Carrie Fogliani takes a different approach in this episode by sitting down not with a mother-in-law but with a father-in-law. She chats with John Polzer, the managing partner of Duane Morris‘ Dallas and Fort Worth offices, to share insights on fatherhood, parenting, and leadership. He talks about balancing the overwhelming world of litigation and his responsibilities as a father, keeping himself within reach of his children despite his hectic schedule. John also explains what it takes for law firms to transform their cultures to make the profession more sustainable for parents, enabling them to better guide their children as they grow up and pursue their dreams.
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The Father In Law: John Polzer On Parenthood, Partnership & Practice
Welcome back to the show, where we talk honestly about motherhood, caregiving, leadership, and the legal profession. This episode is a little bit different, and it’s one that I’ve been especially excited to have. I am joined by John Polzer, the managing partner of Duane Morris‘ Dallas and Fort Worth offices. He is a proud father of four and recently named one of the best lawyers in America for 2026.
John is our very first very brave father-in-law guest, and he brings exactly the perspective that this conversation needs. A law firm leader who is intentional about listening to mothers, supporting working parents, and challenging the idea that caregiving is women’s work. He even tunes in to the show as part of that effort. We’re talking about fatherhood, invisible labor, law firm culture, and how leaders can make the profession more sustainable for moms and dads. John, thank you so much for being here.
Welcome back to the show. This episode, you will notice, is a little bit different, and someone that I have been very excited to have. We have our first very brave father-in-law who has decided that he is coming on this show. His name is John Polzer. He is the managing partner of Duane Morris‘ Dallas and Fort Worth offices. He is a very proud father of four and actually was recently named one of the best lawyers in America for 2026. I already knew that. He is one of my favorite lawyers to work with and my go-to for really trusted advice and with clients that I care deeply about.
That is how I got to know John, who has really been so courageous in coming on and sharing a really important perspective that I think we need to fixate on. He is a law firm leader who is intentional about listening to mothers and supporting working parents, and he is challenging the idea that caregiving is only women’s work by his own actions in his own family. He even tunes in to the show as part of this effort. We are talking about fatherhood, invisible labor, law from culture, and how leaders can make the profession more sustainable for moms and for dads.
Thanks for having me, Carrie. I do tune in to the show, so it will be when it pops up on my feed, and I see my name. That is going to be a weird moment.
Yes. It is a very proud moment for us because I think you’re bringing to the conversation something so important, and I honestly was very almost taken aback by you sharing that you listened in as part of your efforts in a law firm in a as a in a a very high leadership role to be thoughtful about how we approach parents especially mothers who are coming back going out on leave. We will get into that conversation because I think you have such an important perspective. I do thank you for taking the time also for being here.
The timing was great. We’re working together, and you just happened to send me a Mothers-in-Law Yeti cup, right? This was last year. The timing was great, Carrie, because I looked at it and I said, “I am going to listen to this.” What I started to think about was I knew I was going to be taking over the role of managing these women in my office that you know are moms, could be moms, maybe they’re thinking about being moms and I thought, “This is a great way for me to get perspective on what I am about to walk into and being in the leadership of this office.” It was really great timing, and as we have discussed, I have really enjoyed the women that have come on, and I have learned a lot from them.
Looking Back To John’s Career Journey
We’re excited for all that you can share and help teach us from your vantage point. I did want to kind of step back a little bit because one of the wonderful things about this show is we get to know the people that are open to sharing their wisdom and advice. I just would love to learn how you chose a career in the law, whether you were one of those people who thought about this since third grade or how you kind of came into your professional path.
I would say I thought about it probably at the last minute. I come from a family of salesmen on my dad’s side, and my mom was a teacher. As some of your listeners may remember, I graduated from the University of Texas in 2002. If you were in Texas in the spring of 2002, we were dealing not only with 9/11 and the economy after 9/11, but we were also dealing with the fallout from the Enron scandal. The job market in Texas for graduates in 2002 was not good.
At the last minute, I just kind of decided to take the LSAT and look at law school. It was not a plan. I certainly do not have any family who were lawyers. It just looked like a good option. My mom, who was a wonderful elementary school teacher for almost 40 years, really pressed my sisters and me to get further education. She was happy about it. My sister actually went on and got her PhD, and she’s a tenure professor at TCU. My other sister got her master’s degree, and she’s in the education space as well.
If you ask my mom what she’s most proud of, it’s that we got to do what she did not get to do. She wanted more education, and we were able to get that education. While it wasn’t my plan, I was ready to get out and start making money as a 22-year-old. It did not work out that way. I went to three more years of school, but it turned out okay.
You have had such an incredible career, and in addition to all your awesome credentials, I think taking your management role and looking at it from this vantage point, and obviously you’ve been surrounded by very strong women. That’s probably also part of what makes you unique in how you see these issues. That’s incredible. At what point in your career did you decide that it was a great time to bring kids into the picture? Where were you professionally?
I was 32 when my first daughter was born. I was seven years in. I definitely had a period of time where I was a young litigator in a busy firm, going in 6, 7 days a week and just learning by doing. I was a little bit down the road, but still an associate. We had twins in 2015. My surprise child, my daughter Genevie, was born three and a half years ago. There is an eight-year gap there.
Every season you’re tackling at the same time.
It’s an interesting dynamic right now with a 13-year-old and a 3-year-old. In some ways, they’re very similar. You may want to cut that part out of my daughter. Here’s this battle.
Balancing Work And Family Responsibilities
It’s okay in the best of ways. No, it helps to manage both sides. That’s a really interesting point. Obviously, litigation, as you mentioned, is one of, I think, the most demanding aspects of this legal profession, and with four children, you are in the middle of a trial. It requires a lot of your time and attention, yet you still have to transition into your home life. How do you balance this? How does that work for you and your family?
I just try to make it a priority. I would say starting with just the uncertainty of it all. I travel a good amount. We just finished the baseball season here, and I coached my boys in baseball and basketball. I coach my daughter in basketball, the older one. I have always been trying to not only be there, but be there to coach them. It’s been a lot of fun. But it is just hustling around. In two of the last three baseball games, I was lugging my suitcase in from DFW airport to the baseball field from the Uber and running in to start the game. It is just some hustle and hoping that the planes are on time.
Other than that, it’s just planning. It is that you have to find the time to do the work, and it’s for me. I like to. I usually get up early and try to get done what I can get done, and then just try and be really efficient at work, which may sound basic, but I am not on social media. I do take a peek at ESPN if sports or something is going on, but I really try to take my time at work and get the work done. That may sound obvious, but you know when you’re dealing with a schedule where you have got leave at 5:30, get to a practice, pick somebody up, get to a game, you know that when you get there at 8 or whenever you get there, you got to be really efficient with your time.
Some of it’s just making it happen. You kind of know where you’ve got to be, and you just do your best, and you know, it may be a late-night flight or a really early morning flight, that kind of thing. That puts some stress on your schedule. Again, as all the parents that listen to this know, I mean, we all know it goes fast, and there’s going to be a time in the not too distant future where I wish I was running home to a baseball game, and because it will be done. It’ll be gone.
It’s a really important perspective, like this season, and how someone said this to me recently, and I think it really does apply to how we support and perceive how we can support parents in this space. Our careers are very long. Hopefully we’re lucky for 40, maybe more for some of us who will be working longer, and this time with our kids. When you look back at balancing the suitcase, running from the airport to the base, that’s going to be a short period, but it takes a lot of energy and planning to do that. When you’re not able to do that, how do you manage that with your kids? That disappointment that comes through, because there are times when we cannot do it. We cannot show up.
We’ve talked about this in conversations. I feel guilt if I miss things. If I have to be out of town and miss something. I definitely feel guilt. I think what it’s done is that as my kids have gotten older, I’ve started to explain to them where I’m going and what I’m doing. My favorite part of the day is taking them to school in the morning. It’s great for me because I get out of bed, I’m in the office before 8, but that time that we have in the car together in the morning, there are some great conversations about what we’re going to do.
Parents often feel guilty when they miss things. They have to learn to explain to their children where they are going and what they are doing. Share on XI started including what I’m going to do. “I’m going to go do this today. I’m going to go do that. To guys, I have got to go to Los Angeles or Nashville or DC for something, and I’m saying this is why I’m doing it so that they have a little bit of understanding about what Dad’s doing and why he’s gone. Now that they’re my oldest, 3 are 11 and 13, we could talk about that, and I think they have a little bit of understanding that Dad’s not just gone.
He’s off doing it. I have started to sprinkle in, and I do not know if this is good or bad, but it’s happening, and Dad’s doing this to support you. You feel like, as they get older, they can take a little bit more of the real-world stuff. I’m starting to sprinkle in like, “This isn’t fun for me either, but my job as one of your parents is to take care of you.” That means I got to go do this or whatever it is.
Showing them what hard work looks like. The narrative at that age is super important. I do remember you telling me a funny story that one of your sons shared about I cannot remember if it was a cloning opportunity or something of that nature. Why don’t you share about that? I love that story.
He said to me a couple years ago, I was especially busy and I had to be gone and they wanted to go do something on the weekend and I think I was flying out of town on a Sunday afternoon and he’s 11 now, Andrew and he was probably 6 or 7, but he said to me, he said, “Dad, I have got a great idea. We’re going to have you be the dad that stays at home, and then we’re going to get a different dad that goes to work every day.” He thought that that would solve the problem because he understood that I needed to go to work, but he also wanted me to be at home. He’s always got one more dad that he’ll just go do the work, and he’ll stay here.
It’s really brilliant. I think there’s something to that. It also speaks to the reality of how hard it is for us to want to be that. We want to be the person that can be in both places at the same time. A lot of the mothers that have shared that tension between wanting to feel great at work and wanting to feel great at home, or the opposite of that is feeling terrible at work and feeling terrible at home. Does that also resonate for dads, or is it different?
I cannot speak to the mothers’ experience. I do think there are some unique things that mothers face and that the kids want only sometimes, and I’ve definitely experienced that. It is true on my side as well, and it’s one of those things you have to fight through and deal with, and you keep pressing forward. As you said earlier, I think the benefit is and this is what I hope that people perceive me to be a hard worker, but I saw my parents and how hard they worked. I saw my mom get up at 4:00 in the morning.
She’d make dinner and put it in the fridge and leave us a Post-it note that when we got back from school, we put it in the oven at 4:00 for 45 minutes at 3:50, and that would be when we had our dinner. She had to get up early to do that. She had to get up early to finish her schoolwork because when she got home, we’d have to have dinner and then run to sports, and my dad was traveling a lot in sales. A lot of times it was just us, the three of us and my mom.
I just saw her working basically non-stop, as my dad did as well, but was talking about when my mom was doing both the home and the work together, and having that perception of work ethic has always stayed with me, and I appreciate her to this day. Carrie, one of the things that I feared in this show is that it would just turn into a complete I do not know shrine, or just I would talk about my mom the whole time.
We love that.
She’s really wondering if she really is such a great example for all of us.
She also instilled in you not only the work ethic, but the awareness and what it took to create a life for your kids where you also, I mean, have a working parent and are trying to figure it all out. Especially when we’ve talked about it on this show as well, when your partner is traveling, it’s really difficult. It adds a totally different element to how hard this can become. Knowing that you witness someone manage through that, I am sure has driven the way you perceive it.
Your role, even in what I call your everyday moments, like your commitment to that for your kids, because I do think carpools are important. Those are like we have limited time with our kids, like how do you and I know you’re narrating and you’re sharing, but even by the coaching are there other ways that have been really valuable for you as a dad? My perception is dads really have less time to access their kids than some moms do, given the nature of our rules sometimes. How do you make sure that that’s quality time?
We’ll go back to the school part. The taking them to school like that is time that I just, I actually told them was their last day of school, and I was like, “I’m sad because you know for the next two and a half months I’ll get up by myself and everyone in the house will remain asleep and I’ll just go to work.” The reality is I’ll be sad that we do not have the conversations that we usually have, and we’ll talk about things they’re studying. We’ll talk about my day.
I try to get them to open up and chat with me. I always tell them right when I drop them off. I say to them every day, I said, “Love you, proud of you.” I go, “Dominant” because I want them to feel loved, supported, but then they have expectations, and I want them to do well, and I said that to them every day, and they roll their eyes. That’s our refrain when they get out of the car. “Love you. Proud of you. Go dominate.”
They’ll be saying that to somebody else in not too far in the future. I love that. That’s a great tradition.
I do not know about that. I wonder how much they actually hear, but I guess time will tell.
Learning How To Manage Your Time
From what I understand and talking to people that are further along their journey than we are, they’re actually listening more than we think they are. That’s encouraging. Keep saying it is my point. One of the other topics that I do want to get to is what’s happening in the real world with your firm, but I also want to just highlight. I have a very engaged husband. My dad was very engaged. He definitely stands out in my memory of showing up, picking up. Being present as you were. He wasn’t like every other professional man out there.
He was leaving work. He was leaving work to be with his kids and his family. I was just curious, you know, from that perspective of societal norm, which I do not even like that term, but like do you ever come across anyone rolling their eyes at you for why are you doing that? You do not need to be doing that, or like something from that side of the sentence. A lot of times we think it’s reserved for the moms having to go, but do you ever get that experience?
I’ve had comments over the years, you know, from, I would say mostly it’s older lawyers if I had to guess. He’ll be like, “What?” We would talk about what we were doing. I was like, “I cannot get the call. I was giving my daughter a bath, or I was making lunch for my kids tomorrow.” They would just be shocked that I was doing that. They’ll be like, “What? Why are you doing that?” Again, this is a way for me to interact with them. If I’m home with them and we’re all sitting around the kitchen, we say, “Let’s knock out the lunches for tomorrow. What do we all want?”
Let’s do it together.
It is hard to know when to say 'I will go to that' versus finding a way to get it done. Share on XThe three-year-old now, we’re really busy with my boys and sports and my daughter’s in dance, but that time getting her ready for bed is a chance for me to spend time with her. I’ve definitely gotten comments like that. I would say it’s happening less and less, which is good. Maybe that’s because my generation is becoming the older generation.
They’re doing. That’s one of my questions for those younger than the next generation coming up, where it feels like it’s even changing. We’re constantly in a state of change. Hopefully for the better. That’s the goal of this podcast is to help people find ways to do it better than we did it. What would you say to a young dad who is really wanting to go for his career but wants to have a family, but it’s still hard even from that perspective to know when the right time to do it? What are the pitfalls that maybe you would recommend they try to avoid?
It is hard. It’s also hard to know when to say, “I’m going to go do this or that,” versus just finding a way to get it done. It’s almost like you still have to know, in this world, who your audience is because some people may be very receptive to hearing “I’m going to go to my daughter’s dance recital tonight and so I’ll get this back to you in the morning.” Versus just saying “I’m going to get this to you in the morning or whatever.” How much you want to introduce. I still think, unfortunately, we are in a world where you have to be aware of your audience still.
I know one of the things that I’m trying to promote with the people I work with is, in litigation, we certainly have crazy things that happen, but a lot of what we do, there are 30-day deadlines, 20-day deadlines, and I always say, “There’s going to be a time when I need you on the night and a weekend, but it’s only if we absolutely have to.” The rest of the time we can plan this out to where, “If you have a doctor’s appointment, if you have stuff you need to deal with, like we’ve looked at our schedule, and we just plan around it, and we have enough time and the schedule if we are efficient in communicating to do it all.”
I guess I deviated a little bit from your question, but talking to dads, I think it’s probably such a generic statement, but you just have to manage your time. If you’re going to take the practice time to coach a team from 5 to 7 or 5 to 8, I think you just have to be realistic that you have to make it up elsewhere to get the job done. What I would say to those people and what I always think is, “That’s okay. I would rather be able to do that than have to pick one.” A lot of times you do not have to pick one if you’re willing to manage your time. Of course, there are times when that’s not the case. I know people who have to deal with a TTRO or something that happens at the last minute. You get thrown into something. Not always the case. I’d say more often than not, if you plan it, it can be the case.
What we’ve talked about before, which I loved. The uncertainty, the unexpected, all the things that we cannot control have helped us be really good parents. Navigating that, planning ahead, figuring out your schedule, that bleeds so nicely into what it’s like to be in the midst of having a career and having a family. This is constant. There’s a mental exhaustion that comes with it that we’re all very aware of, but you say it, and I believe you, that you approach it in a calm manner, but there’s just rolling with the punches essentially and reallocating your resources in order to be present in a way that’s meaningful for you, whatever that is.
It’d be interesting to see which way it truly goes. If the patience that you learn as a parent helps you as a lawyer, or if the constant juggling of a million different things as a lawyer helps you as a parent. I do not know. It may go both ways.
It could be. It’s a good study. I’m sure some people may have already done this, but I do feel like the wonderful thing about parenthood and in trying to teach you things that you can apply anywhere, but especially as lawyers. It’s softened some of us. It’s helped us be empathetic differently. Are there any other things that you think you know after you welcomed your first child that it shifted your thinking about your career, your profession, what kind of success meant to you?
For sure it did. Just this idea that you’re just on this career ladder that has like this arc. That’s just always the same, but you have this like another part of your life now that becomes extremely important. It does give balance to your life. I’m sure we’ve all experienced it. We come home from a really bad day at work, and especially the little ones are happy to see you. Sometimes the big ones are happy too. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they do not acknowledge you either way. I had a lot of good moments. I remember for a long time my oldest daughter would hear the garage open, and she would come running out every day. I’ll never forget that. No matter how bad a day that I had, to see her running out to greet me, it was a great moment.
No, that definitely is touching, and to carry those moments. When you work so hard for them and to have those memories, I feel like that’s where my son’s fifteen now, and there was no running towards me with enthusiasm. Although last night, for the record, I’m a goofball and I was honking as he was going into waterfall practice with all his friends. I was expecting him to completely ignore me. All of a sudden I see this thing in my rearview mirror running back towards the car, and he’s smiling, and I’m like, “What? Did you forget your speedo or your goggles?” He’s like, “No.” He gave me a kiss goodbye on the cheek.
I was worried that something bad was going to happen to me after I left. Those are the moments that you’re like, okay. It helps just to heal how intense this experience is. When you mention your daughter, and a lot of us, of course, when we have sons, it’s an exciting event. When I had a daughter, it was an exciting event, and it shifted how I was perceiving myself as a professional. What opportunities I want to make sure that all my kids have, and definitely my daughter. It shifted how I approached her. I want to know, especially as you were leading a company and you have a daughter. Does she ever want to be a lawyer? Does that ever come through in how you’re looking at what things look like now and how you want them to look differently in the future?
I think about it all the time. The older you get, the more you look at the younger lawyers, not the children, but people that you want to help develop in a parental type role. I often think about that for both my girls. Would they be able to come into a situation like this and have the full life that they want to have? That’s really what we’re after here. We want people to be able to be a mom, be able to be a professional and not be like it is a choice or more relative to where we are at right now, does not feel like if you get off that track that you cannot come back on or there’s not a way to deal with that gap when your kids are younger or whatever it might be. You do not have to exit the profession. You want to exit the firm. We’ve got a way to deal with this stuff that is part of people’s careers.
The older you get, the more you look at younger lawyers as people you want to help develop in a parental role. Share on XThe Goal Of The Women’s Impact Network
It is. One of the things that I definitely learned on this show is that there’s a recent study. This Catalyst study that was done in the last 6 or 8 months, 500, 000 women were all mothers but definitely left the workforce. Left, just done. Building infrastructure within this organization that supports that ability to be both is super important, and I know a lot of firms are at least aware of it. I love for you to share and step into that role as managing partner and caring as you do about this. What does that look like, and even during wars in particular doing to navigate this in a different way?
With that wonderful program here at the firm, you can look it up. It’s the Women’s Impact Network for Success run by Tracy McCreight at our Austin office. It’s an amazing program. By the way, everybody can come. I go to their meetings, and we have had a couple of recent events. We had one earlier this week, but it is such a long week. I was going to say last week, but earlier this week, on some different part-time paths and what the firm offers for lawyers, in that way, and we had a lunch webinar that was well attended.
We had a large half-day meeting at our firm’s annual lawyer meeting in Boca last October. For a half-day, we had some of our women attorneys get up and speak about how their careers in athletics and coaching help them as lawyers. I thought that was fascinating. I thought it was awesome. Just pretty cool to have lawyers that I had worked with get up there and tell me about their background that I frankly did not know.
There is a lot of talk, maybe it skews toward men and sports and leadership, but this was like, “We have got women in sports that have learned things and done things, and that has given them really great leadership skills as well, and things that have helped them in their practice.” That program at Duane Morris is very well run. Tracy and Christy before her, and there were many before her that I am leaving out, I think it really gives our women attorneys a chance to meet regularly, to talk about these issues, and to learn from each other. As I said, it is not just limited to women. It is open to the entire firm.
That is what is so awesome about it, and I love it. As most lawyers are lifelong learners, and we love to get more information, I think the fact that you have dedicated yourself to learning more about this, and that you chatted previously, is that I have learned a lot about my own biases. In my role, in our firm, in thinking I am being super helpful and crafting a conversation to ensure that that individual knows.
I want them to be the mom they want to be, but sometimes I do not think I have done it quite right. How we learn to do that is a priority, and you are dedicated to it. I am dedicated to it. What are things that you think you have learned that might help other people become aware and try to promote handling these things in the best way possible, because I think that is a challenge for all of us.
I have got all kinds of stories over the years. I would say, more recently, we had one woman I work with who is an excellent trial attorney, came off a second leave, and she was getting back into things, and then we ended up talking about her desire to really get back into trial work and depositions in court. A mistake that I made was when she came back, I assumed that she wanted some time to ramp up, and it would be a transition. When we actually talked, she was like, “No, I am ready to go now. I want to get back into this, and this is what I like to do.
This is important to me. Do not worry about travel. My husband has got it.” My mistake there, and what I would do next time would be if there was someone in a similar situation, I would not assume anything, I would just sit down and talk to him about it, and say, “I know you have been out, and what are your goals, what is your capacity, because we do have a ramp down ramp up period within our program here, so we do not expect people to just come in, and, be right back.”
At least in this instance, she wanted to do it, and so I would say what I learned from that is, and I think what I will do going forward is at least the people that I work with in my office, I will just have a conversation with them when I welcome them back. I say, “Where are you at? How are you feeling? What do you want to do? How can I help?” I just do not want to make the assumption that I am doing what I think is like a caring and thoughtful thing, because I am just assuming. That may or may not be right.
It is so hard. I agree. That was a really important shift, and I think there are opportunities to have those conversations where it is just blank-slating it, saying, “You tell me.” That is the other great thing I think about, especially female lawyers, is that, pretty direct. For the most part, if given the opportunity, they usually can identify what they need and what they want in the situation, or they might say, “I do not know yet. I am not sure, and I am just trying to get through every day here.” We all know what having two kids. That is a difficult experience, but for some women who have it together, and trust me, I was not this together as many of the guests on this show.
They had it planned out. They knew it was going to happen. They had a discussion with their husband about, like, “Who is going to do what?” I am at a higher level. This is not how I did it. To the credit of this next generation, who can say, “I want to come back, and I want to be all in, and I want to travel, and I am ready for this.” It is amazing, because some women have even shared, I do not have any guilt. This is amazing. I would think it really was awesome for me to say, for I do not make any assumptions about that experience anymore. That is probably really sage advice, as you continue to support the attorneys in your firm.
It is probably the one good thing is everybody that knows me knows that I am like that guy that you just do not want to bring up who your kids are? Because I will just go on and talk about them. The only good thing about that is, hopefully, everyone around me knows or has an understanding that I would be receptive to these family-type conversations because I am just that obnoxious dad.
That is obnoxious dad. That is like, let’s just fill that myth. Having a parent proud of their kids and connected with their kids, that is like a role model. That is what I feel. I also want to know, like, I know you are the coach, and you are the carpool. Any other tips and tricks about how we connect are so important because that pride comes from love and trust. Your kids will enjoy them. I can tell you enjoy your kids.
It is just spending time together. I was talking to my kids about this the other day because my boys are starting to play golf. I want my daughter to come with us because I was like, this is perfect. There would be four. There would be four serving golfers, the perfect number. I am trying to get Claire into golf a little bit. We started talking about hobbies. They want to amass me. What was my hobby? I thought about it for a second.
I said, “You guys are my hobby. As bad as that sounds, to me, a hobby is what you do in your free time.” In my free time, I spend time with them.” That really is what I want to do. I had not played golf in many years because that is something that would have taken me away from them for 4 or 5 hours. That is not to say that people have all kinds of different ways to get away. They need it, especially in the law practice. This is not an indictment on anyone who goes to jail.
That is what we are saying. Do what you need to do.
For whatever reason, that is how I choose to spend my free time. Part of it too is like, I have had this, and I have talked to dads at our school about this since they were in first grade. We all are very aware of how fast this time goes. All of us are trying to stop. We have tried to stop it for years. Yet, as of this afternoon, I have two sixth graders and an eighth grader, which is insane. That is what I want to do because I know it is fleeting and I know everyone who looks back has regrets. Hopefully I will have a few regrets because I have taken the time that I can with them.
I do not think it is anything specific, Carrie, other than spending time together. For the last couple of weeks, I have been helping my daughter study for finals. That is how we spent time together. I have gone a couple of Sunday nights to play golf with my boys. That has been fun. We have spent time together. Just trying to find that whatever it is, over a period of time, we will work together. I am not at work, traveling. I bring them to work with me on the weekends sometimes. Their mom does not let them have Dr Pepper. They can usually get as many Doctor Peppers. That is really the reason they come. I do not care. They are here. They are with me.
Whatever it takes. I think having that experience, I think also, and I remember, as a child, going to work with my parents on the weekend. It does instill a work ethic that I also, like, leading by example, comes through this. Especially knowing that you are in your humble beginnings and were surrounded by a strong work ethic. You are carrying on that legacy, but also in a way that supports that they are with you. They are seeing you work, but you also sound like you’re going to have fun with them. That is a really good way to balance it out.
It is, and you hope that they get it. My mom grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. She would get picked up by a flatbed truck when she was ten years old to go pick strawberries and work in the sun. When I was 14 or 15, I was a janitor at a mini grocery store in Arlington. Now with my kids, those were both involuntary experiences. We had to work for whatever reason. Now with them, I am very cognizant. I want them to understand hard work. You have to develop that and continue to do that.
Teaching Children How To Be Comfortable With Hard Work
How do you do that? I know that is my question, because I could especially have a janitorial job as a teenager. My son is fifteen. He is getting a job, but he is trying to get a job as a surf instructor. It is very different.
Very Newport Beach, by the way.
That is his personal dream. I actually would prefer it if he had a janitorial job, because I want him to experience real hard work. Maybe doing something you do not love, quite honestly, because that is the other thing. There is this misconception about work. I do speak openly with my kids. I love what I do. I love my job. I love healthcare law. I love being responsible for a firm and for the people that are in it to make sure of all the things I love. There are some days when I actually do not love it. They are hard, that are complicated, and I think that raising children to make sure they know they still have to do the job when they do not like it. Do you have any tips on how to approach that?
My dad, I used to come home, and this janitor job was such a bad job. My next job was that I stocked the shelves at a Kirkland’s, which was like a home furnishing store. I was not allowed in the store. I had to stay in the back. At least it was air-conditioned. Those couple of jobs in my teens. Sometimes I will reflect on them when I think about working long hours in a law firm, but I am sitting in a beautiful building in Uptown Dallas. It is air-conditioned, and I have coffee when I need it. I am doing interesting things. It is hard work. That stuff I was doing before.
I have had that perspective. The question now is, how do I pass that on to my children who, frankly, probably will not be working for 3.75 an hour in a janitorial job? I am hopeful that we are talking to them about the world and how your little world of North Dallas is not the real world necessarily. You may see what we are doing today. Let me tell you about what I had to do and what your grandmother had to do or your grandfather, whoever it may be. Just trying to maybe talk to them about that, and have them get some understanding of work ethic and hard things.
I do not know if anybody has got that secret formula. I would love to know it because I think we do not want to pass on to our kids that frame of mind and that work ethic. My dad always said to me, and I say to my kids all the time, they can complain about this. When I was working, and I would complain, my dad would say, “That is why they pay you to be there.” That was always his response. That is why they pay. I am trying the best I can, but I certainly do not have any type of magic formula.
No secret sauce yet. We will figure this out. It is hard to convey that. Obviously, the narrative is important, and the witnessing of a hard worker is super important. Also, you come at it like I get to do this job. I try to shift that mindset a little with my kids. Not, I do not have to work. I do have to work. Let’s be honest, I have to work, but I also get to work. I get to do a job that I actually am interested in. That is what I think is even harder because some of those other jobs that you mentioned, maybe they were not passion-inducing, but they got the job done, so to speak. They supported you, supported your family at that time.
You have goals to do more. Even if you are not working, if you are just in high school or whatever, then you should be shooting for that next thing to what are you trying to achieve, and how are you going to get there? There is really no. I have never seen it. There is no real shortcut around just hard work.
There is no real shortcut around hard work. Share on XHow Employers Can Better Support Parents
I know. There really is. I agree with you. Looking at it, I just want to really focus because I think even what you mentioned is way more than the WINS program, the different ways that we can do better as organizations, quite honestly, to support families during this time. Are there any other experiences you have had, or things you learned from that would help us do better or that you felt like helped you do better in supporting that aspect of your job?
As I said, I have had experiences where, in hindsight, I wish I was more vocal about either. Let me just give you an example. There was a woman that I worked with at my prior firm. We got a notice of a TRO at like 9:00 at night. The Dallas County local rules say, “You get two hours’ notice.” They thought they were giving us a gift, and they basically said, “We will see you at 8:00 AM.” They are giving us eleven hours’ notice at night. We were talking to her, and I was talking to the general counsel on the phone about how we were going to plan for this and what we were going to do.
I said, “We finished our calls about, I do not know, midnight.” I just said to the female attorney, “Just meet me at the office at four in the morning. We will gather everything that we can, and we will go make our arguments at eight.” This is an excellent attorney. She is still a wonderful attorney, was then, and is now, still a friend. I was texting with her this week. She called me about 4:30 or 5:00. She was not there, and she said, I thought she did not let me know, but her, I guess her husband, was out of town. She was trying to get childcare that early in the morning.
Number one, I wish I would have asked about that. Number two, she could not get childcare. I ended up going to do the hearing myself, which was completely fine. We worked it out, and then she jumped back into the case that afternoon. She then, not long after, I do not think it was because of this, although I do not think this helped, she went in-house, and she has got two children, and she has been in-house since then.
If I look at what I can do better, I would have been more aware of saying, “Meet you at the office at 4:00 AM.” About just the logistics of all that, first of all. Second of all, it was completely fine that she could not make it in at that hour because that stuff happens on short notice. I wish I had been more vocal about, “It is no big deal. We got past it. We have got an entire case together now to handle your back.” That is something that stuck with me.
I had another example of just an excellent female attorney. We had a month-long arbitration in Houston. She had to be away from her family. I do not know, and there were a lot of other circumstances that led to her going in-house. Again, I think some of these things that have happened where I have had to bring along younger female associates that are moms, I think in hindsight, I could have done a better job of communicating with them about ways to make it more palatable because there are ways.
Learning those ways, those are ways that we are learning. That is what is so important, because at the time, like, and even looking back, I am putting myself in the 4:30 AM mom’s position. Obviously we could speak up and say something, but we want to do the work. It is a very difficult dynamic. Even if they had, you have compassion. When I had all my kids, Joe was my boss. He was so compassionate. I wanted. It is almost as if I put it on myself. It is difficult also, being a supervisor, especially in that dynamic when there are a lot of complicated desires and motions and hopes of that person wanting to show when it just does not work. Sometimes it just does not work. You have to know this thing.
I guess what I said, I would want to communicate better, and let’s move on. Let’s move ahead together. We are a team. This is our team for this case. You are on my team. You are going to be on my team. The more that is accepted, and there are a lot of different reasons people go in-house, by the way. For the people that may feel like they have to, I am not saying that was the case in either of these situations.
For the people that are interested in staying in private practice, you want to have it be clear to them that you are okay with things that have to be missed because of childcare or family obligations. Again, who should know I have four kids myself? That is what, and so I get that my regret is like I have not. I would completely support that. Maybe I have not communicated that. Maybe I have not been as open about that.
Hope For The Parents Of The Next Generation
Now everyone is going to know. That is one of the advantages out there now, I guess. You are someone who is leading by example, which is definitely setting you apart. Your passion for this and wanting to learn and do more is also absolutely striking to me. I know you are very brave coming in here and sharing your story. I want to give you a lot of kudos for that. One of my questions is like, what do you hope that these kinds of conversations will be, and how they will help fathers and mothers in that next generation? What would be your hope for them?
The hope is that the conversations are happening, where you are talking about, “Here’s what I have got going on at home. Here’s what I have got going on at work. Hopefully your boss or your leader is receptive to that.” Everyone is making their best efforts to handle both equally important responsibilities. The examples that I have given show where I can do better. If I had communicated more, maybe it would have been a different result. Just communicating and awareness, I guess. Awareness of all the things that people have going on because I still, to this day, as much as I am trying to learn and understand and be aware, we all get stuck in that mode of something that is happening at work.
I’ve got to respond. We got to talk to the client. We got to do this. You are thinking of all these to-do items. In that to-do list, but where are you at? Are you good? Is your spouse out of town? Is somebody sick? We got somebody else. We get somebody else to hop in and help. It does not mean you are fired from the case, or you are going to get docked at comp time or any of that. It just means that is what we got to deal with. We all have those things. Maybe somebody picks you up this time and helps.
There could be a time down the road where they need your help, and you are going to step in and help them. I would say that is a benefit if you are thinking about staying in a law firm environment that you have if you are functioning like a team, which we all should be. You have these people here to help. You have a way to get through it to where it is not really making a choice. It is just your handle in your family business. You come back in, and you jump in with your team when you can get back to that.
That is a very unique quality of a firm in some ways. I have talked to a lot of different firm partners. I think the fact that your concept of a team environment is that you are all utility players and you can shift and step in when you need to, like that is a firm that I would want to work at. Now I think they are all built like that. It is pretty refreshing to hear you describe it in that manner. It is also one of the other really important callouts that we do share, especially for young lawyers. Obviously, lawyer moms in this instance are, but do your research and find the firms that actually support and create environments and cultures that will allow you that ability, because some people really want to be in a firm. They work so hard, and this was their dream.
I went to a great firm, and I realized even before I had kids, “This was not how I thought it was supposed to work out.” I was out for two and a half years, and I went in-house. I loved my in-house career. It was perfect for me. I was like, “It was like I was getting divorced. I loved that firm. I wanted to be part of that, and seeing the disillusionment for me was a real grief-filled transition where if I had maybe approached it differently or was a different person at the time, maybe I would still be in that environment.” It is a real callout to do research into the firms that are going to be very aligned with what you are looking for and how you want to live your life.
Do not forget about your two modest, but what you and Joe have done with GC West is an amazing example of that because I have worked with many members of your teams that are moms, and they are excellent lawyers. I also could not plug for GC West. Also, the best Father’s Day gifts out there. It is about time. I do not know.
You are going to be so excited. I will not tell you. I am not going to spoil the surprise, but that is one of my biggest values, or I guess, not maybe on my epitaph, but one of my favorite things that we came up with at this firm was to celebrate wonderful fathers, wonderful moms. John, it gives me a lot of joy to write you that note and to celebrate who you are. Especially after this conversation, I will have a lot more to share.
You Can Do Anything You Want
Just being able to hear more about how intentional you are about being a dad and being an amazing professional. I want to leave with one more question. It is not a pop quiz question, but I want to give you the floor to speak to your daughters in particular. What you would want them to know if they have aspirations towards having a career and being a mother, what you would hope for them, and how you would want them to be supported.
I would tell them that nothing is going to stop you from doing it all. Do not forget about your dad. He is going to always hear from you because I tell them that every day. I said, “You go take on the world, and Dad is here to catch you. I hope that gives them confidence that Dad is always going to be here. You go attack the world, and Dad is going to be here to support you.” I would hope that they would know that they can do it, and it is such a cliché, but you can do anything you want. I just think you also have to be receptive to the idea that it is not going to be a necessarily linear path.
Many of your guests are excellent examples of having amazing careers. They have been so resilient. They battled through conflicts. They have dealt with all sorts of things, but they keep going, and they keep going and attacking their career goals and their family goals. It is not just this perfect path. I guess I would want them to know. Figure out what you want to do, and attack it. If it does not work, let’s come up with a new plan and let’s attack that. Whether that is professional, as being a professional lawyer or accountant or whatever, while being a mom, just attack it and know you have got a support system around you and just keep going.
Figure out what you want to do and attack it. If it does not work, come up with a new plan and attack it again. Share on XThat is it, Carrie. I think that is what I have learned from your guests before. There are going to be things that are not exactly perfect, and they have all kept going, and they have all achieved. That has been really inspiring to me. I was preparing for this. The top of my notes after tuning in to the podcast and talking is the group of people that you have had, including yourself, Joe, and your group. Everybody is very resilient. They are just really resilient in how they attack their personal and professional lives.
It is a really great word, and I think it is a very accurate reflection of remaining resilient when you want to be able to thrive professionally and help you and your family shine in this incredibly precious time. One of the great themes that you have reminded me of is just how short a time it is and to be there for your family and for your firm in a meaningful way to support people trying to do both really well. It just really does set you apart, and I am really grateful that you came on, shared your stories, and really provided an important perspective for so many of us out there. Thank you for joining. I will, if you have any other last words of wisdom. I do not want to lose the opportunity, but you can always come back on the show whenever you feel like it.
I never need an excuse to get to Newport Beach. I now insist on the next one being in person.
Perfect. Let’s do it.
I would just close with what I tell my kids every day, and I hope that said, “I love you. Proud of you. Go dominate.” That is how I love it.
Way to dominate, and we are really grateful for your time. Thank you so much, John.
Thank you.
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Thank you so much, John, for joining the show. I truly enjoyed such a thoughtful and honest conversation, and I really appreciated the connection between leadership and real life. For law firms, the lesson in this podcast is direct. If we want to retain talented mothers, fathers have to be part of the culture change. Flexibility, caregiving, ambition, and leadership can exist together, but only when leaders are willing to model that in visible and practical ways. Thank you so much for tuning in. If this episode resonated with you, please share it. Thanks for joining.
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About John Polzer
John S. Polzer is a partner at Duane Morris LLP and serves as Managing Partner of the firm’s Dallas and Fort Worth offices, as well as Co-Chair of its Healthcare Litigation Division. With more than two decades of experience representing clients in complex healthcare, commercial, bankruptcy, construction, energy, and real estate disputes, John is recognized for his strategic leadership, litigation expertise, and commitment to mentoring the next generation of legal professionals.
Outside of his legal practice, John is deeply invested in leadership development, community engagement, and supporting professionals as they navigate the intersection of career and family. As a husband and father of four, he brings a thoughtful perspective on balancing the demands of a high-performing legal career with the responsibilities and rewards of parenthood.
In this episode of The Mothers in Law, John shares insights on fatherhood, leadership, and the role fathers play in supporting working families and helping both parents thrive at home and in their careers.
