People

David Chang Managing Associate

Los Angeles

David’s practice focuses on complex copyright and trademark matters in retail, entertainment, and media adjacent spaces. He also possesses multiple years of experience litigating tech-based trade secret and patent infringement issues involving software programs, computer hardware, digital communication systems, and medical devices.

Prior to joining Orrick, David served as a law clerk for the Honorable Otis D. Wright, II in the Central District of California as well as for the Honorable Liam P. Hardy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Between federal clerkships, David worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in their IP litigation practice group where he engaged in all stages of litigation on behalf of various Fortune 50 companies.

In addition to his civilian career, David previously served as an Infantry Officer and continues to serve part-time as a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Army National Guard.

David is also passionate about serving his larger community and has an active pro bono practice focusing on civil litigation, veteran assistance, and refugee legal aid.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Caroline Cherkassky Partner

Santa Monica

Caroline advises emerging and high growth companies throughout their lifecycle, as well as venture funds and other investors, across a variety of industries. Her practice focuses on venture financings and corporate governance matters, and the general day-to-day legal needs of startups. She has also counseled companies on M&A, securities and technology transactions matters.

Caroline is a frequent speaker on fundraising essentials for emerging growth companies and sits on the board of the Los Angeles Venture Association.

Prior to joining Orrick, Caroline was a Partner and Co-Chair of the Venture Capital & Emerging Growth Practice at Stubbs Alderton & Markiles.

Joseph Chern Senior IP Career Associate

Orange County

Joseph has experience drafting and prosecuting patents in several technical fields, including signal processing, memory control, optical medical devices, computer networks, database management, thermal conductivity and geomechanics, nanostructuring, e-commerce, capacitive touch panels, complex circuit designs, data security/encryption, semiconductors, in-flight entertainment systems, power systems, neural networks, and software applications.

Joseph's practice further includes conducting intellectual property due diligence to assess the quality and quantity of intellectual property assets.  For example, Joseph has represented several clients in open source licensing matters and provided counseling to develop open source software strategies.  He also has extensive experience in intellectual property and technology matters related to mergers and acquisitions.

Joseph also has substantial experience in patent infringement litigation cases in federal district courts and the United States International Trade Commission (ITC).  Joseph also has represented clients in post-grant opposition procedures with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including ex parte reexaminations and inter partes reviews (under the America Invents Act).

Joseph began his career as a summer associate at Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zaffman, LLP, in Los Angeles, and an attorney at One, LLP, in Newport Beach, Calif. Prior to law school, he worked as a software and systems engineer for a diversified systems and services company in transportation, defense and RFID markets worldwide.

Travis Cherry Senior Associate

New York

Travis advises companies and underwriters on a broad range of capital markets transactions, including offerings of equity and debt securities, de-SPAC transactions, securities law compliance and corporate governance issues.

Richard Chirls Partner

New York

With more than 30 years of experience, Richard is widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities, having broad experience with tax exempt financings and related transactions involving governmental and not-for-profit entities.  His skill and stature in the public finance community was recognized by the National Association of Bond Lawyers’ highest award for his career of distinguished service in public finance. 

Richard focuses on new products, including the development of new and creative financing techniques for governments, non-profits and investment bankers. He regularly works on transactions throughout the country.  However, in his home office in New York City, he leads the relationship with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, serving as counsel on well over 100 transactions over a period of more than 20 years and has headed the tax work in connection with every financing of a cultural facility relating to museums and performing arts in New York City over this same period.  Richard has worked on the tax aspects of several of the largest and most complex public private partnership (P3) transactions in recent years.  He frequently acts as special tax counsel to issuers and underwriters of municipal finance issues.

Kamilyn Choi Managing Associate

Washington, D.C.

Before joining Orrick, Kamilyn was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a litigation associate at Cleary Gottlieb, where she focused on foreign-sovereign litigation and other cross-border matters.

Kamilyn is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she served on the officer board of the Yale Law Journal and as a member of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the federal Indian law clinic.  As a member of the law school's appellate litigation clinic, Kamilyn argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, securing a victory for an incarcerated appellant.