People

James Houghton Senior Associate

Boston

Jim represents clients in federal and state courts (individual and class actions), and in enforcement actions brought by government agencies. Jim’s practice spans a broad range of subject matters, including consumer finance, cybersecurity, state consumer protection statutes, commercial disputes, and white-collar representations.

Prior to joining Orrick, Jim was an associate at Buckley LLP and an associate at an international law firm. Jim also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Timothy E. Meredith on the Appellate Court of Maryland.

Julie Houston Partner

Austin

Julie has served as bond counsel to various state agencies and local governmental entities, including, special districts, cities, counties and public facility corporations; as underwriter and bank counsel to financial institutions that underwrite and purchase tax-exempt and taxable governmental obligations; and as outside counsel to a public facility corporation that owns and operates a convention center hotel and to professional sports teams that lease bond financed sports venue facilities. Julie also has experience representing domestic banks that provide credit and liquidity facilities for tax-exempt financings. Prior to entering private law practice, Julie served as an assistant attorney general in the Public Finance Division of the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas.

Martin Howard Partner

Los Angeles

Marty is a securities, finance and securitization lawyer advising sophisticated financial institutions in the financing, purchase and sale, and securitization of financial assets. Marty advises issuers, underwriters, dealers, placement agents, collateral managers, servicers and investment funds in domestic and offshore securities offerings, both public and private, involving the securitization of mortgage-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations, collateralized debt obligations, manufactured housing contracts, residual interests and credit card receivables.

Marty has extensive experience advising clients with respect to a broad array of mortgage products, including prime and non-prime, closed-end second lien, home equity loans, non-performing and re-performing loans, and seasoned loans. Marty also represents investment banks, bank holding companies and investment funds on warehouse financings, whole loan purchases and sales, sales and securitization of servicing advance receivables and the day-to-day operations of servicing mortgage loans.

During the last 31 years of practice in the global financial markets, Marty has been involved with several innovations in financial products and has lectured to domestic and international audiences on the workings of the securitization process, including the rules and regulations of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Anna Howell Partner

London

Anna’s experience spans M&A, project development and financing, joint ventures, market entry and expansion, and restructurings in Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. She offers clients a comprehensive understanding of the entire energy value chain – from upstream concessions and transportation arrangements to downstream commodity sales and trading. Anna is known for guiding clients through their most challenging and transformative matters, driving results in both mature and emerging markets.

Highly regarded in the market, Anna holds a Band 1 ranking from Chambers Global and Chambers UK in Oil & Gas. Clients praise her as “one of the standout energy lawyers both for M&A and oil and gas work,” noting her intelligent and commercial approach to negotiations and consistent, client-focused communication.

Prior to joining Orrick, Anna spent over 11 years practising in Asia and has worked in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Johannes Hsu Of Counsel

Orange County

Johannes's practice focuses on patent litigation, especially in the fields of electronics, circuits, computer and network systems, software, and telecommunications. He has litigated in district courts, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the U.S. International Trade Commission. He also leverages his technical and operational experience in data-privacy and data-security matters.

Before joining Orrick, Johannes clerked for the Honorable R. Gary Klausner in the Central District of California. He assisted Judge Klausner on a wide variety of civil matters. In particular, he worked on many intellectual-property disputes involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Johannes began his legal career primarily as a patent prosecutor at one of the largest intellectual-property boutique firms in the United States.

Before becoming an attorney, Johannes worked for over 20 years as an engineer in high-tech and aerospace industries. He held increasing responsibilities and was last a manager and a senior principal engineer at one of the top two fabless-semiconductor companies in the world. His work in those positions had a direct and significant impact on virtually every chip of a one-billion-dollar product line.

A technical leader and a functional manager, he interacted regularly with upper management in engineering and marketing and worked closely with cross-disciplinary teams. His substantial engineering experience encompasses a wide array of technologies, from communication systems, digital-security systems, to hardware and embedded-software design. In addition to developing digital-security technologies, Johannes also set operational security policies for his engineering organization and developed a secure infrastructure which he led through a successful third-party audit.

Alice Hsu Partner

New York

Alice advises boards of directors, issuers, underwriters and investors in a broad range of transactions, including public offerings; special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs); private placements of equity and debt securities, public mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters.

Alice also provides strategic advice on a myriad of securities regulation, corporate governance and other general corporate matters. She regularly counsels companies regarding Securities and Exchange Commission reporting and disclosure issues, stockholder meetings, proxy statements and proxy mechanics. Her work extends to advising public companies with respect to defensive review matters, including implementation of shareholders rights plans and related issues.

Yali Hu Senior Associate

Beijing

Yali assists local- and foreign-based multinational companies with all aspects of their intellectual property rights in China, Europe and the United States, including Section 337 U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) litigation. Yali has extensional experience in patent, trademark, domain name, copyright and trade secret.

Yali’s intellectual property-related services include patent filing and subsequent maintenance affairs for her clients.

Julia Hu Senior Associate

Santa Monica

Julia's experience litigating and advising clients spans a wide range of substantive areas in complex commercial litigation and criminal law. She especially focuses on complex issues of constitutional law, civil procedure, administrative law, and statutory interpretation. At the appellate level, Julia has drafted numerous merits briefs, petitions for discretionary review, and amicus briefs. At the trial level, Julia has drafted a vast range of dispositive and evidentiary motions.

Prior to joining Orrick, Julia served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Major Frauds Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, one of the largest U.S. Attorney's Offices in the country. Julia was the co-lead prosecutor in three federal criminal trials and argued multiple appeals before the Ninth Circuit. Julia also worked as a litigation associate in another global law firm, focusing on complex litigation and appeals.

Julia graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College. She clerked for the Honorable David J. Barron on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the Honorable Christopher R. Cooper on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Mimiao Hu Of Counsel

Beijing

Her work has included trademark and copyright protection strategies, intellectual property litigation, unfair competition, intellectual property due diligence, cybersquatting and related technology issues. Mimiao has also advised clients on export regulation of military and dual-use items and customs regulation in China. In addition, Mimiao works extensively on cybersecurity & data privacy issues for both Chinese and international clients.

Prior to joining Orrick, Mimiao was a senior associate in the Beijing and Shanghai offices of a major PRC law firm.

Kane Huang Senior Associate

Tokyo

Kane advises U.S., and Japanese companies on cross-border M&A, joint venture, strategic investments, technology licensing, and energy related transactions, as well as compliance, corporate governance, and general corporate matters.

In addition to transactions between U.S., and Japanese companies, Kane works on a variety of multijurisdictional transactions involving entities and assets in Asia and Europe.

Kane has gained client-side experience from his secondments to a U.S. and Japan joint venture appliances company from 2015 to 2016, a Japan subsidiary of a U.S. based elevator and escalator company in 2016, and a Japan electric utility company from 2019 to 2020.

Kane worked at Orrick’s Silicon Valley office from 2010 to 2012, where he focused on technology sector M&A.

Patrick Hubert Partner

Paris

This breadth of experience has allowed him to become a leading authority in the field of antitrust, but his background helps him borrow ideas from anywhere – finding imaginative solutions for the legal and business challenges his clients face.

Patrick has long been a trailblazer in his field. For example, years before private compliance programs became commonplace, Patrick persuaded his clients to dedicate resources to compliance policies, thus being one of the first to encourage proactive rather than strictly reactive actions. In France, he was one of the first to launch antitrust recovery claims and to work on a private standalone claim, without any precedent from the regulator. Acting on the plaintiff side, he obtained what was at that time the highest fine ever imposed on a dominant company (350 M€).

He is currently handling private claims totaling more than 5 billion euro, advising global tech companies and other multinationals in French and EU competition matters, including merger control filings, cartel and abuse of dominance investigations, state aid and compliance work, as well as private damages actions before the French courts. In addition, he serves as vice chairman of the competition commission of the International Chamber of Commerce and chairs its merger control working party.

Zachary D.T. Huey Senior Associate

Washington, D.C.

Zachary assists clients in the energy, real estate and other sectors with environmental and permitting issues associated with transactional matters and corporate disclosures. He has experience working on matters related to regulatory compliance, land use, permitting, federal and state environmental review, cultural resources, endangered species and environmental aspects of ESG reporting and disclosure. He also has extensive experience in environmental matters associated with the development and permitting of LNG terminals and natural gas pipeline projects.

Prior to joining Orrick, Zachary was at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.