Our Team

Charlyn is a seasoned deal lawyer who brings a wealth of experience from the business and legal worlds to her practice. She has deep experience in drafting and negotiating complex commercial agreements, including strategic partnerships, cloud service agreements, data licensing and other technology agreements.  In her practice, she also counsels clients on privacy, cybersecurity, and data issues.

She is dedicated to mentoring and training young lawyers and legal professionals, empowering them to navigate the complex legal and regulatory landscape.  She has been a faculty member of several legal education institutions, including the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Practicing Law Institute (PLI). 

Charlyn has taught courses on contract drafting relating to technology transactions, artificial intelligence and privacy issues to the legal departments of Fortune 10 companies. She is also a Forbes.com contributor and member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council.

Before launching Rikka Academy, Charlyn was a partner in the Technology Transactions & Privacy Group at Perkins Coie, one of the largest law firms in the United States.  Before Perkins Coie, she was an associate at Arent Fox and Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Prior to her life as a lawyer, she cut her teeth negotiating multi-billion dollar contracts in the U.S. Navy to construct, overhaul, refuel and maintain nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. 

Charlyn is currently the Founder and CEO of Rikka, a multidisciplinary organization that includes Rikka Academy, Rikka Law, Rikka Government, and Rikka Insights.

McLean is an experienced deal lawyer with over 20+ years of experience advising on complex technology transactional matters for clients predominantly in the IT, software, telecom, healthcare, and financial services sectors. 

McLean regularly drafts and negotiates a broad range of commercial agreements, including cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS), professional services, reseller, asset transfer, confidentiality, data protection, and technology and IP licensing agreements.