Valerie A. Fontaine earned her JD from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings) and her BA, Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, from UCLA. She was on the Editorial Board of COMM/ENT, a Journal of Communications and Entertainment Law. Valerie practiced law with a prominent Los Angeles law firm and entered the legal search profession in 1981. Valerie is past Secretary to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants (NALSC) and former Chair of its Newsletter Committee. She currently serves as a consultant to NALSC headquarters.
Attorneys who join a firm laterally make partner faster than “homegrowns,” those who joined right after law school graduation, according to statistics followed by Leopard Solutions since 2012. That gap has been consistent and widening over the past decade. Why is it that laterals do better than home grown attorneys? We don’t know for sure…
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Special Recruitment Supplement to the Daily Journal, July 28, 2025
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Successful lateral partner recruiting is about more than just hiring good lawyers—it’s about gaining good clients. You must show top talent why they should join your firm rather than your competition. Then you must keep them happy long-term by providing the platform they need to bring over their existing clients, properly service them, and expand…
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The 2025 Am Law 100 survey results are out and they show dramatic changes in how BigLaw is structured and operated. These changes are so transformative that the reasonable expectations of lawyers, based on the previous reality, may be unfulfilled. Those lawyers may end up believing that the promises made to them in law school…
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