Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP announced today that Andrew D. Thorpe has joined the firm as a partner in its Capital Markets Group, resident in San Francisco.  Mr. Thorpe served for almost six years at the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including serving as Special Counsel in the Office of Rulemaking within the Division of Corporation Finance, and was most recently a partner with Morrison & Foerster.

“We are delighted to add Andy to our team,” said Mitch Zuklie, Orrick’s chairman.  “Andy brings extensive commercial experience and valuable insight from his time at the SEC, for our emerging company and public company clients, as well as our underwriter relationships.”

Mr. Thorpe’s practice focuses on securities regulation, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance matters.  His diverse industry experience spans semiconductors, software, life sciences, medical devices, clean technology, financial services, telecommunications and the Internet.  Mr. Thorpe has worked on more than 30 public offerings, serving as company or underwriter’s counsel, in addition to reviewing approximately 20 additional offerings while he was at the SEC.

Orrick acts for more than 1,400 emerging company clients, as well as leading public companies in the technology, energy and financial sectors.  The firm recently advised Silver Bay Realty Trust in the first single-family REIT to seek access to the public markets, Shutterstock in the first New York-based tech company IPO on the NYSE in over two years, SodaStream in one of the most successful U.S. IPOs for an Israeli company and Sequans Communications in the first U.S. IPO for a French company in more than a decade.  In the past year, Orrick has also advised Instagram in its $1 billion acquisition by Facebook, Yammer in its $1.2 billion acquisition by Microsoft and Neolane in its $600 million acquisition by Adobe Systems.

Mr. Thorpe joined the SEC in 1999. From 2001-2005, he worked in the Division of Corporate Finance where he played a significant role in drafting many of the regulations emanating from the Division, including those mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the regulatory overhaul of the public offering process in 2005.

“I have always admired Orrick’s innovation and entrepreneurialism, and I am excited to join a firm with such a strong platform,” said Mr. Thorpe.  “Orrick’s global client base of public and emerging companies and its top quality practices focused on litigation, intellectual property, regulatory and transactional matters provides a meaningful opportunity for growth, and the firm provides a natural fit with my capital markets and public company expertise.”

A former President of the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals, Mr. Thorpe currently serves on its advisory committee.  He is also the incoming Chair of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Developments in Business Financing, for which Mr. Thorpe serves as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Annual Review and Programs.  Mr. Thorpe received his J.D. from Washington University, his M.B.A. from Thunderbird, Garvin School of International Management and his B.A. in Economics from Emory University.

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