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O’Melveny Partners Melody Drummond Hansen and Eric Sibbitt are Named “2020 California Trailblazers”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SILICON VALLEY AND SAN FRANCISCO—November 5, 2020—O’Melveny partners Melody Drummond Hansen and Eric Sibbitt have been named to The Recorder’s list of “2020 California Trailblazers,” which recognizes practitioners who are “agents of change” and “have made significant marks on the practice, policy and technological advancement” of their areas of law.

Drummond Hansen, chair of O’Melveny’s Automated & Connected Vehicles practice, advises clients on pending and potential regulatory issues involving autonomous vehicles as well as artificial intelligence, location services technology, and other areas. She said the coronavirus outbreak has helped demonstrate why driverless cars are so important to the future: “We’re seeing in real time the tax of having humans go about delivering goods in a pandemic when we’re worried about human interaction…Autonomous vehicles have a lot to offer to solve those kinds of challenges.”

Sibbitt, chair of O’Melveny’s Financial Technology practice, is one of the leading practitioners in the cryptocurrency field, called upon by leading digital asset trading platforms, blockchain-based businesses, and investors to interpret and navigate the guidance, case law, and policy pronouncements that regulate this new and dynamic industry.

In 2019, Sibbitt advised on the formation of the Crypto Rating Council, an association of leading companies in the blockchain space. The Crypto Rating Council created guidelines to help industry stakeholders analyze the many considerations relevant to how certain digital assets may be classified under the U.S. federal securities laws. In this evolving marketplace, Sibbitt noted that the Crypto Rating Council, “has helped a lot of participants think more methodically about how to take into account and operationalize the guidance that has been provided by regulators and case law and apply it to the novel questions presented by transformative new digital technologies.”

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