Orrick partner named as top legal aide to new governor

Gov. Gavin Newsom has named Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP partner Analea J. Patterson as his chief deputy legal affairs secretary. She brings a variety of public and private sector experience to the job, both in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

The hiring was announced along with several other new senior staffers on Sunday, one day before Newsom was sworn in. She is Newsom’s second legal appointment, following legal affairs secretary Catherine E. Lhamon.

Patterson was valedictorian of Sacramento’s McGeorge School of Law in 2003 then clerked for U.S. District Judge Frank Damrell of the Eastern District. She joined Orrick in 2005 and made partner in 2014 though she took time off in 2011 to advise to then-state Attorney General Kamala D. Harris.

But she already had extensive policy experience before attending law school. She’d been a deputy political director with the California Democratic Party, policy director for Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and an adviser to Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

“She has policy, administration and legal credentials,” said Lockyer, praising her work at the Department of Justice on the state rape kit DNA database.

Patterson is married to longtime Harris adviser Nathan Barankin, who recently left a job as Harris’ U.S. Senate chief of staff to work for her political action committee. Barankin was also a longtime aide to Lockyer, who officiated their wedding.

“They both went to law school while they were working at the attorney general’s office,” Lockyer said. “So they’re people that are capable of very long work hours.”

Patterson also helped raise funds for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and was a Democratic elector from California in that election.

Most recently, she was a partner in Orrick’s Public Policy Group in Washington, working for clients in the telecommunications, pharmaceutical and financial sectors.

She’s also enjoyed legislative success in Sacramento, leading a pro bono team at Orrick that lobbied to make sexual extortion a crime in California; Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 500 in 2017. The bill was sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association and Legal Momentum, a group that has also been pushing a similar federal law. Patterson has become a widely-quoted expert on the topic of “sextortion.”