New York
With more than 30 years of experience, Richard is widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities, having broad experience with tax exempt financings and related transactions involving governmental and not-for-profit entities. His skill and stature in the public finance community was recognized by the National Association of Bond Lawyers’ highest award for his career of distinguished service in public finance.
Richard focuses on new products, including the development of new and creative financing techniques for governments, non-profits and investment bankers. He regularly works on transactions throughout the country. However, in his home office in New York City, he leads the relationship with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, serving as counsel on well over 100 transactions over a period of more than 20 years and has headed the tax work in connection with every financing of a cultural facility relating to museums and performing arts in New York City over this same period. Richard has worked on the tax aspects of several of the largest and most complex public private partnership (P3) transactions in recent years. He frequently acts as special tax counsel to issuers and underwriters of municipal finance issues.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Before joining Orrick, Kamilyn was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a litigation associate at Cleary Gottlieb, where she focused on foreign-sovereign litigation and other cross-border matters.
Kamilyn is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she served on the officer board of the Yale Law Journal and as a member of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the federal Indian law clinic. As a member of the law school's appellate litigation clinic, Kamilyn argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, securing a victory for an incarcerated appellant.
Singapore
Singapore
Kelly’s practice focuses on project development, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate matters with a particular focus on renewable energy infrastructure projects.
Prior to joining Orrick, Kelly practised for 5 years in local law firms in Singapore where she advised multi-national corporations and private companies on private M&A transactions as well as corporate and commercial agreements. Thereafter, Kelly served as Legal Counsel of a renewable energy infrastructure asset development platform. During that time, she was seconded to the company’s Australian offices where she was actively involved in advising on the projects in that region.
Washington, D.C.
Prior to joining Orrick, James was an associate at Buckley LLP. Previously, he spent nearly 10 years as a Defense Analyst and a Senior Operations Research Analyst for the U.S. Army, where he focused on cybersecurity, defense policy, and program analysis. He also spent more than three years in the defense industrial base as an IT Project Manager and Policy Analyst.
James is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP), and a Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE). He is conversational in Mandarin.
Orange County
Michael has worked on matters for companies including Canon Inc., Ricoh, Panasonic, eBay, eBay Enterprise, Foxconn, Robert Bosch, Realtek, Anker, Fujitsu Limited, and NVIDIA Corporation covering technologies such as eCommerce, Bluetooth, automotive technology, optical networking and telecommunication, graphics processing, and signal equalization.
Prior to law school, Michael was a mechanical engineer with M-E Engineers, Inc., in Culver City, Calif., where he designed the HVAC systems, including sizing equipment and devising airflows, for hospitals, sporting venues, and office buildings. His projects included Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, Calif., and Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario, Calif.
Chicago
Mark has nearly 15 years of experience in project finance. His clients include major financial institutions (tax equity investors and infrastructure funds), lenders, developers, and sponsors, particularly those active in the renewable energy sector. He regularly advises clients on opportunities stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically Section 6417 direct pay opportunities and Section 6418 tax credit transfers.
Mark also advises clients in a wide variety of structured finance, including transactions relating to CLOs, warehouse/leverage facilities, and other securitization structures, real estate mortgage investment conduits (REMICs), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), and real estate investment trusts (REITs).
New York
Melinda provides clients with guidance on risk and compliance with state and federal employment laws. These include Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), the New York State Human Rights Law ("NYSHRL"), and the New York City Human Rights Law ("NYCHRL"). She assists clients in conducting investigations, analyzing risk exposure, responding to the administrative complaint process, and preparing for mediation, litigation, and arbitration.
Prior to joining Orrick, Melinda graduated with honors from Georgetown University Law Center. While pursuing her J.D., Melinda served on the Executive Board of the Barristers' Council Appellate Advocacy Team, and as a Notes Editor for the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. She earned her B.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University.
Outside of work, Melinda enjoys yoga, skydiving, and volunteering with the dogs at her local ASPCA.
Paris; Paris Tech Studio
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.
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.
New York
Valerie's practice has a focus on warehouse lending, secured credit facilities, and publicly registered and privately placed asset securitization transactions. Her experience extends to various asset classes, encompassing marketplace consumer loans, solar loans, residential mortgages, single family rental assets, student loans, small business loans, credit card receivables, auto loans, and aircraft loans and leases.
Before joining Orrick, Valerie was counsel in Chapman and Cutler LLP's Asset Securitization Department. She began her career at Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP as a corporate associate.
Wheeling, W.V. (GOIC)
Wheeling, W.V. (GOIC)
Mr. Clark works with litigation attorneys and third party vendors to manage the review and production of documents relevant to investigations and litigation. This work includes using early case assessment technology to analyze, categorize and cull data. He also manages teams of skilled professionals performing document review, redaction, analysis, production and drafting privilege logs. Damon assists the litigation team to prepare for trial, including drafting deposition summaries, factual memoranda and exhibit charts. He also works with practice office attorneys on transactional tasks, including contract review and due diligence.
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.”