People

Brandon Batzel Senior Associate

New York

Based in New York, Brandon's practice focuses primarily on bankruptcy and financial restructuring matters, including representation of debtors, creditors, purchasers, and other interested parties in chapter 11 proceedings, out-of-court workouts, and related transactions. In addition, Brandon's work involves the coordination of multi-jurisdictional restructurings across the globe and high-profile litigation in the United States and abroad, with a particular focus on cross-border restructuring and Latin American insolvencies, and a developed expertise in chapter 15 proceedings.

Gregory Beaman Partner

New York

Laura L. Becking Partner

New York

Her practice is unique in the market. In addition to leading Orrick’s Global Employment & Equity Compensation practice; she is also integrated into the firm’s top-tier employment practice and compensation and benefits practice, enabling her to offer comprehensive solutions for the modern workplace.

Her strategies extend beyond regulations and compliance, into the company’s overall culture and societal nuances of their local workforce. By blending these elements, her targeted plans address a wide range of issues, including hiring, performance management, terminations, discrimination, reclassification, HR data privacy compliance, employee handbooks and policies. She also helps implement employee equity and other compensation and benefits arrangements outside the United States, and covers all aspects of securities, foreign exchange and tax filings triggered by such rollouts. Whether working with a pre-IPO start-up or an international corporation, Laura remains focused on her client’s human capital.

Laura’s distinctive approach places her in high demand for corporate transactions, in particular IPOs and acquisitions. She advised on the employment and/or equity compensation aspects of a leading global technology company and a multinational digital communications technology conglomerate’s global acquisitions; various global transactions for GoPro, Sabre, and a U.S. social media company; the pre- and post-merger integration for DigiCert’s acquisition of Symantec’s Website Security Business; as well as the global acquisitions and global tender offers for a large number of pre-IPO clients. She has also advised companies such as Alcon, Pinterest, Elasticsearch, GitHub, Nvidia, Optimizely, Scale, Twist, Viasat, and Vice on global employment and equity compensation matters and transactions.

Laura serves as co-leader of Orrick’s Women’s Initiative.

Bobby Bee Practice Support Counsel

New York

Prior to joining Orrick, he was with Lowenstein Sandler LLP from 2015 to 2022, with a practice focusing on public company governance matters and securities law compliance, including reporting and disclosure obligations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. He also advised companies regarding capital markets transactions including IPOs, SPACs, follow-on offerings, shelf registrations, and private placements.

Prior to Lowenstein Sandler LLP, Bobby’s experience included positions as a tax senior for Deloitte Tax LLP and a financial statement audit senior for Deloitte & Touche.

Delia Bennett Associate

New York

Genet Berhane Innovation Attorney Energy and Infrastructure

New York

Genet supports firm efforts to optimize client service delivery and increase efficiencies across practice groups, connecting Orrick attorneys with tools and resources to support their work.

Genet’s practice previously focused on a variety of energy transactions as a managing associate in the firm's Energy & Infrastructure group. She has also worked as Senior Counsel at Clearway Energy and as a Legal Manager at Acumen, a non-profit global venture fund.

Josh Beser Partner

New York

Josh is a member of Orrick’s Technology Companies Group, representing high-growth technology companies and their investors in a range of corporate matters, including corporate and securities law, corporate formations, venture and growth capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, and secondary offerings. Josh brings a unique perspective to working with founders and company leadership at venture-backed companies as they scale, often serving as the company’s primary outside counsel from early-stage financing through exit. He is especially skilled serving as outside general counsel to companies as they reach growth inflection points, often ranging from Series Seed to Series C and beyond, where business and legal issues tend to multiply and the experience of outside counsel with deep operating experience is particularly valuable. He is an integral part of the firm’s presence in New York and its commitment to tech & venture ecosystem in the region.

Josh’s clients include Misfits Market, Skims, Studs, Away, Crossbeam, Topline Pro and Earth Breeze. In addition, Josh regularly works with early-stage investors and venture studios such as TMV and 25madison.

Josh is a leader in the startup ecosystem in New York, as a founding member of TechGC in New York City, a mentor to growth-stage general counsels in collaboration with First Round Capital’s Fast Track program and since 2012, as a mentor to early-stage founders through ERA.

Before joining Orrick, Josh was a partner in the New York office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Prior to WSGR, Josh served as general counsel at Away, a direct-to-consumer travel brand twice named as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” and as one of Time’s “50 Most Genius Companies,” among other honors. At Away, Josh was a member of the executive team, served as corporate secretary, and built and led teams in a wide range of operational functions, including information security, real estate, and global trade. Josh built and implemented Away’s legal strategy and infrastructure at scale and led Away’s legal team through substantial revenue and headcount growth, international sales, operations and retail expansion, Series C and Series D financings, growth-stage debt financing, liquidity transactions, global intellectual property development and brand protection programs, public company readiness, and executive transitions.

Peter Bicks Partner

New York

In recognition of Peter’s career trial work, he was inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2015. Juries have compared him favorably to Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey. Clients laud Peter, telling Chambers USA 2020-2022, “He’s a standout trial lawyer and an outstanding advocate overall. He appreciates the client’s needs and advocates for them everywhere.” Another client notes, “He is brilliant in the courtroom under the most intense pressure,” “a master of seeing the full chessboard.” That praise is echoed by sources saying, Peter is “one of these lawyers that really turns big cases; he’s a real trial lawyer,” and calling him “one of the most gifted trial lawyers that I have ever seen.” Clients go on to applaud his trial experience and strategic approach saying, “Peter really knows his way round a courtroom. He's a great trial tactician.” “He is an outstanding advocate who appreciates the client's needs and reputational questions involved.” A peer in the trial bar told Law360, “What is most impressive is his ability as a true Field General – calmly directing his team’s efforts.”

With precedent-setting trial wins in intellectual property, commercial and products liability litigation, Peter has amassed honors from annual top rankings in Chambers USA, Legal 500, and Benchmark Litigation, to awards for excellence, such as New York “Litigation Star,” “Law360 MVP,” “Litigator of the Week,” and “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America.”

It is Peter’s versatility that sets him apart. He brings a combination of deft courtroom skills, strategic acuity and team leadership. In July 2023, a leading company in the biotech agricultural space, Corteva Agriscience, retained Peter as lead trial counsel in a high profile intellectual property lawsuit Corteva filed against Inari Agriculture, Inc. and Inari Agriculture NV to protect its highly valuable patent protected genetically modified seeds. As noted in the complaint, the lawsuit "…seeks to prevent Inari from continuing its brazen efforts to steal Corteva's groundbreaking work." Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Inari deliberately used a third-party agent to obtain protected Corteva seeds, illegally exported the seeds out of the United States, made slight genetic modifications of the biotech traits and is seeking U.S. patents for those modified traits. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court, Delaware and is in discovery. In May 2022, when faced with a headlining trial over control of the leading international model and talent company, Elite Worldwide Group, the company and its Chairman tapped Peter as lead trial counsel to parachute in just 45 days before trial. Our complete trial win for the client earned Peter and the team Litigators of the Week Runner-Up honors from the American Lawyer. Louis Dreyfus Company turned to Peter recently as lead trial counsel once they saw that a massive, high stakes trial was on the horizon with over $1 billion at stake amid class action claims alleging manipulation of the cotton futures market. DISH Network brought Peter in shortly before trial when the FTC and various state attorneys general sought $700 billion in damages and penalties for alleged telemarketing violations. He achieved an astounding trial victory for DISH limiting recovery to less than one percent of the exposure. For Johnson & Johnson, Peter has been part of a small group of market-leading outside counsel overseeing the defense of more than 15,000 talc-related cases, including product liability trials, consumer class actions, and cases brought under California’s Prop 65; handling multiple trials, SEC, DOJ, and AG investigations; and representing senior executives in major depositions, at trial, and before Congress.

Peter served as co-head of the firm's Global Litigation practice and is a former member of Orrick’s Board and Management Committee. Before joining Orrick, Peter was a partner at Donovan Leisure. He captained his college tennis team to a national ranking, has successfully competed in major national sailboat competitions, and serves on the Board of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program. With his wife Linda, he has three children: Avery, Isabelle and Phoebe.

Richard Bierschbach Associated Law Professor

New York

Richard has substantial experience advising clients across a wide range of cases, with particular focus on matters involving novel or complex constitutional, statutory, administrative, or other public-law issues, appeals, and legal and strategic counseling. A former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and to Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the D.C. Circuit, Richard served both as a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General and as an Attorney-Adviser in its Office of Legal Counsel. During that time, he regularly counseled federal government attorneys on appellate and legal strategy issues and provided written and oral advice to the White House, the Attorney General and other executive branch offices on a broad spectrum of constitutional, statutory, and regulatory questions. He also practiced as an appellate litigator in the New York office of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering from 2001-03 and, more recently, as of counsel in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Before his appointment as Dean, he was a tenured professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he was Vice Dean from 2015-16.

Richard teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, criminal justice, and corporations. His published work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the University of Minnesota Law Review, among other journals. He twice—in 2013 and 2015—received the Best Professor Award from Cardozo’s graduating class. He has been quoted on legal developments by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC News, Slate, and other media.

Brian M. Blood Senior Associate

New York

His practice has focused on domestic and cross-border private company mergers and acquisitions. He has also advised on a variety of corporate transactions across industries, including de-SPAC transactions, joint ventures, company formations and dissolutions, public offerings, equity and debt financings from both the investor and issuer side, fund financings, and alternative energy transactions. He has assisted in drafting and reviewing filings with the SEC and CFIUS, and has experience in advising on all manner of New York and Delaware corporate, partnership, limited liability company and non-profit law.

Brian was a summer associate in the firm’s New York office in 2014.

Ben Bolnick Associate

New York

A member of Orrick's Litigation business unit, Ben's primary practice involves defending Orrick's clients against high-stakes investor and consumer lawsuits. He works collaboratively and creatively to advance clients' interests.

Ben's ongoing representation includes:

• Louis Dreyfus Company in a $1.6 billion commodities futures class action lawsuit;
• PHH Mortgage Corporation (formerly Ocwen) in a $75 million, precedent-setting dispute over deferred loans in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS); and
• A Fortune-500 company in a variety of product-liability actions.

Victoria Boyne Partner

New York

Vicki negotiates project financings, procurement, acquisition and sale of energy and infrastructure projects. She quarterbacks complex mergers and acquisitions as well as project developments that require coordination with a host of different parties and advises on debt and equity financings for renewable and conventional energy projects. Well versed in public-private partnerships (PPP/P3) and securities offerings, Vicki guides clients through the legal and business challenges of large infrastructure projects.

Vicki is recognized nationally by Chambers USA, where clients state that she “is terrific to work with,” and she “always makes herself available and is extremely knowledgeable, intelligent and able to get the best out of everyone she works with.”

A distinctive aspect of Vicki’s practice is her dual focus in both the infrastructure and renewables sectors. She leverages this unique perspective in her client relationships with project developers, sponsors, issuers, lenders and governmental authorities.

Passionate about strategizing to get a project to completion, Vicki helps clients build consensus and find creative solutions with achievable outcomes. Whether it’s for the development of a major airport expansion, the equity or debt financing of a wind farm, or the acquisition of a geothermal facility portfolio, Vicki counsels clients on challenging issues and the broader process, providing commercial advice that considers all stakeholders involved.