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.
In the current economic environment, especially, General Counsel resist paying high fees for routine, repetitive functions. They realize that some tasks don’t require lawyers, or at least high priced lawyers in traditional law firms, to complete them. Therefore, in order to hang onto as much business as possible, smart law firms minimize the cost of…
Read article
Over the past few decades, law firms transitioned from the traditional partner/associate firm structure towards the model of the large international accounting and consulting firms, with multiple tiers of positions with different titles, duties, and pay levels. Now, there are all sorts of categories of law firm lawyers. In addition to equity and non-equity partners,…
Read article
Regardless of the quality of your work product, how often you’re seen at the office impacts what your superiors and colleagues think of you. With technological advances constantly increasing connectivity, there’s a growing expectation that lawyers are available to work 24/7, with a decreased need to spend time in the office to do so. As…
Read article
The Great Recession sparked radical changes in the legal marketplace, including drastically reduced entry-level and junior associate hiring and the rise of core competency systems for their evaluation, compensation, and advancement. As part of this trend, there is a movement to reevaluate traditional criteria for hiring lawyers at all levels of seniority and possibly to…
Read article