When clients of top global law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliff need a cybersecurity expert, they turn to partner Joseph “Joe” Santiesteban, a West Valley College alumnus.
“Companies call me usually the moment they find out they've been hacked,” Santiesteban said.
When a security breach is discovered, an urgent to-do list faces clients, from contacting law enforcement and regulators to notifying investors and customers. Santiesteban helps them navigate next steps, legal questions, and a resolution.
“Our goal is to be a partner in crisis management and give them a strategy in a way that protects their brand and business and mitigates legal risk,” he said.
Santiesteban joined Orrick in 2019. He was named partner three years later, a fraction of the time it takes most up-and-coming lawyers to achieve similar status. His rapid rise as a cyber, privacy, and data innovation expert likely would not have occurred without the three years he studied at West Valley in his early 20s.
“I went from being the kid who hated school, sitting in the back,” said Santiesteban, who left high school at 16. “To being in the front, doing all my reading, wanting to talk about it—and talk more.”
The more a subject challenged him, Santiesteban said, the more interested he became.
“Every class I enjoyed and looked forward to,” he said. “I really had a lot of fun there.”
At West Valley, Santiesteban developed a distinct pattern for learning “hard” subjects. Step 1: earn a poor grade; Step 2: seek tutoring; Step 3: study, practice, repeat; Step 4: achieve subject mastery; earn all A’s.
His first WVC course? English with faculty Leslie Saito-Liu. He got a C on his first assignment, then went to her for help until he earned an A.
“It set the tone for my experience there working with professors; that I wasn’t alone,” Santiesteban said.
He credits English Instructor Bill Davis with helping him deepen his thinking and his approaches to writing and analysis. “He spent a ton of time with me after class and in office hours,” Santiesteban said. “He was the one who helped me edit all my college applications.”
West Valley is also where Santiesteban met economics faculty Sam Liu, who shaped his academic and professional fate. Liu inspired him to major in economics and provided deep dive tutoring and sage advice.
“He was a great student—confident and with a sense of humor,” recalls Liu. “Always eager to learn and listen. (Joe) showed a lot of grit and determination to come back to school after several years and to be open to any and all opportunities and challenges that came his way.”
By his second year at WVC, Santiesteban was transfer-ready for a Cal State campus or Santa Clara University. His true aspiration, though, he confided to Liu: attend UC Berkeley. But he’d need more credits—and a job.
Liu helped Santiesteban chart his academic path and introduced him to a Genentech hiring manager. Santiesteban joined the biotech firm’s Research Contracts department, where he assisted in the licensing process around securing materials needed for research.
“I had zero qualifications for this job,” Santiesteban said.
As he’d done at West Valley, however, he buckled down and learned what he needed to, gaining a love for negotiating and navigating contracts.
His inquisitiveness and enthusiasm won over veteran colleagues. They mentored Santiesteban for three years while he earned a bachelor’s degree in political economy with high honors at UC Berkeley. Then once he graduated from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2014, they sent him to work for their own mentor at another company, a computer engineer who saw potential in the then-fledgling field of cybersecurity. Santiesteban’s course was set.
He was recently named a 2024 Rising Star by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association and a Lawdragon Magazine top 500 “Next Generation” lawyer. He also co-leads Orrick’s Latinx Inclusion Network and serves on the firm’s Pro Bono Committee.
His successes have not diminished Santiesteban’s connection to his West Valley roots.
Whenever Liu refers a promising student to him, Santiesteban is eager to open his network to a fellow Viking.
The advice he dispenses to students, he said, is simple.
As you leave school, he counsels, you’ll need people to train you. His formula for inspiring others to want to invest in a young professional?
“Be curious and enthusiastic,” he said. “You can learn most things, you can get through most challenges with those things, and those are the qualities that inspire people to invest in you.”
Every West Valley student treads their own pathway, Liu said. He points to Santiesteban as an example of what’s possible with grit, flexibility, and strong connections to faculty, peers, and colleagues.
“You never know when an opportunity will knock on the door and a new pathway is created for you,” Liu said. “Joe’s success is proof there is truly no limit to what you can achieve coming from WVC.”