Valerie A. Fontaine earned her JD from UC Hastings College of Law 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.
Where the stock market leads, the legal job market follows. The first half of 1998 saw the stock market rise to record levels, and law firm hiring followed suit. Since the downswing in July, and the volatile stock market since then, legal hiring has markedly slowed. Even though the market now is playing around the…
