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.

"Fort Worth clients, they want their lawyer in Fort Worth," said Adrienne Wall, managing partner of Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr PC's Fort Worth office, who has practiced in the city her entire career. "They just don't want the 'Dallas attorney' for whatever reason. It's been like that since I started practicing law, and it is still like that now."

Clients in Fort Worth are demanding firms with boots on the ground and strong community ties, and firms have been answering that call in recent years by establishing offices in the city, where healthcare, energy and real estate are among the top practice areas, firm leaders told Law360 Pulse.

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. .

"Our motto is, 'It's Fort Worth for the sake of Fort Worth,'" said Brian Bullard, a Fort Worth native and managing partner of Polsinelli's Dallas office. "To have a presence in Fort Worth, you must live in Fort Worth. We don't staff Fort Worth projects out of Dallas or Houston."

"Small Town Feel"

Munsch Hardt formally opened its Fort Worth shop in April but has had attorneys, including Wall, working there remotely for a few years, according to Dallas-based firmwide managing partner David Coligado.

The Texas-only firm has long recognized the unique nature of the Fort Worth market but waited to launch a physical location in the city until it had the right core team of lawyers to do it, Coligado said.

Munsch Hardt now offers Fort Worth businesses a team of local attorneys with strong ties to the community and a firm that is hardwired into the state as a whole, he said. Real estate, real estate finance, banking, litigation and outside general counsel work are keeping the firm's Fort Worth lawyers busy, Coligado said.

"Fort Worth is a people-based business environment, it is not as impersonal and mega corporate as some of the other markets, and we're sensitive to that," Coligado said. "I think the future is bright for this market, and I think kind of where we have positioned ourselves in the marketplace is ideal as a midsize, full-service, Texas-focused law firm. I think that talks to a lot of clients."

Wall and Coligado said that having attorneys who are actively involved in the community is important to the clients they serve in Fort Worth. Attorneys in the office are active with the Tarrant County bar, with leadership at local nonprofits, with the local rodeo and Texas Christian University, Wall said.

"It's important here to be ingrained in the community," Coligado said.

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