Washington, D.C.
Michelle McGann is a senior strategist in Orrick’s Public Policy group. She uses her extensive experience working with legislators to address clients’ most important state legislative and regulatory problems.
Before joining Orrick, Michelle gained broad experience working with elected leadership at the federal and state government levels. Most recently as Executive Director of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, Michelle was responsible for advancing the Committee’s objectives of providing financial support, leadership development, and strategic assistance to lawmakers nationwide. In her previous leadership positions at the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, Michelle reported directly to Senate and House leadership and was tasked with advancing their objectives by evaluating and managing the nexus of policy initiatives and political impact.
Michelle is a graduate of Amherst College, where she received a B.A. in Political Science.
Houston
David Aaronson focuses his practice on a broad range of energy and infrastructure transactions, advising clients on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, complex joint ventures and commercial transactions, private equity and venture capital investments, project development, and financing transactions. He has over a decade of experience in transactions spanning the energy sector, including energy transition, renewable energy, oil and gas, and energy infrastructure.
David’s regularly represents private equity funds and their portfolio companies, domestic and international oil and gas companies, renewable energy developers, services companies, and project developers, among others.
San Francisco
Ali Abugheida represents corporate and individual clients in a wide range of complex civil litigation and government enforcement matters. He represents clients in matters involving allegations of fraud, breach of contract, alleged violations of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and unfair or deceptive trade-practice statutes.
Prior to joining Orrick, Ali was a partner at Buckley LLP. He began his career at WilmerHale, where his practice included litigation and government enforcement matters.
Sacramento; Washington, D.C.
Sacramento; Washington, D.C.
Ian Adams is a public policy attorney splitting his time between Orrick's Sacramento and Washington, D.C., offices. He advises clients on matters at the intersection of law, business and public policy with a focus on highly-automated vehicle technologies, privacy and insurance. Ian works closely with the public policy group on a contract attorney basis with Orrick.
His practice entails representing businesses before federal and state regulatory bodies, particularly within the Department of Transportation and state departments of insurance, and in providing related compliance guidance. Ian also represents clients before state legislatures, where he champions legislative outcomes in state capitals nationwide
Ian’s experience in the automotive technology and mobility industry includes testifying before Congress about HAV deployment and regulation, as well as representing clients AIMotive, Baidu, Getaround, Goodyear, NVIDIA, Scotty Labs, and a major automaker. His digital privacy and insurance regulatory work has involved representing Benefitfocus, McAfee, Motorola, Ring Central, Zenefits, and insurance start-ups.
In addition, Ian is the executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, a think tank that promotes the use of law & economics methodologies to inform public policy debates. Earlier in his career, he held senior government affairs and research roles at other think tanks, where he coordinated outreach and engagement at the federal, state and local levels.
He was also legislative staff in the California and Oregon state legislatures and worked as a law clerk for California’s largest insurance trade association.
Ian is a graduate of Seattle University, with bachelor's degrees in history and philosophy, and received his law degree from the University of Oregon. He is a member of the California and District of Columbia bars.
Geneva
Charles C. Adams, Jr. is the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Republic of Finland (2015-2017) and Global Co-Head of Orrick’s International Arbitration Practice Group, based in Geneva. Charles is acknowledged to be among the most prominent international arbitration experts in the world. According to Global Arbitration Review, Charles “is highly regarded (one leading international arbitrator described him to GAR as the most persuasive advocate to have appeared before him)”.
Charles’s experience spans four decades at the highest levels of international dispute-resolution; he has acted in more than 300 arbitral proceedings under various governing laws and under the rules of almost all arbitral institutions in fora all over the world, most frequently as lead counsel, but also on occasion as chairman or co-arbitrator on tribunals in high-stakes cases.
His experience includes disputes in engineering and construction, energy and infrastructure, mining, transportation, telecommunications, life sciences and biotech, intellectual property and franchising and distribution, among many other fields of commercial or industrial endeavor. He has conducted commercial and investor-state arbitrations under the auspices of ICSID, the ICC, ICDR/AAA, LCIA, DIAC, SCC, SAC and SIAC. Charles also advises on export control regulations and economic sanctions administered by the U.S. and the European Union, including matters relating to customs regulations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering rules and anti-boycott requirements.
For more than 10 years Charles was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), and he has served on the Board of Advisors of the NGO End Human Trafficking Now and as a guest lecturer at the UN’s International Development Law Organization. Charles frequently appears on Francophone television channels (TF1, LCI, TV5 Monde, Télévision Suisse Romande), as a commentator on political, economic and cultural matters.
Santa Monica
Shaya S. Afshar focuses on technology transactions and other commercial and licensing matters, representing both mature and emerging companies in a variety of industries, including SaaS, software, hardware, fintech, information technology, and data intelligence. In addition, he advises clients on open-source licensing and intellectual property issues in connection with internal audits and mergers, acquisitions, and financing transactions.
During his time with Orrick, Shaya was seconded to cloud-based information security company Zscaler, Inc. as commercial and corporate counsel. Prior to joining Orrick, Shaya was an associate in the IP and Technology Transactions Group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and prior to law school, he spent a year teaching English in Shenzhen, China.
Paris
Chabha Agrea est avocat en droit social au sein du bureau parisien d'Orrick.
Chabha intervient pour le compte d'entreprises françaises et internationales et les conseille sur tous les aspects du droit social.
Avant de rejoindre Orrick, Chabha a effectué un stage au sein du département droit social du cabinet Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
London
Natasha Ahmed advises clients on cross-border transactions and domestic matters, providing general commercial, intellectual property, IT and data privacy advice across a broad range of sectors including technology, telecommunications, energy, and retail.
Before moving into private practice, Natasha spent five years in the in-house legal team of a global brand management company.
Munich
Marvin focuses on advising companies and start-ups in the technology industries, from the foundation to a scale up on a multi million level.
Prior to joining Orrick, he worked as a trainee at a leading German law firm and one of the global leading chemicals companies.
San Francisco
San Francisco
Helen’s practice focuses on project development and financing in the renewable energy sector.
She advises clients on a wide variety of matters, including energy storage and power purchase agreements, debt and tax equity financing, and project acquisitions and sales. She also spent several months on secondment to the project finance group of a major U.S. renewable energy developer.
As a law student, Helen worked as a summer legal intern in the Administrative Law Judge Division of the California Public Utilities Commission, as a senior business analyst with Pacific Gas and Electric Company and as a legal trainee at Positive Planet UK.
Before practicing law, she led programs with state and local governments and ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs to advance the adoption of clean technologies, including battery storage, virtual power plants, commercial and industrial lighting and advanced building control systems.
Geneva; London
Ali handles both investment treaty and commercial arbitrations predominantly in the energy, construction, tech and telecommunications fields.
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 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.
New York
Walter counsels private and public companies in their roles as sponsors, investors, lenders, and borrowers in energy and infrastructure projects.
His experience includes drafting and negotiating documentation specific to project finance, tax equity finance, bond offerings, and general corporate matters.