People

Annie Prasad Vadillo Partner

Silicon Valley

As a trial lawyer, trusted counselor, and advocate, Annie finds creative solutions - whether that means tackling challenging issues with current employees, resolving a matter pre-litigation, or winning decisively at trial. Having amassed significant courtroom and trial experience, she knows how to deliver the best results for her client. She has won trials and arbitrations for companies against high-profile, highly publicized claims. She also counsels companies of all sizes on issues throughout the entire employee life cycle and partners with clients on creative solutions that minimize risk and achieve the goals of the business. Representative clients include Apple, Carta, Lyft, Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Mercor, Unity Technologies, Instabase, TaskRabbit, and Next Insurance.

Annie also has expertise in:

• Litigating and defeating harassment, discrimination, equal pay, and retaliation claims.
• Gig economy and independent contractor classification issues, including the ABC test and Prop 22.
• Successfully resolving pre-litigation claims.
• Workplace best practices and policies, including arbitration agreements.
• Defending companies in government audits including unemployment insurance audits.
• Investigating employee complaints.
• Advising on novel and up-and-coming employment issues.
• Crisis management and PR counseling, including partnering with PR counsel and in-house PR teams on the impact of litigation on media coverage.

When she is not in her office in Menlo Park, Annie chases after her two dogs Clifford and Jude and her toddler.

Johnathan Vaknin Associate

Los Angeles

Johnathan is an associate in Orrick's Intellectual Property group. His practice focuses on high-stakes intellectual property litigation, with an emphasis on copyright and trademark disputes.

Prior to joining Orrick, Johnathan was a litigation associate at another global law firm, where he represented clients in matters across a range of industries and subject areas. 

Johnathan is a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law. During law school, he was a Notes Editor for the California Law Review and volunteered with the Artistic Freedom Initiative, a non-profit organization that provides pro bono legal assistance to international artists at risk of persecution.

Before entering the legal profession, Johnathan earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley and subsequently taught literature at the University of Arizona. His background in the humanities informs his approach to analyzing complex materials and developing clear arguments. 

Jillian Vallejo Associate

Silicon Valley

Monhé van der Walt Associate

London

Monhé advise financial institutions, corporations and managers in connection with securitisations, CLOs and ABS transactions across a range of asset classes. Monhé also has experience in advising a wide range of domestic and international clients on South African and cross-border general corporate lending, leverage and acquisition financing and fund financing. 

Lisa van Velsor Counsel

San Francisco

Lisa represents clients in a variety of energy transactions, including project development, mergers, acquisitions and financings. She has a particular focus on real property matters, including negotiating site control documents, title insurance policies and surveys, and coordinating a wide variety of title curative work.

Lisa's background includes commercial real estate work for institutional clients and high net worth individuals, with extensive experience representing clients on acquisitions, dispositions, financing, and joint ventures.

Amy Van Zant Partner

Silicon Valley

For her litigation practice, Amy’s ability to distill the most complicated technology across an array of fields, including telecommunications, semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy, cloud computing, and big data, into relatable, every day concepts that has made her successful in persuading judges and juries alike. She has led trial teams, litigated, and tried cases in state court in California, numerous District Courts, the International Trade Commission, and has briefed appeals before the 9th Circuit, the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court of California, and the United States Supreme Court. 

Whether litigating patent, trade secret, or IP contract disputes, Amy strives to put herself in her client’s shoes to ensure personalized results tailored to each client’s business objectives. As SAP’s General Counsel Landon Edmond commented to Acritas, Amy “has acquired a great knowledge of our business, and therefore you know you can trust her in a wide variety of topics and to get the right colleagues within her firm involved across the globe.”

Amy also provides comprehensive IP counseling on issues including trade secrets protection, employee departure investigations, freedom to operate analysis, licensing strategies, data privacy protection, and regulatory compliance. She has also conducted comprehensive patent portfolio reviews and assisted with IP corporate transactions.

In addition to her IP work, Amy devotes significant time to her pro bono work. For more than a decade, she has assisted domestic violence victims, as well as led Orrick’s Bay Area summer program that enables law clerks to be certified to argue in Family Court to obtain Temporary Restraining Orders for domestic violence clients.

Albert Vanderlaan Partner

Boston

Albert is involved in a broad range of corporate legal engagements for high growth technology companies, including IPOs, follow-on public offerings, private and public company securities law compliance matters, public company disclosure obligations, venture financings, mergers and acquisitions, de-SPAC transactions and SPAC IPOs. He also regularly advises public and private companies and their boards of directors on corporate governance issues.

Albert's clients include public and private companies in technology, energy, automotive, Internet related industries, real estate, finance and the life sciences (including, among others, immuno-oncology, gene therapy, restorative cell therapy and medical device companies). He also represents underwriters in initial public offerings, follow-on offerings and PIPE offerings and venture capital firms in a variety of investment transactions.

Albert was named to the Deal’s Top Rising Stars 2021 list, which recognizes top new partners at U.S. law firms who are “doing spectacular work in the field of deal-making and who have continued to progress in their career despite the obstacles put in front of them.”

Ilinca Vasiliu Associate

London

Ilinca acts for arrangers, portfolio managers and other market participants on a range of securitisation transactions, including European CLO transactions, private warehouses and asset-backed lending transactions.

Rebecca Vastola Senior Associate

San Francisco

Rebecca is an Associate in the San Francisco office of Orrick’s Technology Companies Group. She advises her clients on key legal issues and obstacles, including negotiating investment terms and structuring deals, maintaining good corporate governance practices, navigating employee and contractor equity, and preparing for exit.

Aveeka Vats Associate

Washington, D.C.

Calvin Vaughan Managing Associate

Washington, D.C.

His practice focuses on transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

Andres Vega Managing Associate

Washington, D.C.

He regularly represents project developers and investors in energy project finance transactions, including tax equity and debt financing, M&A, joint ventures, project development and a broad range of corporate matters. His prior experience includes international and multijurisdictional financing and development of energy projects in Mexico and across Africa, including Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt.