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 Secretary to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants (NALSC) and Chairs its Newsletter Committee.
Originally published on LawJobs.com. There’s no question that COVID-19 changed the world and your interviewing strategy should reflect this new reality. Prospective employers can learn much about the candidates under consideration by exploring how they handled the resultant business shutdown. Digging deeper into lateral prospects’ work experience during the pandemic and their reactions to the…
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As corporate clients more often consider the diversity and inclusion policies of law firms when selecting counsel to represent them, competition to recruit minority talent is fierce. To satisfy their desire for outside counsel that meet their desired diversity and inclusion goals, general counsel expand their searches to include smaller, local, and regional firms. Specifically,…
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The conversation around diversity and inclusion in the legal profession changed over the past several decades. When the principals of SeltzerFontaineLLC entered the legal search profession in the early 1980s, diversity was a topic we brought up to the hiring authorities at major law firms and corporate legal departments rather than the other way around.…
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If your law firm is eligible but lacks certification as a woman-, minority-, veteran-, or other diversity-owned or small business, you may be missing out on valuable business opportunities. Most governmental entities now mandate that their vendors and their vendors’ suppliers are not only diverse, but also are certified as such. Hence, many private businesses…
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