SeltzerFontaine is committed to fostering diversity in the legal profession and has a track record of making good on that commitment.
For each search we conduct, SeltzerFontaine strives to present a diverse candidate pool for our clients’ consideration and, as a result, places many minority attorneys with “majority” law firms and corporations. A significant percentage of the candidates placed by SeltzerFontaine are attorneys of color, approximately half of the total placed are female, and several are second-career and reentry candidates.
Since the early 1990’s Valerie Fontaine has written and spoken extensively regarding bias in the legal profession. She developed an MCLE program on that subject which she presented to numerous audiences including law school alumni associations, the California State Bar, Los Angeles County Bar, the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American Corporate Counsel Association, and various other Bar Associations, in addition to delivering the program in-house for several law firms and online.
The recruiters at SeltzerFontaine are actively involved on the boards of several professional, civic, and charitable organizations that give them access to attorneys from diverse backgrounds. In addition to our involvement in “majority” bar associations and professional organizations, through our long-time membership and Board participation with the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, which is an affiliate of the Multi-Cultural Bar Alliance of Southern California, recruiters from SeltzerFontaine have participated in activities of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, the John M. Langston Bar Association of Los Angeles, the Mexican American Bar Association, Latina Lawyers Bar Association, the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association, the LGBT Bar Association of Los Angeles, and others.
SeltzerFontaine is a certified Women Owned Business Enterprise and is a signatory to the Call to Action promulgated by the Los Angeles County Bar Association and Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Joint Task Force on the Retention and Promotion of Women.