José María Valiente Soriano was born in the small Valencian town of Chelva to a petty bourgeoisie family; the son of José Valiente y Soriano and Micaela Soriano Alcaide, he had two sisters.
José María studied law first at the Universidad Central (later Universidad Complutense) in Madrid, to continue his juridical research with postgraduate doctoral thesis at the prestigious Università di Bologna (where he met Ramón Serrano Súñer, who was also studying jurisprudence).