Orrick, Buckley Combine to Form Financial Services and Fintech Law Powerhouse

• Orrick and Buckley jointly announced the strategic combination, which responds to growing demand from the most innovative companies and financial institutions for forward-looking regulatory and enforcement advice.
• It also responds to the demand from fintech innovators, technology companies and their financial sponsors for holistic solutions to the opportunities and risks created by the convergence of finance and technology.
• It adds a first-class, inside-the-Beltway white collar team and eight senior trial attorneys to Orrick’s financial services litigation platform.
• It combines two firms known for sector focus, innovative services and cultures for the best workplace.
• Orrick will also launch a new business unit – Strategic Advisory & Government Enforcement (SAGE).
• The transaction is expected to close by the end of January, subject to conflict resolution and partnership approval.

“Our finance and technology clients are innovating in an environment of increasing regulatory and enforcement uncertainty – it is one of their primary business risks. As these sectors converge, the combined firm will offer valuable regulatory and sector insights to these innovators and their investors who need to navigate regulatory corners as they pursue their strategies, said Orrick Chairman Mitch Zuklie. “This type of forward-thinking advice is key to Orrick’s strategy – and we are exceptionally fortunate to add the Buckley talent and strengthen our culture with the collaborative, innovative, entrepreneurial DNA of the Buckley team.”

The combined firm will act for most of the leading consumer banks, more than 700 fintech market participants, leading funds, 4,000+ emerging companies and 10 of the Fortune 20 technology companies.

“It is a watershed moment as the consumer finance and technology markets converge. This transformation creates a number of new and precedent-setting regulatory, transactional and legal risks and opportunities for our clients – and by joining forces with Orrick, we will be able to work closely with our clients on holistic solutions of top quality,” said Buckley Co-Managing Partner Clint Rockwell.

“Buckley was founded on a vision to think differently about both our clients’ business opportunities and challenges, as well as the practice of law – and in Orrick, we have an extraordinary partner in taking that vision forward,” said Buckley Co-Managing Partner Chris Witeck.

The Buckley team brings to Orrick the practices described by Chambers and partners as “the best at what they do in the country” – including Band 1-rated teams in Consumer Finance Compliance, Consumer Finance Litigation and Consumer Finance Enforcement & Investigations. It adds senior litigators with a strong track record in white-collar, investigative and class action, as well as regulatory and transactional counsel.

This talent will enhance an Orrick platform that is top 3 globally for venture capital (PitchBook), top 10 in ABS and MBS (Asset-Backed Alert), No. 2 for American lawyer Lawyer of the week wins in 2022, Chambers Band 1 nationwide for data and privacy, and was recently named by Law360 as Fintech and Banking Groups of the Year 2022.

Launch of the SAGE unit

Concurrent with the combination, Orrick is launching a new business unit – Strategic Advisory & Government Enforcement (SAGE) – to focus on providing synthesized regulatory and commercial solutions that integrate deep sector knowledge. As one of the firm’s six global business units, SAGE brings together 270 lawyers dedicated to delivering coordinated advice, drawing on finance and fintech (regulatory, enforcement, transactions), white collar, privacy and cybersecurity, competition, public policy, trade and technology transactions perspectives.

“Clients are increasingly telling us that synthesizing these perspectives into an integrated, market-focused, and embedding the holistic transactional and litigation expertise is what enables the Orrick team to deliver distinctive value. By organizing this bringing together the market-leading expertise and skills of one team, while augmenting them with the extraordinary talent we’re adding from Buckley, we’re turbocharging our existing service offering to one that’s unmatched and unparalleled in the market,” said Matthew Gemello, head of Orrick’s global corporate practice.

Moving forward together

The combined firm will have 180 lawyers, including 75 partners, in Washington, DC, while expanding Orrick’s teams in New York, Santa Monica and San Francisco, and adding a new Orrick office in Chicago (that adds about 100 lawyers total to Orrick). It brings together two cultures that have been named Best Workplaces by Fortune (Orrick, No. 13 in the firm’s seventh year on the list) and The Washington Post (Buckley, eight years in a row).

It also adds a powerful set of SaaS / RegTech solutions to Orrick’s innovation platform, which was named a top 3 most innovative law firm in the US by Financial Times for each of the past seven years. These solutions include:

• Winnow, a tailored survey engine that enables financial services companies, banks and funds to identify, track and update claims applicable to their unique products and licensing in real-time, and

• APPROVED, which solves license acquisition, maintenance and exams for a wide variety of financial services companies, fintechs and funds, all powered by a bespoke technology platform.