People

Annie Prasad Vadillo Senior Associate

Silicon Valley

As a trial lawyer, trusted counselor, and advocate, Annie finds creative solutions - whether that means tackling challenging issues with current employees, resolving a matter pre-litigation, or winning decisively at trial.  Having amassed significant courtroom and trial experience, she knows how to deliver the best results for her client. For example, Annie was a key member (and the only associate) of a team which secured a complete defense verdict for a Fortune 500 retail employer in a religious discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination case. 

Annie also has expertise in gig economy and independent contractor classification issues, workplace best practices and policies, defending companies in government audits including unemployment insurance audits, investigating internal employee complaints, and counseling on issues throughout the entire employee life cycle. 

When she is not in her office in Menlo Park, Annie chases after her two dogs Clifford and Jude. 

Lisa van Velsor Counsel

San Francisco

Lisa represents clients in a variety of energy transactions, including project development, mergers, acquisitions and financings. She has a particular focus on real property matters, including negotiating site control documents, title insurance policies and surveys, and coordinating a wide variety of title curative work.

Lisa's background includes commercial real estate work for institutional clients and high net worth individuals, with extensive experience representing clients on acquisitions, dispositions, financing, and joint ventures.

Amy Van Zant Partner

Silicon Valley

For her litigation practice, Amy’s ability to distill the most complicated technology across an array of fields, including telecommunications, semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy, cloud computing, and big data, into relatable, every day concepts that has made her successful in persuading judges and juries alike. She has led trial teams, litigated, and tried cases in state court in California, numerous District Courts, the International Trade Commission, and has briefed appeals before the 9th Circuit, the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court of California, and the United States Supreme Court. 

Whether litigating patent, trade secret, or IP contract disputes, Amy strives to put herself in her client’s shoes to ensure personalized results tailored to each client’s business objectives. As SAP’s General Counsel Landon Edmond commented to Acritas, Amy “has acquired a great knowledge of our business, and therefore you know you can trust her in a wide variety of topics and to get the right colleagues within her firm involved across the globe.”

Amy also provides comprehensive IP counseling on issues including trade secrets protection, employee departure investigations, freedom to operate analysis, licensing strategies, data privacy protection, and regulatory compliance. She has also conducted comprehensive patent portfolio reviews and assisted with IP corporate transactions.

In addition to her IP work, Amy devotes significant time to her pro bono work. For more than a decade, she has assisted domestic violence victims, as well as led Orrick’s Bay Area summer program that enables law clerks to be certified to argue in Family Court to obtain Temporary Restraining Orders for domestic violence clients.

Michael Vance Managing Associate

Houston

Michael represents clients in complex business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity investments, project development, commercial agreements and general corporate matters primarily in the oil and gas and renewable energy industries.

Albert Vanderlaan Partner

Boston

Albert is involved in a broad range of corporate legal engagements for high growth technology companies, including IPOs, follow-on public offerings, private and public company securities law compliance matters, public company disclosure obligations, venture financings, mergers and acquisitions,  de-SPAC transactions and SPAC IPOs. He also regularly advises public and private companies and their boards of directors on corporate governance issues.

Albert's clients include public and private companies in technology, energy, automotive, Internet related industries, real estate, finance and the life sciences (including, among others, immuno-oncology, gene therapy, restorative cell therapy and medical device companies). He also represents underwriters in initial public offerings, follow-on offerings and PIPE offerings and venture capital firms in a variety of investment transactions.

Albert was named to the Deal’s Top Rising Stars 2021 list, which recognizes top new partners at U.S. law firms who are “doing spectacular work in the field of deal-making and who have continued to progress in their career despite the obstacles put in front of them.”

Rebecca Vastola Managing Associate

San Francisco

Rebecca is an Associate in the San Francisco office of Orrick’s Technology Companies Group. She advises her clients on key legal issues and obstacles, including negotiating investment terms and structuring deals, maintaining good corporate governance practices, navigating employee and contractor equity, and preparing for exit.

Calvin Vaughan Associate

Washington, D.C.

His practice focuses on transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

Andres Vega Managing Associate

Washington, D.C.

He regularly represents project developers and investors in energy project finance transactions, including tax equity and debt financing, M&A, joint ventures, project development and a broad range of corporate matters. His prior experience includes international and multijurisdictional financing and development of energy projects in Mexico and across Africa, including Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt.

Christopher Vejnoska Senior Counsel to the Office of General Counsel

San Francisco

In his practice, Chris has been a first chair trial lawyer with more than 30 years of experience handling high stakes, precedent-setting cases, particularly in the products liability arena. His most recent products liability engagements included serving as trial counsel for a large talc company, including trying to conclusion one of the very first mesothelioma cases against it, and leading a cross-office international and national team defending multiple Chinese companies in a historic MDL. At times, a client asked Chris to lead five or more trial teams in products cases in a single year.

Chris also has acted as national counsel for companies facing thousands of mass tort product liability claims and complex, multiparty class action litigation, and has counseled multinational companies entangled in lengthy, enterprise-threatening litigation and negotiated legal and business solutions involving billions of dollars. He has extensive experience in complex and commercial litigation, ranging from insurance recovery disputes to trade secrets issues, and has significant experience in assisting foreign aerospace companies with international arbitration disputes with first-tier aircraft manufacturers.

Earlier in his career, Chris represented large public companies in mergers, acquisitions, strategic investments and private financings; private companies in initial public offerings; and emerging growth companies in general corporate matters. Chris' transactional experience also offers clients a unique perspective on risk mitigation strategies to avoid costly litigation in the future.

Chris also chaired Orrick’s Risk Management Committee and served on its Operations Team.  Prior to joining the firm, Chris was a partner at Clifford Chance and a partner at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, where he was a member of the Policy Committee, a member of the Executive Committee, Chair of the Risk Management Committee and Chair of the Hiring Committee.

Deepa Vekaria Associate

London

Her experience includes advising arrangers, investment managers, issuers, lenders and originators on a range of capital market transactions, including warehouse arrangements, issuances and retention financings. Deepa has recently advised clients such as Barclays, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Och-Ziff and PGIM.

Prior to joining Orrick, Deepa worked in the capital markets practice of a leading international law firm in London.

Luciano Vella Senior Associate

Milan

Luciano is focused in employment and labor law as well as in agency matters, trade union law and employment litigation, providing legal assistance to Italian and foreign companies. In addition, he has specific experience with the Italian system of health and safety in workplaces.

He is author of numerous articles in the field of labor law published in trade magazines.

Graduated from the University of Pisa in 2015 with honors, he was admitted to the Italian bar in 2018.

Stephen Venuto Partner

Silicon Valley; San Francisco

The Daily Journal has named Stephen one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California (chosen regardless of specialty). Stephen was Facebook’s first lawyer and has advised many other leading companies at critical stages of their lifecycles including Anthropic AI, Asana, Instagram, Pinterest, Warby Parker and WETA Digital.

Stephen cares about the teams he counsels and thrives on providing practical business advice. When The American Lawyer named Stephen “Dealmaker of the Year”, it recognized his corporate work and representation of Instagram in its sale to Facebook and quoted a prominent Instagram board member as saying that he “is an outstanding lawyer, but he’s also an outstanding business partner . . . someone who cares about everybody [who's] involved in a company.” In addition to naming Stephen to its list of Top 100 Lawyers in California, The Daily Journal has named him to its Top Emerging Companies Lawyers list, and Chambers and Partners has recognized and ranked Stephen in two separate categories for several consecutive years.

Numerous standout technology companies and their founders have turned to Stephen for corporate representation at all stages of their life-cycles. Most of his counseling is with technology disruptive clients in fast-growth fields such as artificial intelligence, information technology, metaverse, fin-tech, SaaS, gaming, media and entertainment. His recent prominent counseling includes companies in the artificial intelligence,  metaverse and gaming spaces. For example he recently advised WETA Digital in its metaverse and gaming related asset sale to Unity Software (for $1.6 billion)  and has advised Anthropic AI from formation through each of its financings.