Debra Valentine Biography

General Counsel, Federal Trade Commission, Pennsylvania Ave. and 6th St., Washington, DC, 20580.

Work Experience.

• General Counsel, Federal Trade Commission, since September, 1997.
• Assistant Director for International Antitrust, International Division, Bureau of Competition, FTC. June 1996 - September 1997.
• Deputy Director for Policy Planning at the FTC, May, 1995 - 1996.
• Associate, Partner, O'Melveny and Meyers.  1985 -1995.
• Attorney, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, 1981-1985.
• Law Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Education.

• J.D., Yale Law School, 1980.  (An Editor of the Yale Law Journal.)
• Fulbright Scholar.
• B.A. (history), Princeton University, 1976.  (Phi Beta Kappa.)

As the FTC’s Assistant Director for International Antitrust, she oversaw the FTC competition staff’s dealings with competition authorities around the world.  She also directed the staff’s work with multilateral organizations such as the WTO, APEC and the OECD in Paris.

As Deputy Director for Policy Planning at the FTC, she coordinated the hearings and supervised and played a substantial role in drafting the report on Competition Policy in the High-Tech, Global Marketplace.

Prior to her position at the FTC, Valentine was a partner at O’Melveny & Myers, where she specialized in complex civil litigation and regulatory matters that often had an international component. She was counsel to Lockheed, CIGNA, United Air Lines, Ford Motor Company and others before courts and agencies in federal antitrust matters. Valentine also was counsel to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority in a constitutional challenge to its governing structure, and counsel to the District of Columbia judges in a federal case involving equal protection and due process issues. While at O’Melveny & Meyers, she was also a consultant to the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa and was a member of the Advisory Council to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies for its Project on Children and TV Violence for The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Valentine was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 1980.

Valentine is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute and the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, as well as a member of the antitrust sections of the ABA and District of Columbia Bar. She also serves as an advisory member of the Board of Directors of The Washington Ballet.

Valentine was born April 16, 1953, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Sources: Federal Trade Commission, West Legal Directory, Martindale Hubbell Legal Directory.