[EO San Francisco] Balancing Motherhood, Mental Health, and Business Growth With Valerie Fenchel

Valerie Fenchel is the Founding Attorney and CEO of Fenchel Family Law, a San Francisco-based firm that helps clients navigate divorce, custody, and other complex family law matters. She advises clients, crafts strategies, and collaborates with therapists, actuaries, and forensic accountants to resolve disputes. Valerie also serves as the Secretary of the Jewish Bar Association of San Francisco and leads pro bono legal efforts for survivors of domestic abuse.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [02:56] Why Valerie Fenchel was drawn to rules and fairness from a young age, and how that shaped her path into law
• [04:23] What Valerie learned from failing the bar exam on her first try, and how she bounced back
• [06:38] How working at an electronic discovery company taught Valerie unexpected business skills and introduced her to early AI tools
• [09:23] Key steps for launching and growing a family law firm from the ground up
• [16:58] Strategies for scaling a remote law practice while balancing motherhood and mental health

In this episode…

Growing a thriving business while raising young children can feel like an impossible balancing act. Add the emotional weight of leading a law firm through a pandemic, and it becomes even more challenging. How can entrepreneurs protect their mental health while managing explosive growth and the demands of family life?

According to Valerie Fenchel, a seasoned family law entrepreneur, the key lies in embracing resilience and setting clear boundaries. She highlights how early career setbacks, such as failing the bar exam and navigating a male-dominated tech environment, built the grit needed to start her own practice. Launching a fully remote firm before the pandemic allowed her to adapt quickly when it hit and positioned her business for growth. Even while becoming a mother of two and facing the loss of key team members, she doubled her firm by focusing on high-caliber hires and prioritizing mental well-being. Her journey shows that sustainable success comes from aligning personal values with business strategy.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, John Corcoran sits down with Valerie Fenchel, Founding Attorney and CEO of Fenchel Family Law, to discuss balancing motherhood, mental health, and business growth. They explore how to recover from professional setbacks, strategies for scaling a remote law practice, and lessons learned from hiring senior-level attorneys. Valerie also shares insights on protecting mental health while leading through rapid change.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• EO San Francisco
• EO Accelerator
• Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
• John Corcoran on LinkedIn
• Rise25
• Valerie Fenchel: LinkedIn | Email
• Fenchel Family Law

Quotable Moments

• “I always thought I wanted to be a writer, so I was writing these little sample things to submit to publications.”
• “I hired attorneys that had like 20, 30 years experience to work at my firm so that I felt like the most immature person in the room.”
• “I never got angry or upset about it, I just said, okay, I’m gonna figure this out.”
• “I ended up doubling my firm because I was so responsible where I found really, really high-caliber, incredible attorneys.”
• “Mental health is this huge elephant in the room that no one really wants to talk about.”

Action Steps

1. Embrace setbacks as learning opportunities: Turning failures like an initial bar exam loss into lessons builds resilience and confidence.
2. Hire for experience and expertise: Bringing in senior-level talent raises service quality and strengthens the firm’s reputation from day one.
3. Prioritize mental health in business planning: Protecting emotional well-being prevents burnout and supports sustainable long-term growth.
4. Adapt operations for remote flexibility: Building a paperless and remote-ready firm enables continuity and rapid response to unexpected crises.
5. Align personal values with business strategy: Ensuring your company reflects your principles creates a stronger mission and lasting motivation.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran: 00:12

All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m one of the co-hosts of this show. And you know, every week we feature smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies.

And this episode is brought to you by EO San Francisco, which is the Bay area chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which is a global peer to peer network of more than 20,000 influential business owners across 200 chapters, 60 countries. And if you were the founder, co founder, owner or controlling shareholder of a company that generates over $1 million a year in revenues, and you want to connect with other like minded successful entrepreneurs, EO is for you. And if you want to learn more about how you can belong or how you can attend a test drive to check it out, you can go to ios14 and contact us through that website. And I am John Corcoran. I’m a member of the board of EO San Francisco. 

 I’m also the co-chair of membership. And I’m the Founder of a company called Rise25, which helps businesses to start podcasts and rise 25. Com is our website. Our guest here today is Valerie Fenchel. She’s the CEO and Founder founding attorney at Fenchel Family Law, P.C. she leads this San Francisco based law firm focused exclusively on family law, oversees a team of attorneys and support staff. 

 And we’re going to get into her whole backstory and the difficulties of of building a firm while having two young babies at home, a pandemic and a new marriage and all that kind of stuff. So, Valerie, really excited to have you here today. And I always love to ask people about what they were like as a kid and any entrepreneurial ventures that they had. And you declined to answer that question. And you said instead, what’s important about me is I was an angry and emotional toddler, which which honestly, I’m a recovering attorney, so I can say is probably good preparation for being a practicing attorney. 

 But tell us a little bit about young Valerie and these tantrums that you had all the time?

Valerie Fenchel: 02:04

Yeah, I think I think when I was, I was told when I was two years old, I just, you know, I, I think I just felt misunderstood and I, I think I was very attention seeking and I was the third, you know, I was the youngest of three. So now that I’m a mom of two, I can kind of see how that happened where I want attention. Yeah, I probably didn’t get all of the the fame and notoriety and applause as I believed I was worthy of. But, you know, yeah, I wasn’t starting any businesses. I was more internally focused, certainly as a toddler.

And then. Yeah.

John Corcoran: 02:39

And and you said and this is super common amongst attorneys that I’ve interviewed, is you said that I was more focused in, in doing and right and wrong and teaching my older brother about what was right and what was wrong, which is super common amongst attorneys. Like, they’re just really kind of focused on following the rules.

Valerie Fenchel: 02:56

Yeah, I would just yeah, I always like believe that I had the secret how to’s of how to do something, and I wanted someone to listen. So sometimes it was like my American Girl dolls that were really my best audience.

John Corcoran: 03:10

Yeah. So you, you and you, actually, you and I at same alma mater both went to UC Santa Barbara. Beautiful place. Go, gauchos. And we went from there.

You went directly into law school, which is not all that common. A lot of times people take a year or two off or something like that. So you’re probably pretty young when you’re heading over to law school at UC Davis.

Valerie Fenchel: 03:30

Yeah, I think I was like 21. I definitely wasn’t excited for it whatsoever. I wanted to take time off, but I just, you know, I plunged in, I did the deep dive.

John Corcoran: 03:39

Why was it why did you just keep going?

Valerie Fenchel: 03:41

I think my parents wanted me to. And I said, okay, you know?

John Corcoran: 03:44

Yeah. You regret it.

Valerie Fenchel: 03:47

I don’t know, it’s hard to say. The road less traveled, you know, or not taken. You know, I don’t know what that would have led to, you know, maybe I would have been a degenerate waitress at a seafood restaurant and never made anything on myself. You know, I kind of doubt it, but, you know, I don’t know. I don’t regret it.

I guess, because I’m. I’m happy with where I landed. Yeah, but it’s it’s hard to say. Right?

John Corcoran: 04:09

Yeah. I mean, UC Davis top law school like a super competitive, hard to get into. So you go there and then you actually didn’t pass the bar on the first try, which must have been a bit of a setback.

Valerie Fenchel: 04:23

Yeah. It didn’t feel good. I can tell you that. I was at a some kind of wine event with my friends from law school, and we were all checking our bar results on our iPhone, and my name wasn’t there. So I remember talking to my grandma.

John Corcoran: 04:36

So you’re there with all your peers? Oh, it’s the worst. Oh, man.

Valerie Fenchel: 04:41

Yeah. I remember my friend being like, well, what did you expect? Because I really.

John Corcoran: 04:44

Didn’t.

Valerie Fenchel: 04:44

Study. She didn’t. She saw me, like jogging and laying by her pool. And also, I really I don’t know, I always thought I wanted to be a writer, so I was like, writing these little, like, sample things to submit to, like, publications. I mean, I was doing anything but studying for the bar.

So the second time around, you know, I studied more and I passed. But yeah, I was definitely very embarrassing for sure. Yeah. Feel like a loser.

John Corcoran: 05:10

I checked my results at home with my wife. I was so nervous that day that she took me to the pound to play with puppies. She said that was the only thing she could think of that would calm me down and get me to focus. And then we also had some friends there like a week earlier, were like unrelated to the bar coming out on that day were like, come to dinner that night. And we were like, no, I can’t do it.

Like too nervous about it. Like just we had to cancel all plans. And then I got my results. I passed and then and we’re like, I was like, okay, all right, we’ll go to dinner. And you know. 

 So it ended up being kind of like a celebratory thing. But I have a different version of your story. I stopped checking my grades in law school midway through law school, did not check my grades after, I think second, you know, term of like midway through second year of law school because it was stressing me out too much and because I figured that, you know what? I’m not. I don’t ever want to work for a firm where, like, they’re going to check my grades, and that will determine whether they hire me or not. 

 I was not interested in that. And so that was my way of kind of like rebelling against the process.

Valerie Fenchel: 06:12

Well, I don’t think checking my grades made me perform any better.

John Corcoran: 06:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I you know, they didn’t stop me from walking at graduation, so I assume that I passed the classes. Yeah. So you go and you, you graduate, and you actually, you worked for an electronic discovery company for a year. Yeah.

Where you learn some things outside of, you know, black letter law, so to speak. Tell us about that.

Valerie Fenchel: 06:38

Yeah, I didn’t I hadn’t passed the bar or actually, I don’t even think I had my bar exam results back yet. I think I just wanted to make money so I could move out of my parents house, because I was living with them in the suburbs of Walnut Creek, and I was just like, I really want to be able to afford a place in San Francisco and have fun with my friends. So I got this job, and I think my law degree helped me get it, and they made me a consultant. Yeah. And it was.

It was fascinating. You know, of the CEO actually went to Santa Barbara, so we had that in common, too. But he had a fast growing company where there was no guardrails. He was just figuring it out, you know, and it was really fascinating to see what that was like. But it was also very uncomfortable because I, you know, there wasn’t any other female consultants in his company and it just sometimes didn’t feel good, I guess. 

 There was, you know, some dynamics there. But I learned a lot as far as running a business that I didn’t even realize I had learned because, you know, it was I didn’t really enjoy some aspects of the job. But after the fact, once I started my firm, I was like, oh, wait, I was able to do these rules in Excel. I know how to, you know, it’s like this different side of your brain that’s kind of fun to play with.

John Corcoran: 07:50

Yeah, that kind of. So I graduated from law school in 2007, and I remember a lot of my classmates went into document review like literal physical document review, where they went into a room full of boxes and boxes of papers.

Valerie Fenchel: 08:04

This document reviews. That was part of my job.

John Corcoran: 08:06

But it was electronic. Was it scanning it?

Valerie Fenchel: 08:09

I don’t know. I had all these attorneys sitting at desks. Oh.

John Corcoran: 08:12

You did.

Valerie Fenchel: 08:12

Hello. This is what we will be doing today. And I would then I would like design the workflows on this software program. I’d have like these like export excels of reports and.

John Corcoran: 08:22

Wow. Wow. But I mean, at least so like in the last, you know, 16, 17 years since, you know, being at the point where it was all lawyers reading things, trying to find some clause that they’re looking for to now at least scanning electronic like that’s.

Valerie Fenchel: 08:38

Ahead of their time. They were using AI back then. Wow. Fascinating. Wow.

Like Andy Jimenez who is the CEO, he was really, like doing cool things there. And yeah, but a lot of I remember a lot of the big law firms were like, we don’t we don’t know about this. But he knew it was going somewhere.

John Corcoran: 08:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Valerie Fenchel: 08:56

Predictive coding or something. It was pretty.

John Corcoran: 08:58

Cool. That’s really ahead of its time. Way ahead of its time. Yeah, yeah. So tell us about you.

You you go and you practice for a few years, and then you get to this point where you were really into watching Shark Tank, and you also had a entrepreneurial fiance at the time. And you get this idea to start your own firm. Tell, tell. Take us back to that.

Valerie Fenchel: 09:23

Yeah. I was working for this firm in San Francisco. The boutique firm. My my boss was lovely. I really still admire her.

And think about what would Esther do, you know, but it just. I think maybe I’d outgrown the firm. I had brought in my own book of business, and I really needed associate attorneys to help. And I just wanted to run the cases the way I wanted to, I guess, where I could take vacations and I wouldn’t need to work through them. So I, you know, my mom had her own family law firm. 

 I was growing up. My dad had his own CPA firm. I had lots of friends that had started their own family law firms, maybe like 3 or 4. So it didn’t seem like something that was impossible. You know, it seemed like something I could totally do. 

 I just didn’t know if I had the legal experience because I think I had, like, I don’t know, like five years or something. I didn’t have like ten years, you know. Yeah.

John Corcoran: 10:16

But I was similar like 3 or 4 years. And I found that what helped me was thinking about the fact that for generations people have lawyers, have like gone to law school or in many cases didn’t go to law school like learned through mentorship and then practice in some small town where they had no one to mentor them. And, you know, it’s only more recent days where especially in these urban areas like San Francisco, where there’s this expectation that if you’re going to start your own law firm, you’re going to practice for like ten years before you do that. But I definitely I was like you or I felt self-conscious about starting a law firm with only like 3 or 4 years experience.

Valerie Fenchel: 10:53

What I did is I, I hired attorneys that had like 20, 30 years experience to work at my firm so that I felt like the most immature person in the room, and that really helped me feel super confident and super excited about the level of legal services I was able to provide, where clients wouldn’t be receiving that at other law firms in San Francisco because I you know, I think most law firms, family law firms, at least the owner of the firm is the most experienced attorney. And so the associate attorney the client works with is kind of an amateur. So I kind of flipped it and made it a little different so that I would have the 100% confidence, like, yeah, I got you. You know.

John Corcoran: 11:34

So you must have gotten good at at signing up clients from, from the start. In order to be able to afford to hire, you know, very experienced attorneys to work under you in this firm to give them business. Why do you think that you were good at getting clients to sign up with your firm, especially in the early years when you didn’t have, you know, 20 years of experience?

Valerie Fenchel: 11:58

Yeah, I think I’ve always had this. I don’t know this thing in me. I guess where I really connect with people’s dark sides and I have this, like, deep desire to help and to, like, change someone’s life. I don’t know, I just it’s like a piece of my makeup or something. So I think during initial strategy sessions with clients, I just, you know, I step into that power and it’s the way I’ve been able to really, you know, help clients when I was doing the legal services.

And it’s the way I’ve been able to kind of create these workflows and templates and orchestrate, you know, the kind of unseen part of the client’s journey. Now that I kind of own the business, but I don’t think it’s bringing in or I guess, yeah, you have to be good at bringing in business to grow your firm. But I think the choice to hire more experienced attorneys versus less experienced attorneys, I don’t think that’s due to the ability to bring in firm. I think it’s just a business decision because I think if you have a more experienced high caliber attorneys, you know they’ll have a higher billable rate because they’re senior level versus taking in a really amateur, two year experienced attorney, right. You’re going to be billing them at a lower rate. 

 And then you’ll they’ll get a lower salary. Right. So I think it’s yeah.

John Corcoran: 13:15

Tell us the story about so you’re engaged to be married. And this entrepreneurial fiance gives you the idea to start your own firm. You call off the wedding and you decide to turn the wedding into a party. That’s a fundraiser.

Valerie Fenchel: 13:29

Yeah, yeah. You know, he was like my champion, you know, because when you’re working at a firm, sometimes you feel so spent and depleted just doing the legal work and then trying to have a personal life that the idea of having the energy and the space in your life to start a business just feels like, ridiculous, you know? But he was always telling me how smart and capable and amazing I was and what I could do and what I could accomplish. Kind of like, poke me. So, you know that I think coupled with watching Shark Tank and being like, that’s so cool.

It made me want to do it. But, you know, I think that as I built my business and I, it really changed, I think a bit of my personality and who I was and what I wanted in my life where we stopped, you know, rowing the same way. Right. So that, you know, our you know, we weren’t going to be able to have a successful marriage or family. Right. 

 But so that was really hard. And that was pretty soul crushing and a big identity shift for me when it turned out that I wasn’t gonna be married and be on this certain trajectory. Instead, I was going to be single again. But the, you know, the deposit had already been paid for the party. And I just there’s just something in me where I have a really hard time, I guess. 

 A I love a party, so I didn’t want to let the party go. I’m a social person. I always want to have a good time, but b it just felt like this defining moment for me of like, okay, you’re calling off this life that you’ve always thought you wanted, like for a very long time. Now all of a sudden, your identity is changing. You’re not looking for a breadwinner to take care of you. 

 And what? Who are you and what are you about? And how are you going to change this narrative for yourself? So for me, like having it be a fundraiser to raise money for victims of domestic violence, in one part it felt really great for me. Like, oh, I’m really creating this great narrative for myself, and I feel powerful doing this. 

 And I gave a speech at the fundraiser and all these people came. We raised a bunch of money. It felt really cool. But my biggest regret was the cause. I think the raising money for victims of domestic violence made it seem like I was the victim of domestic violence. 

 Super unfortunate.

John Corcoran: 15:47

Oh, so people were like, oh, I’m so sorry kind of thing.

Valerie Fenchel: 15:49

No, he was great. So that that was really a miss on my end. But at the same time, it is a cause I deeply care about. And I do feel like Because I had the financial security that really did weigh in to me making, you know, like me feeling more confident in myself. And so it really did make me have this highest level of compassion for these women that have nothing financially and are being abused, you know, and stuck in these relationships because I was, you know, I felt like I was the polar opposite and so privileged.

So I wanted to do something, make something good, you know, create something of value out of something that otherwise just felt like a loss and a waste.

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