Joseph Orien is an associate in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  He currently practices in the firm’s Corporate Department.

Prior to joining the firm, he clerked for the Honorable Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Mr. Orien earned his Juris Doctor summa cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Brigham Young University Law Review and received the John S. Welch Award for Outstanding Legal Writing.  During law school, he served as a judicial intern for the Honorable Matthew B. Durrant of the Utah Supreme Court.  Mr. Orien graduated with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Accounting from Brigham Young University.  While at Brigham Young University, he directed an organization responsible for providing thousands of low income individuals with income tax filing assistance.

Mr. Orien is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Representative Transactions

• Counsel to Sony Pictures Television Networks in its agreement to acquire a substantial majority stake in Japanese anime distributor Funimation Productions, Ltd.
• Counsel to Atmos Energy in its acquisition of a natural gas pipeline and related assets from EnLink Midstream and its disposition of its energy marketing subsidiary to CenterPoint Energy
• Counsel to Edge Natural Resources, LLC in its formation of a joint venture focused on small-cap upstream oil and gas investments
• Counsel to CenterOak Partners LLC in its acquisitions of Wetzel’s Pretzels and Full-Speed Automotive
• Counsel to FAM AB, owned by the three largest Wallenberg Foundations, in connection with its investment in Swedish packaging manufacturer Nefab
• Counsel to French pharmaceutical company Virbac SA in its acquisition of assets from Eli Lilly
• Counsel to Brazos Private Equity Partners in connection with acquisitions of multiple portfolio companies
• Counsel to D.R. Horton in its acquisition of a controlling interest in publicly-traded Forestar Group, Inc.