Anna Marie Armstrong Principal anna@ascendsearch.com Direct Dial: (415) 346-1616

Anna Marie Armstrong is the Principal and Founder of Ascend Attorney Search Consultants. Prior to starting up Ascend in March of 2004, she had seven years of experience in the legal search business as a Managing Director at Major, Hagen & Africa. She worked in Major, Hagen & Africa's San Francisco office where she headed up the firm's Diversity Task Force. Anna Marie has successfully placed associates and partners at a wide range of law firms. She has also placed lawyers, including general counsels, at corporations in the high technology, biotechnology, financial services, entertainment and oil and gas industries. Anna Marie was born in San Francisco, California and grew up in Palo Alto where she attended public schools. She received her B.A. in English and American Literature from Brown University in 1986. After graduating from college, she was a legal assistant in Morrison & Foerster's Palo Alto office. She graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law in 1991 where she served as an Associate Editor on the California Law Review. After clerking for the Honorable Earl B. Gilliam on the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Anna Marie joined the San Francisco office of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin as a litigation associate. While practicing, she worked on a variety of complex civil litigation cases including copyright and trademark infringement, insurance and securities fraud and employment discrimination.

Speaking Engagements:

• Free Agency, Lateral Movement and the Minority Partner: A New Reality, Charting Your Own Course, Minority Corporate Counsel Career Conference, September 2003, Leesburg, VA
• So You Want to Be a General Counsel?, ABA Section of Litigation, Committee on Corporate Counsel, Annual Committee Meeting, February 2003, Coral Gables, FL
• You Get What You Negotiate: Understanding the Ways In-House Counsel Are Compensated, Charting Your Own Course, Minority Corporate Counsel Career Conference, September 2002, Leesburg, VA
• 101 Ways to Use Your Law Degree, Boalt Hall Office of Career Services, April 2000, Berkeley, CA
• Anna Marie frequently speaks to law students about the legal job market, resume writing and interviewing techniques.

Articles:

• Interview Intervention - When trying to land that dream job, don't forget the basics, The Daily Journal, September 9, 1999

Professional Memberships:

• American Bar Association
• Black Ivy Alumni League
• Black Recruiters Network Association
• California Minority Counsel Program
• Charles Houston Bar Association

Commentary on the Legal Market:

• "A lot of clients in the last year are asking, 'What are you doing on the diversity front?' or 'In this general counsel search we really expect you to get us people of diverse backgrounds' . . . Law firms are sort of the last bastion . . . they are the last to jump on board and say this is a real issue." Legal recruiters find growth zone selling diversity, San Francisco Business Times, January 23-29, 2004



• "In the past year or two, we have seen an increase in the number of clients that want a diverse group of candidates." Agents of Change - Recruiting firms are focusing on minority attorneys as GCs pressure firms to diversify their ranks, The Recorder, November 12, 2003



• "Attorneys now pick up the phone when recruiters call about openings . . . [it] is 'in' now to look at base salary, money up front, and a company that is stable." Legal eagles seek a safer roost - Dot-com demise turns traditional firms from fusty to feisty, San Francisco Business Times, October 5-11, 2001



• "[A]ll along they've tried to attract people who were enthusiastic about Yahoo and about the Internet, and not just trying to make a quick buck." Advocate @ Yahoo - Jonathan Sobel tries to maintain grace under pressure as Yahoo's GC, The Recorder, June 27, 2001



• "Anna Marie Armstrong, a legal search consultant with San Francisco's Major, Hagen & Africa, who spent four years as an associate at Howard Rice, said the one-office strategy makes for a collegial working environment that is attractive to attorneys." Howard Rice Finds Less Is More - Eschewing merger partners, 135-lawyer firm consolidates outposts while posting record profits, The Daily Journal, March 28, 2001



• "They want to send a message that if you work really hard, we'll take care of you on par with your counterparts . . . What Orrick is doing is realistically looking at the legal market." Orrick Tweaks Its Associate Salary Scale, The Recorder, February 23, 2001



• "There has been a slowdown in hiring for legal positions at dot-coms . . . A number of dot-coms that have managed to survive in their market are scaling back their hiring needs and taking a wait-and-see approach." Chutes and Ladders, Corporate Legal Times, January 2001



• "Anna Marie Armstrong, a legal recruiter with Major Hagen & Africa in San Francisco, said she worked with Lee for a time when he was relocating from New York to California, though she never ultimately placed him at a firm. Lee told Armstrong that a fiancée from Korea had died, which somehow sparked his relocation to San Francisco, Armstrong said. After working with Armstrong for some time, Lee told her he'd obtained an offer from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe without the help of a headhunter. About a year later, Lee called Armstrong again, telling her he was not working at Orrick but at a firm in Los Angeles and wanted to relocate to San Francisco because his fiancée had cancer. 'If it had been true, I didn't want to be insensitive,' Armstrong said. 'But it sounded really fishy.' Armstrong did not help Lee that second time and noted in Lee's file, 'This guy is not to be trusted.'" Puzzler: How an Unlicensed J.D. Fooled So Many - Ex-Wilson Lawyer hired and fired over and over, The Recorder, May 12, 1999