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.
Your value as a candidate must be readily apparent from a cursory glance at your resume. In practice, most resumes receive only 20 to 30 seconds of scrutiny before the reader makes an initial yes or no decision. Therefore, you must clearly and efficiently communicate your value to the audience which includes not only the…
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Clients are not always pleased when their outside lawyer moves to another law firm because it requires a change in the attorney-client relationship. Either the client must follow the attorney to the new law firm, leave the work with the previous firm and find a new relationship partner, or find a new lawyer and law…
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In most cases, the success of a lateral partner hire is greatly determined by the successful transition of his or her clients. A few years ago, the managing partner of a large law firm announced to a roomful of search firm consultants at a NALSC (National Association of Legal Search Consultants) conference that “We have…
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The skills that make a great rainmaker are not necessarily the same skills that make a great law firm associate. In the first few years, associates are valued for traits similar to those that brought success in law school—the ability to learn quickly and produce massive quantities of quality work. Suddenly, a few years later…
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