On September 11, 2001, Valerie Ford Jacob, a partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, was eating breakfast with some of her partners in the firm’s dining room when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Then, as now, Fried, Frank’s offices were at the very southern tip of Manhattan, less than a mile away. As the building was evacuated, Jacob took it upon herself to make sure that everyone at the firm got out safely, and she patrolled each of Fried, Frank’s eight floors. She couldn’t find one of the lawyers in the capital markets practice group that she headed, so Jacob waited outside the building to see if he would emerge. As she waited, the first tower collapsed, covering her in soot. (That lawyer had been stuck on the subway.) Asked why she assumed this duty, Jacob answers, “It was my natural reaction.”

Since then, Jacob, who is now chairperson, has taken it upon herself to watch over the firm full-time. In March she began her third term as Fried, Frank’s leader, and in the seven years that she has run the firm, Jacob has attempted to reshape it from a New York firm known mostly for mergers and acquisitions work into a more diversified business with expanded and improved practice groups and a bigger international presence. In addition, she spends roughly half her time practicing law as head of the firm’s successful capital markets group.

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