Val Ford Jacob: Playing the long game
Retired Freshfields partner Val Ford Jacob reflects on a five-decade-long career, pioneering maternity leave policy, her philosophy on mentorship, and why she always reads the sports section.
At age 14, Valerie Ford Jacob told her mother she would become a lawyer—without even knowing what lawyers did. A legacy later, that promise has evolved into a five-decade-long career as one of the premier M&A and capital markets attorneys in the world.
Last year, Val sat down to share her remarkable journey: pioneering maternity leave policy as a young associate and mother, co-chairing a firm for over a decade, and ultimately joining Freshfields in 2014 to help build the firm's US corporate practice.
In March of 2026, Val was appointed Chief Legal Officer of USA Rare Earth, where she oversees all legal, regulatory, compliance, and corporate policy matters.
Listen as Val shares wisdom on mentorship, leadership, the importance of being well-read (yes, even the sports pages), why humor matters, and what's next.