September 30 2004 LAWFUEL – Best law news, attorney, law firm, legal newsOrrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP announced today that Yoshitada Ogiso,
formerly a partner with Mitsui, Yasuda, Wani & Maeda (MYWM), has joined the firm
as a partner in its Tokyo-based registered associated law office, Orrick Tokyo Law
Offices (Orrick Tokyo). Mr. Ogiso joins a team of seven Japanese lawyers who moved
to Orrick Tokyo’s office in late August. Most of those lawyers also came from
MYWM, including Mr. Ogiso’s former fellow partner there, Mr. Masami Totani.
Mr. Ogiso is a Japanese-qualified lawyer who is also licensed to practice in the
state of New York. He is an expert in the area of corporate, M&A and in various
areas of finance, including structured finance.
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, with its largest offices located in New York and
San Francisco, is an expanding global law firm, with offices throughout the United
States and in Tokyo, London, Paris, Milan and Rome. Orrick opened its Tokyo office
in 1997 and quickly built successful Tokyo-based project finance and real estate
practices. In more recent years, the firm has established itself as a leader in the
Japanese and “ex-Japan Asian” securitization markets, and has been building a
broad-ranging, Japanese-law-focused corporate practice. Orrick is growing its
Japanese-law practice and its presence in Tokyo at a time when it is anticipated
that imminent regulatory changes will allow international law firms to broaden the
scope of the business that they do in Japan, and to directly hire lawyers who are
licensed to practice Japanese law.
Mr. Ogiso was at MYWM for seven years, where he focused on high-end corporate,
financial and transactional work – with a focus on M&A – primarily for
Japanese corporations and Japanese investment banks and other financial
institutions. He also has been involved in Japanese securitization and finance work.
Before joining MYWM, Mr. Ogiso was with another leading Tokyo law firm, Kojima Law
Offices. From 1991 to 1994, he was in United States, where he earned an LL.M. from
New York University Law School and passed the New York State Bar Examination, and
also worked with various U.S. law firms in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los
Angeles.
Earlier in his career, from 1985 to 1988, he was an assistant judge who sat on the
bench of the Maebashi District and Family Court, where he heard a variety of civil
and criminal cases.
“We are extremely excited by the addition of Mr. Ogiso to our Tokyo office,”
said Howard Goldwasser, partner in charge of Orrick’s Tokyo office. “It marks
another important step in the growth and maturation of Orrick’s Japanese-law
capability, and Mr. Ogiso brings with him top-notch, corporate and financial
transactional expertise.”
To accommodate Orrick’s rapid growth, the firm recently relocated to Izumi Garden
Tower in central Tokyo’s Minato Ward. The new offices have more than double the
square footage of the firm’s previous offices. Orrick now has more than 25 lawyers
in Japan, and the firm’s practices include real estate finance, securitization and
other structured finance transactions, distressed debt portfolio transactions,
general corporate and commercial matters, intellectual property, mergers and
acquisitions, joint ventures and project finance. The firm’s previous office was
in the Akasaka Twin Towers, also in Tokyo’s Minato Ward.
