People

Upnit K. Bhatti Senior Associate

Washington, D.C.

Upnit has served as litigation, trial, and appellate counsel for pharmaceutical, chemical, technology, cosmetics, and manufacturing companies. As a member of trial teams, she works on complex commercial matters to develop creative legal strategies for trial and subsequent appeals. As embedded counsel, Upnit takes the lead in drafting dispositive motions and pre- and post-trial filings and ensures that appellate issues are preserved. She has presented oral argument in state and federal courts and has co-authored countless briefs before state and federal trial and appellate courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. In addition, Upnit maintains an active pro bono practice.

Prior to joining Orrick, Upnit focused on products liability and complex litigation work at Arnold & Porter LLP and a mid-size firm in Upstate New York. This included representing a consumer products company in the defense of thousands of personal injury cases in state and federal courts. She was the primary drafter of several motions and appellate briefs. She was also deeply involved in the firms’ pro bono practices and first chaired a trial dealing with First and Eighth Amendment claims.

Outside of the firm, Upnit serves on the Board of Directors of the DC Women’s Bar Association and serves as its Advocacy Committee Co-Chair. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of her law school’s Alumni Association.

Upnit previously clerked for the Honorable Theodore A. McKee of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and interned for the Honorable Thérèse Wiley Dancks of the Northern District of New York. In law school, Upnit served as the Managing Editor of the Syracuse Law Review, and was an arguing member of the American Bar Association’s National Appellate Team. She received the Moot Court Honor Society’s Executive Director Award and the Syracuse Law Review Distinguished Leadership Award.

Mariam Bicknell Managing Associate

Orange County

Mariam has experience defending employers in the retail, financial, real estate, and healthcare industries in a broad range of employment issues, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, as well as wage-and-hour class and representative actions. She also advises employers regarding compliance with employment laws, including leave of absence issues, requests for accommodations, employee terminations, and employee handbook and personnel policies.

Mariam earned her Juris Doctor degree from the UC Irvine School of Law. While in law school, Mariam was the Editor-in-Chief for the UC Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law and led the publication of the Journal’s inaugural volumes. She also served as a judicial extern to The Honorable James J. Di Cesare at the Orange County Superior Court.

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.

Emily Bills Managing Associate

San Francisco

Emily has a broad range of experience in real estate financing transactions. With a wide-ranging knowledge of commercial real estate matters and their complexities, Emily advises clients on financings, joint ventures, acquisitions, developments and dispositions. She also has experience drafting and advising on lease agreements.

Lisa Bixby Senior Associate

Los Angeles

Lisa focuses on appellate litigation. Her practice spans a wide range of subject areas, from complex commercial litigation to white collar criminal defense. She has authored dozens of appellate briefs—winning results in federal and state courts of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court—and has successfully argued before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. Lisa’s practice also extends to trial work, with an emphasis on dispositive motions, preserving appellate issues, and developing creative legal strategies.

Lisa maintains an active pro bono practice, with a particular focus on criminal law and civil rights.

Before joining Orrick, Lisa served as a law clerk to Judge Richard A. Paez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She also worked as an appellate attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center, where she litigated cutting-edge constitutional and statutory issues in federal and state appellate courts on behalf of incarcerated people and victims of police misconduct.

Solène Blandin Senior Associate

Paris

Solène assists French and international clients on all aspects of French employment law both in contentious and non-contentious matters.

Her area of expertise covers collective aspects of employment law (professional elections, relationships with the employee representatives, collective agreements, working time, reorganisations, mass redundancies, post-acquisition integrations, internal investigations, background checks and monitoring) and individual aspects (drafting employment documentation, dismissals, negotiation and settlement agreements, bonus schemes and restrictive covenants).

Solène has been a French-qualified lawyer (Avocat à la Cour) since February 2018. Prior to joining Orrick, she was an associate for 7 years within a global UK law firm's employment team.

In addition, she holds a Master’s Degree in Employment law from the University of Paris II Panthéon- Assas. Solène is also an alumna of the Oxford University (Diploma of Legal Studies - 2014).

Greg Blonde Partner

Portland

Greg primarily focuses on health care/senior living finance, airport transactions and traditional municipal bond work for cities, counties and special districts.

Greg has completed conduit bond transactions for the most active healthcare borrowers in the Pacific Northwest, including Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Science University, Salem Health, Asante, Samaritan Health Services, St. Charles Health System, Columbia Memorial Hospital and PeaceHealth. He also regularly works on financings for many nonprofit senior living providers, including Pacific Retirement Services, Transforming Age, Terwilliger Plaza, Rose Villa, Mary's Woods, Dallas Retirement Village and Capital Manor, and has worked on senior living bond transactions in Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Florida. Greg also maintains an active traditional municipal finance practice, serving as bond counsel for public bodies and municipalities such as The Port of Portland, the City of Lake Oswego and the City of West Linn.

Since 2011, Greg has provided pro bono legal services to Iraqi refugees through the International Refugee Assistance Project.  Greg is also a past member of the Board of Directors of Youth, Rights & Justice, a nonprofit law firm that serves underprivileged children (primarily foster children) in the Portland area.

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.

Andy Bloom Senior Associate

Boston

Andy advises high growth technology companies, startup founders, private funds and other institutional investors on a broad range of corporate transactions across industries. He has extensive experience in a broad range of corporate and transactional matters, advising companies from formation to exit on formation, governance, and financing matters, and private funds and institutional investors on venture capital, growth equity and private equity investments. Andy works closely with clients to provide strategic insights and outside general counsel services, advising clients on day-to-day governance, equity compensation and general commercial matters.

Andy also has extensive experience advising sponsors of private investment funds on their formation, regulatory compliance, and fundraising activities, as well as institutional investors in connection with various aspects of their investment programs, including investments in private investment funds, co-investments and complex secondaries transactions.

Jared Bobrow Partner

Silicon Valley

Since the late 1980s, Jared has been involved extensively in all aspects of patent and technology-related litigation, including trials and appeals. He has earned a reputation with clients for managing complex cases efficiently and creatively. Jared is a hands-on litigator who learns and develops the critical facts, masters the technology and law, and weaves the facts and law into a story that a judge or jury will understand and embrace.

Jared is ranked Band 2 in the field of Intellectual Property: Patent in California and Intellectual Property: Nationwide by Chambers USA, and he has been recognized as a leading lawyer by Chambers Global 2013-2022, with sources describing him as “an exceptional litigator; one of the smartest lawyers you will ever meet,” as "extremely strategic, delivers excellent work product and argues well before the court ” and as “probably the finest patent litigator I have ever worked with. He has a keen intellect and a good sense of what will resonate with judges and juries.” He has been named a leading patent litigation attorney in California by IAM Patent Litigation 250 Magazine 2011 and by IAM Patent 1000 2012-2022. He has also been recognized as an “IP Star” in California by Managing Intellectual Property’s IP Stars since 2013, and he has been consistently selected among the “Top IP Attorneys” in California from 2016-2019 by the Daily Journal, a leading legal publication in California. He has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as a “Local Litigation Star” since 2014 and as a “National Star” since 2018.

Mr. Bobrow teaches patent litigation at U.C. Berkeley Law School, and has spoken and written on patent law, patent litigation, and trade secret matters.

Mr. Bobrow graduated in 1986 from Columbia Law School, where he served on the Columbia Law Review. In 1986 and 1987, he clerked for the Honorable Charles P. Sifton (E.D.N.Y.).

Patrick B. Bocash General Litigation Senior Career Associate

Sacramento

Patrick has represented a number of clients in high-stakes litigation, including bankruptcy proceedings for the cities of Stockton, CA and Vallejo, CA, which received extensive press coverage.  Patrick has also represented the California Insurance Commissioner in numerous matters, including the conservation and liquidation of insolvent insurance companies.

Additionally, Patrick has represented start-up clients in nationwide regulatory and legislative campaigns in conjunction with Orrick's Public Policy Group and has also worked with Orrick's Appellate Group on multiple cases before the Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court.