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.

Amy Grunske Head of International Pro Bono, Sustainability & Community Responsibility

London

Amy works with a variety of international, national and local non-profit organisations and charities to identify their legal needs and to develop and facilitate tailored pro bono legal training, assistance, advice and representation. She also builds strong partnerships and networks with these clients and other partners such as law centres, academic institutions, government institutions and UN agencies to collaboratively develop high impact pro bono projects that use the law, policy and advocacy as tools for social change and development in the areas of human rights, conservation, rule of law and access to justice.

Amy also leads on the further development of the impact finance and social enterprise pro bono practice across the international offices, facilitating legal services to clients seeking to achieve positive social and environmental impact alongside financial returns.

Amy contributes to the continued development of the pro bono sector in the UK, helping to lead on initiatives such as the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono and UKAdemy Pro Bono Training Programme. She also works to involve the firm's commercial clients as trusted partners in select pro bono projects, supporting the development of in-house pro bono.

Amy has many years’ experience advising the private legal sector on the strategic development and management of pro bono programmes across a number of jurisdictions. An Australian qualified lawyer, Amy holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in the areas of law, human rights, international development and psychology.

Al Sawyers Partner

New York

Al represents issuers and underwriters in the issuance of credit-linked notes, collateralized bond obligations, synthetic convertible bonds and synthetic money market eligible securities. He also works with clients entering into various swap agreements, such as interest rate, credit default, currency, and equity swaps, and has authored alerts on various financial industry-related topics, including the Dodd-Frank Act.

Al has been ranked by Chambers and Partners both globally and nationally in the structured products category. Legal500 has noted Al for his work in structured finance, quoting a client who stated that he has "impressive expertise in all facets of securitization in general, which is immensely helpful when we are working on complex transactions." The International Financial Law Review has also recognized Al for his work in structured finance and securitization. Euromoney notes him as an expert in Banking, Financial and Transactional Law: Structured Finance and Securitization.

Ali Al-Khasawneh Of Counsel

Geneva; London

Ali has acted as counsel in arbitration proceedings under the ICC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, Swiss, ICSID and DIAC rules in arbitrations seated in London, Paris, The Hague, Dubai, Madrid, Geneva, Zurich and Muscat, and governed by English, UAE, German, New York, Omani, Swiss, Saudi and Libyan laws. 

Ali serves as a member of the ICC's Commission on Arbitration & ADR and acts as arbitrator. Ali has also acted as tribunal secretary in arbitral proceedings under the ICC rules and Permanent Court of Arbitration administered arbitrations under the UNCITRAL rules.

Prior to joining Orrick, Ali was previously legal counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Ali also worked at an investment treaty arbitration specialist law firm in Paris and at the Dubai office of a leading international law firm.

Francesca Morency Partner

Washington, D.C.

A member of Orrick’s Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution team, Francesca has extensive experience litigating challenging, high-stakes cases on behalf of her clients, including in some of the most high-profile and impactful wins for the NCAA.  In addition to her trial prowess, she also has conducted internal investigations and has been called upon to assist with regulatory and administrative challenges that her clients face day-to-day.

Francesca has guided the preparation of significant litigation and arbitration matters, from the drafting stage through discovery, depositions, expert and lay witnesses, and through motions and trial.  Having served on a secondment to a Fortune 5 client, she understands well the importance of effective and proactive case management.  Francesca provides empathetic, targeted advice to clients, and she moves matters forward with energy and efficiency.

Prior to working in private practice, Francesca served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Judge Ivan D. Davis, United States Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.  In that role, she handled primarily civil discovery matters.

Daniel Jones Partner

London

Dan has experience across the full spectrum and life cycle of financial services firms: from determining whether the firm's products or services are the subject of financial services regulation, assistance in obtaining a regulatory license, interpretation of applicable regulations and implementation guidance through to M&A regulatory due diligence and skilled person's reports in the event of regulatory investigation.

His clients include global retail and investment banks, asset managers, e-money issuers and payments services providers, crypto-asset issuers, wallets and exchanges.

Dan's notable work includes advice to the UK Open Banking implementation body, the development of a digital only retail bank for a U.S. headquartered global bank and preparing the regulatory license application for a leading global payment services provider.

Before joining Orrick, Dan spent more than a decade working in UK ‘magic circle’ law and ‘Big 4’ consulting firms, advising leading fintech's on regulatory issues across the UK, Europe and the Middle East.