ABA Search and Staffing - About Us: Team Bios

Main Guiding Principles Team Bios President's Letter Location Information

Team Bios

Legal Specialists. Recruitment Experts. Unique Individuals.

At ABA Search & Staffing we have assembled a unique team of highly skilled and dedicated recruiters. While we all have diverse personalities, as a group we are energized by the legal industry, passionate about staffing, and committed to the success of our clients and candidates.

It's our pleasure to introduce the ABA team. We look forward to working with you.

Management

Valli F. Farmaian (valli@ABALegalSearch.com)
Valli is the founder and President of ABA Staffing, Inc. He was born in Philadelphia, PA, and attended high school at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts before receiving his BA in communications from University of New Hampshire. He earned his MBA from Suffolk University in Boston and then moved to the Bay Area in 1982. That year, Valli joined the staffing industry as a sales professional with Adia Personnel Services. In 1984, he was promoted to Branch Manager and was charged with opening and managing a new Adia office in San Francisco. Valli rapidly built this local office into the 8th most profitable branch of more than 500 Adia offices across the nation.

In 1986, driven by his desire to provide more personalized and effective staffing services, Valli founded ABA. His philosophy for the new company was to make a more significant investment in really getting to know ABA's clients and employment candidates to make better job placements. Long before advanced staffing and resume software packages had been widely adopted, ABA abandoned the traditional paper-based placement process and built a database of detailed, multi-dimensional candidate and employer profiles. "One of the keys to our success, which still holds true today, is to process more information, more quickly, and more accurately," he said.

Valli lives in Hillsborough, CA with his wife, Mandy (who is also his business partner), two sons, and a black lab.

Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: Hiking in Purisima Park and snow skiing (although he prefers Utah!).

Favorite quote: "Move with the times and swing with the changes."

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Mandy Yazdi Farmaian (mandy@ABALegalSearch.com)
As one of the key individuals responsible for ABA's business efforts, Mandy has been instrumental in the company's growth since its inception in 1986.

Carving a new niche in 1991, Mandy started the Search division of ABA. ABA Search is now currently retained and engaged in search assignments for major law firms and specialist boutiques, as well as legal departments of various corporations throughout the U.S. Mandy has successfully completed attorney searches in the Life Science, Technology and Financial Institution sectors. She is currently working in and is passionate about the Clean Tech Legal Sector.

Prior to ABA, Mandy worked at Union Bank of California and the Law Offices of Jack Kaiser.

Raised on the Peninsula, Mandy received a bachelor's degree in Political Science and French from the University of California at Berkeley. She also attended Sorbonne University, in Paris, France.

Mandy is an active member of The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives (FEW&E), and the National Association of Legal Search Consultants (NALSC). She is also involved in many charitable organizations in her local community of Hillsborough, California.

Mandy lives on the Peninsula with her husband, two teenage sons and their black lab. She enjoys spending time with her family and friends and her hobbies include oil painting, reading, cooking, and movies. She also enjoys sports, such as skiing, spinning, and hiking.

Favorite Quote: "The only constant is change." - Isaac Asimov

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The Team

Lisa Rocha (lrocha@ABALegalSearch.com)
Lisa Rocha brings 8 years of total recruiting experience to the team. Raised in San Diego, Lisa is now a Northern California transplant, graduating from Stanford University with a degree in Communications. Lisa specializes in Legal Support Staff placement and has worked with top law firms and in house legal departments across the Bay Area. Prior to joining ABA, Lisa was the Northern California Director of Attorney Recruiting for Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart, Oliver & Hedges, LLP and a Recruiting Manager for an international staffing agency. Lisa believes that the key to being a successful recruiter is the ability to know your clients and your candidates and to then put their best interests first. Currently, Lisa resides in Palo Alto, CA where she is an avid fan of Stanford Football, jogging and the occasional wine-tasting trip to Sonoma.

Favorite quote: “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

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Lyn Denend (lyn@ABALegalSearch.com)
Lyn is a California native, born in the south and raised in the north. After attending college at UC Santa Barbara, she moved to San Francisco to enjoy all the city had to offer. Lyn worked at ABA as a recruiter and manager of the company's temporary division from 1989 to 1994 before moving to North Carolina to obtain her MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Upon receiving her degree, Lyn came back to the Bay Area and worked as a management consultant for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young for seven years. She returned to ABA in 2005 on a part-time basis to assist the company with operations improvements, employee training and development, and special projects. When asked why she agreed to rejoin ABA, Lyn said, "It's all about the people, the variety of work, and the fact that there's never a dull moment!" Currently, Lyn lives in Menlo Park with her husband, two children, and two black labs.

Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: Eating out (SF has such great restaurants), going to live performances (music, plays, etc.), wine tasting, and exploring new areas.

Favorite quote: "Live and let live."

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Mary Lynn Seaby (Mary.Lynn@ABALegalSearch.com)
Mary Lynn Seaby is a search and staffing veteran, with nearly 30 years of experience in the industry. She has held nearly every role in our business, including recruiter, manager, multi-office management, operations, training, human resources, and IT Director. For 11 years, she ran her own company as a Consultant to the Staffing Industry, providing automation and operations advice, support, and project management to firms across the nation. Her staffing and recruiting expertise ranges across many disciplines, including IT and Technical, Accounting and Finance, Health Care, and now the Legal field. After a long relationship with ABA, both as a business colleague and as a consultant, she joined the firm in September of 2008 to become a Search Director.

Mary Lynn was born in upstate N.Y. and holds a B.A. in Social Psychology from Cornell University. She moved to California in 1973 and now considers herself a "near-native". Her previous career was in social services, mostly Head Start programs, before moving to San Francisco in 1978 to join the business world. "The search business got in my blood", she's fond of saying, "and now it's here to stay."

Mary Lynn and her husband Bob live in the Kings Mountain Community of Woodside, CA, and are "empty-nesters", (with the exception of three golden retrievers and a cat!) having raised four children who are now all in their 20s. Her favorite things to do are soap-making (her "self-sustaining hobby"), reading voraciously, book clubs, gourmet cooking, collecting fine wine, and communing with her animals.

Favorite Quote: "My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am." (Anonymous).

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Tim Talbott (Tim@ABALegalSearch.com)
Tim Talbott is the Operations Coordinator at ABA Search & Staffing. He oversees all of ABA's internal office functions, in addition to handling all contract employee matters, marketing and special projects.

Tim joined ABA in early 2008, after being drawn to the firm's core value of providing the highest quality professional service, with a unique, personable touch. He appreciates ABA's focus on maintaining a "positive mental attitude," and likes the fact that when ABA is successful, everyone involved comes away a winner.

Originally from Bend, Oregon, Tim relocated to the Bay Area from Boulder, Colorado, where he received his M.A. from Naropa University. While in Colorado, he worked as a tax paraprofessional, in a role where he assisted hundreds of clients in resolving their business and personal tax liability matters.

After completing his undergraduate degree in Business Administration at The College of Idaho, Tim served for two years in the U.S. Peace Corps, as a Small Business Advisor, in the West Indian island of Dominica.

Tim loves new experiences, inspiring music, excellent food, traveling and engaging with different cultures, reading, as well as participating in and watching various sporting events. He is happily engaged and will be married in June of 2009.

Favorite Quote: "Generosity is the virtue that produces peace." - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

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Management
Valli F. Farmaian
Mandy Yazdi Farmaian

The Team
Lisa Rocha
Lyn Denend
Mary Lynn Seaby
Tim Talbott