People

Matthew D. LaBrie Partner

Boston; San Francisco

In his commercial litigation practice, Matthew represents clients in federal and state court at the trial and appellate levels.  While Matthew routinely assists clients at all stages of the litigation process, through motions practice, discovery, witness preparation, and trial, he has a particular focus on class action defense.  Matthew's litigation experience is broad, including data security litigation, commercial and contractual disputes in all industries, shareholder derivative litigation, and class action defense, as well as commercial arbitration.  His current engagements include representation of clients facing consumer class actions arising out of a data breach of the MOVEit file transfer software; a social media company facing consumer class actions arising out of a data breach; the University of Washington in a pandemic-related class action seeking refunds of tuition and fees on behalf of students; and a series of litigations over the ownership and control of a social media company.  

In his cybersecurity practice, Matthew counsels clients across the globe through all stages of a privacy or data security incident, navigating the relevant legal regimes, managing the response to and investigation of an incident, and handling any litigation or regulatory investigation resulting from the incident.  Matthew spent a year based in Orrick's London office developing and coordinating Orrick's worldwide data breach incident response and litigation capabilities.

Matthew maintains an active pro bono practice. He has assisted individual clients with family law matters, advocated on behalf of veterans' and immigrants' rights, and represented human trafficking survivors in a series of federal cases.

Amanda Lack Managing Associate

Chicago

Amanda’s practice centers on all types of intellectual property matters including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret litigation. Amanda also handles other civil litigation matters including commercial and contract-based disputes.

Amanda clerked for Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Judge Arenda Wright Allen of the Eastern District of Virginia. During her tenure on the fast-paced “rocket docket,” Amanda assisted Judge Allen in all aspects of presiding over several jury trials and in managing her weighty civil docket. While clerking on the Ninth Circuit, Amanda was intimately involved in oral argument preparation, case strategy, and opinion drafting for both en banc and three-judge panel proceedings. Both clerkships give Amanda invaluable “behind the scenes” experience and an understanding of persuasive writing and argument techniques as well as the mechanics of judicial decision making. Amanda uses these insights and her ability to quickly identify the tipping point of complex cases to clearly and concisely draft the most compelling argument on behalf of her clients.

Prior to clerking, Amanda was previously an associate at another national law firm, where she handled commercial, appellate, and intellectual property matters. She also served as a PILI Fellow at the National Immigrant Justice Center while studying for the bar examination.

During law school, Amanda served as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Law and Policy and her student note—(Il)Legal Violence at the Border: A Comparative Analysis of LGBTQ+ Asylum Claims in the United States and Europe—was published in the same. She also earned a Certificate in Public Interest Law and authored the top-ranked Respondent’s brief in the Wiley Rutledge Moot Court Competition.

Amanda is deeply committed to pro bono work. She has successfully represented several asylum seekers from around the world as well as incarcerated individuals alleging civil rights violations.

Brendan LaFountain Senior Associate

Sacramento

Brendan's practice is focused primarily on transactions for municipal issuers, including the State of California and the California Department of Water Resources. Brendan's experience includes advising on a variety of governmental financing structures, including general obligation bonds, revenue and lease revenue bonds, certificates of participation and land-secured bonds. Brendan also focuses on tax-exempt healthcare finance for 501(c)(3) organizations, including both stand-alone hospitals and hospital systems, and serves as issuer’s counsel to the California Statewide Communities Development Authority for its 501(c)(3) conduit financings. Brendan has worked on many of the structures available in public finance, including fixed and variable rate bonds, tax-exempt and taxable bonds, publicly offered and privately placed bonds, master trust indentures, insurance, letters of credit, conversions, reofferings and commercial paper programs.

Frederic Lalance Partner

Paris

Frédéric assists his clients in litigation arising from commercial, industrial and financial disputes, corporate law and insolvency proceedings, both before the French courts and in multi-jurisdictional cases – notably in Africa before the courts of OHADA jurisdictions.

He also assists his clients in international arbitration and alternative dispute resolution proceedings.

Frédéric advises French and foreign groups in investigations by administrative or judicial authorities involving bribery and corruption issues. He has deep experience in internal investigations (national and cross-border), and in the implementation of compliance programs.

Frédéric is serving a three-year term (2025-2027) as a member of the Paris Bar Council. He is consistently ranked as a leading litigator in France by the major legal benchmarking directories. He is the author of several publications on developments in litigation and anti-corruption regulation.

Jose Lamarque Senior Associate

New York

Jose assists technology companies with drafting, reviewing and negotiating of customer, vendor, partner, end-user and other contracts for a variety of products and services, including software, cloud service and software-as-a-service offerings. Jose also advises companies on open source software usage, including the development and implementation of internal open source policies and advising on risk and remediation of the use of potentially problematic software components.

Jose received his JD from Harvard Law School in 2017. Before joining Orrick, Jose was an attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton, working on various of intellectual property, data privacy and security, and transactional matters.

Esther Lander Partner

Washington, D.C.

Esther also regularly advises on diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as pay equity studies, intentional recruiting and lawful affirmative action plans and goals.

In addition to her litigation practice, she counsels clients on all areas of federal, state and local employment law, including executive terminations; severance agreements; workforce reductions; and compliance with federal and state obligations such as the WARN Act and the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act.

She also provides advice regarding the proper validation of employment selection procedures to ensure compliance with Title VII and other applicable employment laws. Esther has specific expertise in testing validation and she routinely reviews validation and adverse impact studies to provide clients with strategic advice regarding the defensibility of selection devices, including algorithmic decision-making tools used to assess applicants and employees.

She previously served as the principal deputy chief of the Employment Litigation Section within the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.

Jason Lang Partner

Silicon Valley

Mr. Lang has litigated cases before district courts, state courts, and the International Trade Commission. He has an extensive practice in patent office proceedings, including ex parte reexaminations and inter partes reviews. He has been a top-filer in inter partes reviews. Recent matters include work with memories (DRAM, Flash and hard drives), semiconductor tools, semiconductor packaging, and design software.

His counseling work includes developing defensive and offensive intellectual property strategies in view of potential competitor litigation. He also assists clients in indemnity disputes, product launches, patent acquisition, licensing and portfolio management.

Before focusing on intellectual property litigation and counseling, Mr. Lang spent a year working for the District Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, Georgia, where he had considerable exposure to numerous trials.

Mr. Lang’s public service commitments include steady work for housing clinics. Mr. Lang recently first-chaired a four-day trial, led a successful mediation, and obtained a favorable settlement for clients of different local clinics.

Jon Langlois Partner

Washington, D.C.

He represents banks, nonbanks, fintechs, private equity and other financial services companies in a variety of corporate and transactional matters, particularly those involving residential mortgage and consumer loans, mortgage servicing rights, and servicing and subservicing relationships. He combines practical strategic advice with a deep knowledge of consumer lending and servicing to provide efficient, successful results.

In addition to his transaction practice, Jon assists clients on a wide range of regulatory issues, including compliance with key consumer financial laws, such as the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices (UDAAP), and other consumer protection issues.

Prior to joining Orrick, Jon was a partner at Buckley LLP. While in law school, he was a Legislative Analyst with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and a Government Affairs Representative with the American Financial Services Association.

A. Cory Lankford Partner

Washington, D.C.

Recognized by Chambers USA, Legal 500, and Best Lawyers, clients praise his sophisticated regulatory expertise and ability to navigate complex challenges.

Cory's practice focuses on advising developers of renewable energy and battery storage projects, electric utilities, financial institutions, and corporations pursuing renewable energy goals.  He advises clients on their rights and responsibilities under the Federal Power Act, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, and the Public Utility Holding Company Act.  In addition, he frequently represents clients in proceedings before FERC to obtain and maintain authorization to sell energy, capacity and ancillary services at negotiated or market-based rates and to purchase and sell direct or indirect ownership interests in energy projects.  Drawing from his broad energy regulatory experience, Cory also helps clients develop and implement compliance programs for FERC and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) requirements .

Before joining Orrick, Cory served in FERC's Office of the General Counsel, where he led numerous multidisciplinary teams in developing Commission orders addressing Regional Transmission Organizations, open access requirements, transmission, generator interconnection and qualifying facility certification.  His notable achievements include providing legal counsel on rulemakings to revise FERC's pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff and in evaluating mandatory reliability standards proposed by NERC and its regional entities.  Cory also collaborated with staff at the U.S. Department of Energy to create the National Action Plan on Demand Response and its Implementation Proposal to Congress. 

Laura Lariu Partner

Santa Monica

She is primarily focused on venture capital financings, corporate governance, equity incentive plans, formations, secondary transactions, listings and outside general counsel guidance.

Before joining Orrick, she led companies through transformational growth as general counsel. She was an early employee of Relativity Space, an orbital launch company that automates rocket manufacturing and is now run by Google's former CEO, and helped scale the company from to 1,000+ employees, raise $1.3 billion in funding and secure millions of square feet of physical infrastructure (including a former Boeing C-17 factory) and prepare for its first rocket launch. She has negotiated launch contracts with major satellite companies in amounts exceeding $1 billion of contract value. Prior to Relativity Space, she was a general counsel in the transportation and logistics space.  Laura started out her career as a corporate attorney with Gunderson Dettmer in New York.

Laura is a founding member of TechGC (now L Suite), a community platform for general counsels of leading venture capital funds and high-growth tech companies and served on its Steering Committee and Executive Board. She is on the Steering Committee of Space Beach Law Lab, the leading platform for legal leaders and regulators to shape the future of the space industry.

Laura speaks five languages and loves traveling and spending time with her husband, kids and friends.

James Larkin Partner

New York

Jamie concentrates on a broad range of federal income tax matters, including tax issues related to cross-border stock and asset acquisitions, debt and equity offerings, collateralizations, reorganizations, cross-border financings and transfer pricing.

Prior to joining Orrick, Jamie was an associate at White & Case LLP.

Cynthia Larsen Partner

Sacramento

She has handled appellate matters in the U.S. Supreme Court, various federal appellate courts and in the California Supreme Court and appellate courts. She is a veteran trial attorney and has applied her experience as a former U.S. Department of Justice trial attorney to serving corporate and governmental clients. She recently served for five years as the partner-in-charge of Orrick’s Sacramento office. She also served for several years as head of Orrick’s Litigation Training Program and as vice-chair of the firm’s Litigation Division.

Before joining Orrick, Cynthia was an attorney at Condon & Forsyth in Washington, D.C. from 1982 to 1985. Prior to that, she was a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where she served in the Honors Program and specialized in civil trial work. Representative cases handled by Cynthia on behalf of the United States include: Sweet v. United States, 528 F.Supp. 1068 (D.S.D. 1081), aff’d, 687 F.2d 246 (8th Cir. 1982) (trial counsel); Pike v. United States, 652 F.2d 31 (9th Cir. 1981) (trial and appellate counsel); Gaspard v. United States, 544 F.Supp. 55 (E.D.La. 1982); Marek v. United States, 639 F.2d 1164 (5th Cir. 1981) (trial counsel).

Cynthia frequently writes and lectures on litigation topics. She serves as a pro tem settlement conference judge for the Sacramento Superior Court and as a federal court mediator.

In addition to being admitted in California, Cynthia is also admitted in Idaho (inactive) and the District of Columbia (inactive).