People

Dr. Werner Brickwedde Partner

Düsseldorf

While Werner’s corporate and M&A experience spans a broad range of industries, he has built a strong focus on and deep knowledge of the Energy & Infrastructure sector. His experience extends to acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, complex shareholder arrangements and project agreements of a variety of alternative energy and sustainability projects, including offshore wind, storage and mobility.

Werner also has extensive experience in project development, including advising on Operations & Maintenance and energy-related projects, particularly upstream and midstream. His in-depth understanding of how these projects fit together and how risk is allocated enables him to provide commercial, forward-looking advice on complex, cross-border transactions.

Werner is recommended in Germany for energy transactions (JUVE 2022/2023, Legal 500 2023), M&A (JUVE 2022/2023, Legal 500 2024, Handelsblatt/Best Lawyers 2023/24. WirtschaftsWoche 2023) and corporate law (WirtschaftsWoche 2021).

Taylor Brien Associate

London

Taylor works primarily on mergers and acquisitions and project finance in the renewable energy space. Taylor also has experience advising on joint ventures and project development.

Marley Brison Career Associate

Wheeling, W.V. (GOIC)

Marley focuses primarily on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance issues, restructurings, private equity transactions, and advising on general corporate matters.

Marley also concentrates her practice on matters pertaining to private equity and alternative investment funds, representing both institutional investors and fund sponsors. On the sponsor side, Marley handles various aspects of fund formation, including communicating with investors, preparing regulatory analyses of investors, drafting fund documents, and preparing regulatory filings.

Marley was a Summer Associate with Orrick in 2016. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, cum laude, where she was the Lead Executive Editor of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review. She received her undergraduate degree from Ohio University, summa cum laude, in Journalism/Pre-Law.

Prior to joining Orrick, Marley served as a judicial intern to the Honorable David Cercone of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Marley worked as a Legal Associate at rue21, inc., focusing on real estate and general corporate matters.

Max Cantor Partner

New York

Max has extensive experience in a broad range of domestic and cross-border corporate and transactional matters, including venture capital and growth equity financings, mergers & acquisitions, fund formation and SPAC transactions. He has represented both early and growth stage companies in hundreds of venture capital financings, growth equity investments and M&A transactions, and he regularly advises leading venture capital and private equity funds on their investments across the innovation ecosystem.

Max is also known for working closely with clients to provide strategic business insights and outside general counsel services, advising clients on corporate governance and boardroom matters, product development and design, fundraising strategy and general commercial matters.

In addition to representing US companies on domestic transactions, Max has substantial experience representing clients outside the US, including emerging companies and venture funds operating in Canada, Europe, Latin America, India, Japan, Singapore, China, Australia, Israel, the Cayman Islands and various other jurisdictions.

Tony Chan Partner

Washington, D.C.; Boston; New York

Tony regularly advises clients on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), private equity, growth equity, and venture capital transactions, as well as on corporate governance, joint ventures and corporate finance.

His clients include global strategic buyers and sellers, as well as financial sponsors and their portfolio companies in the life science, healthcare, investment management, technology and video game industries.

Tony has been recognized for his life sciences and M&A work by a number of notable publications, including The Legal 500 US, Law360, IFLR1000 and Legal Media Group. In particular, Law360 highlighted his work in navigating the complex life sciences industry and key partnership negotiations between biotechnology and drug companies.

In addition, Tony sustains an active pro bono practice, serving as counsel to nonprofit organizations such as Aequitas, APAI Vote, Chefs Stopping Asian American Hate, Rebuilding Together Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Film Society, and the Harvard Asian Alumni Alliance. Tony also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School where he has taught Takeovers, Mergers and Acquisitions since 2015.

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.

Debbie Chen Managing Associate

Orange County

Benjamin Cichostepski-Lesage Partner

Paris; Paris Tech Studio

Ben is the founding partner of Orrick's French Tech Companies Group. For more than 15 years, he has been advising high-potential innovative companies as well as venture and tech growth investors on all their corporate private equity and M&A transactions in France and globally.

As such, he is involved in every stage of their development, from incubation and fundraising to external growth and industrial exits as well as public offerings (IPO, secondary).

Ben has significant experience advising French companies expanding into the United States, and assists them over the full lifecycle of their overseas growth. He also counts a number of American investors and buyers among his clients.

From his first venture deal in 2006, where he represented Lightspeed Venture Partners in Wikio’s Series A, which became Teads, a company he then accompanied for 11 years until its sale to Altice, Ben has led more than 320 corporate tech transactions. He has been involved in the main exit transactions in recent years, particularly those with a franco-american element such as Neolane/Adobe, La Fourchette/TripAdvisor, Stupeflix/GoPro, eNovance/Red Hat, Regaind/Apple, Zenly/Snap, Teads/Altice, Getaround/Drivy, Glose/Medium, Sqreen/Datadog, Lalilo/Renaissance Learning, Tempow/Google, Context/Integral Ad Science, Monk/ACV Auctions, Cajoo/Flink, Shipfix/Veson Nautical, Bereal/Voodoo.

Ben's leadership has contributed to placing Orrick as the #1 Venture Capital and Tech Growth practice in France (ranked #1 by Pitchbook in 2021, 2022, 2023 - CF News in 2022, 2023). 

Recognized as a key lawyer in the market in venture capital and tech growth, Ben was ranked No. 1 in the "Top 10 Influential French Venture Capital Lawyers in Private Equity 2023" by Business Today. He was named "Lawyer of the Year" in the 2023 edition of Best Lawyers France in the Venture Capital category. He is also ranked as a Leading Individual by The Legal 500 EMEA in Private Equity - Venture Capital/Growth Capital since 2020 and was voted as the most active tech lawyer in France in 2019 by transaction volume in CF News’ ranking.

Ben is the founder of Orrick Paris Tech Studio, a one of a kind office and working space created in June 2022 and located in the heart of the Paris Tech scene, which is the headquarters of Orrick's French Tech practice.

Eric Citizen Managing Associate

Silicon Valley

Eric joined Orrick upon graduating from Southern University Law Center (SULC). While in law school, Eric worked as a legal intern at Google Cloud and Chronicle LLC, where he supported the legal team on a variety of corporate matters including privacy, cyber security, and transactions. 

As a member of the Technology and Entrepreneurship Clinic at SULC, Eric assisted with providing free legal services in connection with trademark and patent law issues, as well as services in connection with entity formation for entrepreneurs, non profits, and inventor clients with limited financial resources. 

While at SULC, Eric served as Managing Editor of the Southern University Law Review. Eric received his B.A. from Northwestern State University, where he graduated cum laude. 

Harry Clark Partner

Washington, D.C.

Harry is experienced in areas such as CFIUS/Exon-Florio examinations of foreign investment, military and “dual use” export control regulations (ITAR/EAR), economic sanctions administered by the U.S. Treasury Department (OFAC), customs regulations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering rules, anti-boycott requirements and defense industrial security requirements. He executes internal corporate investigations regarding trade and investment rules and advises on such rules in the context of corporate transactions.

Additionally, Harry has extensive experience with government contracting matters. His government contracting work has included, for example, design and implementation of U.S. Defense Department renewable energy projects. He also represents broad industry coalitions on major trade litigations and international negotiations. His experience in these areas includes a leading role in what is often considered the largest-ever international trade dispute: the controversy regarding unfair softwood lumber imports from Canada. It has involved myriad administrative proceedings before federal agencies, NAFTA panel appeals, WTO dispute proceedings, judicial proceedings and international settlement agreements.

Harry has represented a coalition of major U.S. oil companies in antidumping and countervailing duty litigation. As a related matter, he pursues policy issues with congressional and executive branch officials and advises on international trade rules (e.g., GATT, WTO agreements and NAFTA).

Chambers 2022 recognizes Harry as a leader in the field of export controls and economic sanctions (Chambers Global and Chambers USA), as well as CFIUS (Chambers USA). Previous editions have also recognized Harry’s achievements regarding his work related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Clients note that Harry provides “accurate, straightforward guidance incredibly efficiently” and “he has an ability to translate complex legal requirements and rules into business-friendly jargon.”

Spencer Cohen Partner

New York

Spencer represents private equity funds and their portfolio companies, as well as private and public companies in all aspects of their business.

Spencer regularly advises clients on a variety of strategic transitions, including domestic and cross-border M&A, debt and equity investments and joint ventures. He also counsels boards, investors and other key stakeholders on financing transactions and general corporate matters.

He works across a wide range of geographies and industries, including a primary focus in the tech, finance, life sciences, energy and infrastructure sectors.

Matthew E.S. Coleman Partner

New York; Boston

Matthew helps clients comply with the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and state breach notification, biometric privacy, and cybersecurity laws. He counsels on self-regulatory privacy programs, including Binding Corporate Rules, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cross-Border Privacy Rules (APEC CBPRs); programs covering online behavioral advertising, including the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI); and programs covering payment card processing. Matthew also provides compliance solutions for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and blockchain.

Matthew’s federal regulatory experience helps clients stay compliant and avoid regulatory scrutiny. His comprehensive data management knowledge helps him counsel beyond the letter of the law and facilitates worldwide expansion, interoperable business processes, and innovative uses of consumer data while maintaining user trust. His all-encompassing, risk-based approach involves developing and executing internal and external policies for the collection, use, disclosure, sharing, retaining, transferring, and destruction of personal information. This includes managing contractual relationships with vendors, employees, acquired entities, and creditors as well as building privacy into companies’ product development life cycle and change management strategies.

Prior to joining Orrick, Matthew was an Enterprise Privacy Solutions Manager for TrustArc (formerly TRUSTe), a San Francisco-based privacy consulting and certification firm, and an adjunct law professor of Privacy Law at Santa Clara University. Matthew is a Certified Information Privacy Manager and a Certified Information Privacy Professional with a specialization in United States privacy law.