Dallas and Fort Worth may be less than an hour apart, but bringing in a Dallas attorney to handle Fort Worth business? That's not going to cut it with Fort Worth clients, firm leaders say.

In just the past few months, at least three firms — Munsch Hardt, The Lanier Law Firm PLLC and Stone Hilton PLLC — launched Fort Worth shops. Those firms joined a legal scene where BigLaw firms like Polsinelli PC and Duane Morris LLP have created their own presences to satisfy clients' wishes for local representation. 

BigLaw firms like Polsinelli and Duane Morris also have picked up on the need for a local presence in Fort Worth.

John Polzer, managing partner of Duane Morris' Fort Worth office, which launched about four years ago, said that one of his priorities when he joined the firm about five years ago was to establish an office in the city.

Polzer said he hosted a roundtable with his firm's CEO, members of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and some of his Fort Worth-based private equity and real estate clients.

"All of those people said to our CEO, 'We want you here, we want an international law firm in Fort Worth,'" Polzer said. "And now sitting in Fort Worth, I am able to operate locally, nationally and internationally."

Polzer said that as a Philadelphia-based firm, leadership at Duane Morris approaches exploring potential new locations from a market-by-market perspective.

"They look at Fort Worth as a standalone economic growth area where they want to be," Polzer said. "And as a Fort Worth lawyer, I knew we needed Fort Worth lawyers for the office."

Polzer said that, "unless you've kind of lived it, it's hard to explain."

Polzer said state and federal judges, as well as business owners in Fort Worth prefer to see Fort Worth lawyers in court who are familiar with the local landscape and invested in the community.

The firm's Fort Worth team is made up of talented local lawyers who "now have this big firm behind them to help with the needs of their clients," Polzer said.

Polzer said the litigators in the Fort Worth office have been busy, and "the corporate work in Fort Worth is growing almost faster than we can keep up with."

Deals that previously might have been handled by lawyers sitting in New York are now being worked out by Fort Worth-based attorneys who "can use our office in midtown Manhattan and the tax expertise that we have."

"The clients now have their local lawyer in Fort Worth, but they've got the tax expertise out of Chicago or the M&A expertise out of New York, it's just a one-stop shop," Polzer said. "We want to have lawyers in Fort Worth who are a conduit to the rest of the firm."

Polzer said he expects the trend of law firms establishing a geographic presence in the city will continue.

"If you're a national firm and you're thinking about what's next, I would say Fort Worth is probably at the top of that list," Polzer said. "If you look at its population growth, its business growth, and how it is in a business-friendly state, Fort Worth is happening."

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