About the Firm
We focus on serving the Technology & Innovation, Energy & Infrastructure and Finance sectors globally. Clients worldwide call on our teams for forward-looking commercial advice on transactions, litigation and compliance matters. We bring distinctive quality, teamwork and value to the table – and innovate in everything we do.
The Orrick Lateral Experience
Laterals who join Orrick tell us they’re inspired by the opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and to do meaningful work on impactful engagements. They value our culture. And they appreciate our transparency about the path to partnership – and great role models among our junior partners.
We’re looking for candidates who are excited about working in teams to help our clients adapt to a rapidly changing market. Candidates whose life experiences have enabled you to develop grit and empathy, practice teamwork and innovate. And we’re looking for future leaders — as an Orrick partner, at one of the great companies we advise, or to use your legal training to make an impact in new ways.
“I came in as a lateral from another firm, and comparatively Orrick is miles ahead in terms of firm culture. Orrick prioritizes social and professional development.”
Orrick associate, Vault 2023 Survey
Inspiring Exceptional Talent
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 (for the second time, they named us among the Top 15 employers in the U.S.), and for the 10th year in a row, Yale Law Women has selected Orrick as a top firm for workplace equity. We rank #3 on the AmLaw 2022 A-List (our 5th consecutive year in the top 5, and our ninth year in a row on the list). We’re #4 on Vault’s 2023 Best Law Firms to Work For. We’re No. 2 for Associate Satisfaction in AmLaw’s 2021 Midlevel Associates Survey. We rank in the top 10 for diversity by Vault.
Flexible Work Arrangements
We don’t pretend to have it all figured out – we’re experimenting with new ways of doing things.
The majority of our lawyers work in the office at least 1-2 days a week. And we’re focused on finding ways of connecting while we’re together. We also offer 100% remote opportunities for experienced associates and a “work from anywhere” option for defined periods for everyone. Our nationwide salary scale applies regardless of where you work. Flexible work arrangements are well established and increasingly popular. About a quarter of our 2022 partner class took advantage of a flexible work arrangement before their promotion. And many of our partners choose flexible work arrangements as well.
Wellness
We work hard to deliver the best service to our clients. For that to be sustainable, we need to find ways to take care of ourselves. Here’s how we do that:
Sector Focus
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. 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. 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. 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.
Trial and Appellate Firepower
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. 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. In addition, we’ve got 139 former judicial clerks on our team, including 15 former SCOTUS clerks.
Strengthening Our Communities
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. Orrick ranked No. 1 on The American Lawyer’s 2022 Pro Bono Scorecard for the U.S. – our fifth year in a row in the top 5. 98% of our lawyers contributed to pro bono efforts in 2021. 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.
Firm U.S. Locations: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Irvine, Seattle, Portland, New York, Washington DC, Boston, Austin, Houston, Wheeling (WV).
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