group, as member of Sanctuary for Families' Narkis Golin Initiative, and as member of the Kids in Need of Defense's New York Advisory Committee. In recognition of his exemplary work in family law, United States District Judge Bloom appointed Rene as a special master in a federal court family law matter in 2014 in the Eastern District of New York in case number 07-cv-02565-ARR-LB, styled Garmhausen et al v. United States Department of Justice et al.  Rene also appeared in a documentary with wide release, called "The Accidental Spy," about his pro bono immigration client, Mr. Blerim Skoro, for whom Rene spent six-years in the New York City immigration court and gained deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture for the client.