We are well-known as a leading advisor to the global technology sector. Our clients include 3,000 venture-backed companies, five of the Forbes’ “Top 10 Digital Companies,” and more than 35 unicorns. We offer comprehensive solutions for every stage in a tech company’s growth – including private and public company transactions, IP protection, high-stakes litigation, and cybersecurity and other compliance. Vault ranks us as the #1 firm for Technology & Innovation. We’ve been the #1 VC firm in Europe for the last six years, and we’re #4 globally, according to PitchBook (2021).
Our Energy & Infrastructure practice covers the full energy spectrum: renewables, conventional energy, and oil and gas. We act for the largest global sponsors and developers, new market entrants, banks, funds, and government entities. We have pioneered the global infrastructure markets, with particular strength in the Transport sector. Our experience spans all 50 U.S. states and 95 countries worldwide, including groundbreaking transactions across Africa, Latin America and Asia. Chambers Global recognizes us as Band 1 in Renewable Energy and Infrastructure. Vault ranks us #1 for Clean Tech/Renewable Energy. And Law360 has named us a Project Finance Group of the Year seven times.
Fourteen of the Global 20 banks rely on our Finance teams, as do funds, development banks and other lenders. Dating back to our work on the financing of California’s Golden Gate Bridge, we have dominated the U.S. public finance markets. We bring technical excellence and craftsmanship to the securitization, acquisition finance, restructuring and real estate markets, where we have earned Chambers rankings across the U.S., the UK, France, Italy and globally. And we have litigated and appealed some of the most complex disputes for the world’s major financial institutions.
In courts in all 50 states and around the world – across many different subject matters – and against the toughest opponents, our trial teams have scored victories when it mattered most. In the 24 months leading up to the pandemic, our teams conducted 39 trials and 55 appeals. More than a third of the Fortune 100 depend on our litigators to resolve their highest-stakes disputes. As The American Lawyer wrote: “High-intensity headline cases didn’t faze Orrick’s litigators.” Bloomberg named us top 5 for tech litigation. Our Supreme Court & Appellate team is one of the nation’s elite practices and has been named to the National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List nine times. We have been named Employment Group of the Year by Law360 five times. We are equally focused on helping clients avoid the courtroom in the first place. Our stable of former senior DOJ officials (42 of us worked at the DOJ and other federal agencies) helps our clients navigate enforcement issues and put proactive compliance programs in place. We’ve got 139 former judicial clerks on our team, including 15 former SCOTUS clerks.
Structured as one team, our lawyers work seamlessly across 25 markets in the United States, Europe and Asia. We are particularly adept at helping clients pursue emerging market opportunities. We serve Latin America from our Houston office. We cover Southeast Asia from China. And we offer regulatory and enforcement advice from Washington, D.C., to Brussels to Beijing.
Opportunities to innovate inspire us, and we were named the #1 most innovative law firm in North America by Financial Times from 2016-2018 and runner-up in 2019 and 2020. FT also named us the Most Digital Law Firm in North America in 2020. We were the first U.S.-based law firm to establish a global insourcing center in 2002. Today, our West Virginia facility houses career associates, project managers and other professionals who, equipped with state-of-the-art technology, deliver services with unprecedented efficiency. We partner with our clients to deliver innovative solutions for a wide range of legal functions: document review and due diligence, litigation management, corporate secretary compliance, global employment and executive compensation compliance, and startup ventures. And clients recognize us among the top firms in the use of creative pricing to better align client and firm interests, avoid surprises and deliver cost savings.
To deliver exceptional legal counsel, we must attract, retain, educate and inspire exceptional lawyers – including diverse talent. So we set a goal of being the best law firm to work for. We staff engagements with small, diverse teams, and offer our associates opportunities to make a meaningful impact early in their careers. We provide our lawyers with advanced training and coaching, not only in legal and business skills but also teamship. To bring the best thinking to our firm management, we’ve created one of the most inclusive leadership teams of any firm: Our senior leadership team is 55 percent diverse. We also created a Women’s Leadership Board with market leaders, who help us focus on how to advance women within our firm. To ensure that parents do not need to choose between career and family, we implemented the most generous parental leave and flexible work policies in our profession. And to bring talent with diverse experiences into our professions, we created a U.S. Veterans’ Legal Career Fair seven years ago, and started the Bay Area’s first Diversity Career Fair 17 years ago. The result? We have been named one of Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For seven years in a row, and we’ve been named to Yale Law Women's list of the Top Ten Family Friendly U.S. Law Firms eight times. We rank in the top 10 for diversity by Vault.
Protecting innovation. Executing impact investment strategies. Advocating before the U.S. Supreme Court. We find great inspiration in the social impact of our client work. Likewise, we are committed to pro bono representation in our communities worldwide. Over 99 percent of our U.S. lawyers – and 86 percent around the world – exceeded the 20-hour pro bono standard last year. The American Lawyer ranks us top 5 for pro bono in the United States and internationally. We’ve been recognized in the National Law Journal’s 2020 Pro Bono Hot List, won awards for social responsibility innovation from both Financial Times and Legal Week in 2020, and received The National Legal Aid & Defender Association’s 2020 Beacon of Justice Award.
We are fortunate to have inherited the core values of excellence, teamwork, perseverance and innovation – going back 150+ years to our firm’s roots in California’s Gold Rush era. This history informs the long-term perspective we bring to our client advice. We’re equally grateful to work with the most innovative companies worldwide, paving the way for a more globally integrated, technologically sophisticated future.
Our corporate team handles multi-billion M&A transactions, fund structuring, financing, public law, and litigation for domestic and global clients. We advise on a range of strategic investments, joint ventures and innovative corporate structures as well as securitization and debt capital market transactions. Orrick is particularly active in the technology, telecoms, financial services, energy, infrastructure, life sciences, sport, transport, aerospace and defence sectors. In the renewables space we have advise French industrials with the acquisition of alternative energy projects including biomass, wind and solar energy. The Private Equity team acts for buyers, sellers, investors and lenders advising on LBOs, OBOs or secondary buyouts. We are equally adept at acting for European corporates with an eye on the U.S. as U.S. corporates looking to Europe.
France, the second largest tech market in Europe, is consistently home to over a fifth of the 100 most promising scaleups in Europe. Recently Orrick was involved in 16 of the 21 French companies considered most likely to become future unicorns, acting on behalf of both clients and investors. We have dominated the European venture capital market since 2015, ranked No.1 by deal volume (PitchBook), advising early-stage and emerging fintech and biotech companies, future unicorns and scaleups, at the cutting edge of their field on seed to growth capital financings, cross border M&A and IPOs.
Our Paris team is recognized for pioneering work in the energy and infrastructure sector and involved in project development and finance in the conventional and renewable energy, digital and transport infrastructure, and social or municipal infrastructure sectors. Orrick is at the forefront of some of the most innovative projects in Europe, including sea urbanization projects, the first bond-financed public-private partnership in France, and the first project finance transaction in France. We have advised on many renewable energy projects, including the financing and acquisition of wind farms and solar power facilities and have significant experience in concessions and PPP projects. We have been involved in some of the most important public procurement contracts PPPs and concessions involving the European Commission, public authorities, and independent administrations as well as states and advise on related regulatory and compliance issues.
Our Finance team acts for leading international banks, private equity funds, alternative credit providers, and other corporate borrowers on everything from straight-up large lending or borrowing to cutting-edge structured finance. Our structured finance and securitization team have advised on many groundbreaking transactions, including in covered bonds, corporate structured bonds, and the establishment of dedicated origination and refinancing platforms. Orrick lawyers helped draft French legislation on securitization and structured finance, were the architects of the Macron Ordinance, chairing the EUROPLACE committee responsible for drafting regulations that allowed non-banks to make loans available to French borrowers and includes the founder and General Secretary of the Paris Structured Finance Institute (IFSP).
We represent corporations, state-owned entities and governments in high-value domestic and cross-border investment and commercial disputes to resolve complex multijurisdictional matters through international arbitration and litigation around the world appearing before all major arbitral institutions and in national court proceedings when enforcement or setting aside actions are necessary. We excel at risk mitigation, mediation, adjudication and arbitration proceedings under common, civil and Islamic law. We also advise on administrative, constitutional and contract law as well as public law matters relating to energy, environment, data protection and privacy and foreign investment. We have recently arbitrated long term gas price review disputes worth billions of dollars as well as investment treaty arbitrations relating to the renewable energy sector under the Energy Charter Treaty.
