An attorney with fifteen years’ experience in the details that can win and lose cases – from agreement terms to emails – Valerie O’Such specializes in synthesizing and distinguishing facts and discerning both outliers and patterns among them. Growing up in a family with two coal-mining grandfathers in the Anthracite Valley of Northeast Pennsylvania, Valerie learned that grit makes hard things achievable, even when the opposing side has advantages you lack. She understands that litigation, like life, always sends surprises, but with hard work, perseverance, and a few canaries, you can land on top.
A Senior Staff Attorney who straddles the firm’s discovery and complex litigation practices, Valerie uses her expert analytical skills in all aspects of her work. As a member of the firm’s Toxic Torts & Products Liability group, she helped manage a team that drafted responsive pleadings in complex multidistrict litigation and was instrumental in achieving an eightfold increase in output with only minor staff increases. Valerie has performed legal research and writing, information analysis for depositions and discovery, and other tasks relating to the defense of mass tort claims in complex litigation. She also works on the firm’s document management team whose responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the identification, review, and production of electronic documents for the firm’s major products liability, toxic tort, pharmaceutical, and other complex litigation. The team ensures all document productions meet current E-Discovery rules as well as the firm’s exacting QA and QC standards.
Prior to joining the firm, Valerie led teams of up to 150 attorneys in litigation and merger related discovery projects on behalf of major telecommunications clients. She also has drafted dispositive and evidentiary motions for various matters including antitrust, pharmaceutical litigation involving generic drug manufacturers, privacy, torts, and other issues. An experienced legal researcher and writer, Valerie has performed significant pro bono work in domestic violence and immigration issues and helped to create beneficial federal appellate precedent on the definition of “extreme cruelty” under immigration law.
Valerie graduated with honors, and in the top 20% of her law school class, from The George Washington University Law School, where she served as a Member and Articles Editor on law review. She also interned for the Honorable Ann O’Regan Keary in D.C. Superior Court before Judge Keary’s retirement. Valerie received her undergraduate degree, cum laude and with distinction, in English from Yale University.
