Direct Examination of Celebrity Lawyer Peter M. Walzer Part 1

[Source: BHBA]

Celebrity lawyer Peter M. Walzer, who is ranked as a best family law attorney in CA, discusses his interests & onset into the legal field on BHBA Family Law Presents Direct Examination.

Dan:

Welcome to another episode of BHBA Family Law Presents Direct Examination with Dan and Lauren, along with Lauren Youngman from Youngman Reichstein, I’m Dan Bemel, financial advisor and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. During each episode of our show, we explore our guest’s personal and professional history and dig into a meaningful legal topic.

Today we welcome Peter M. Walzer from top family law firm Walzer Melcher Yoda LLP in Los Angeles, California. We’ve never had a guest like Peter probably because there aren’t really any attorneys out there like Peter. He’s a true renaissance man. Today we’re going to try, probably fail, but we’re going to try to cover as many different parts of his life as possible. As an attorney of course, he’s a legend with the record to match. Makes sense since he earned his CFLS designation very recently in 1988. And of course we’ll plumb all that legal experience too. So lots and lots to pack into our hour together. First, most importantly, Peter, thank you so much for joining us.

Peter:

Thank you for having me, Dan, Lauren. A pleasure.

Dan:

Okay, this is going to be fun. Sometimes it feels in interviews even our sometimes like work-life balance questions, what you do outside the office stuff is a little bit cursory. But I want to start there because you have such a wide range of interests and I know they actually do inform your practice. So let’s start with some of the wilder stuff first. How did you get into extreme sports and what are your favorites?

Peter Walzer’s Interests Outside Law

Peter:

Well, I don’t consider them extreme, Dan. I consider them normal, but some of the things that I’ve done is rock climbing. My good buddy and mentor Jan Gabrielson, formerly of Walzer and Gabrielson. I’m talking Stuart Walzer, and I did this rock climbing class and it was intense. It was a nine month class. It was life-changing, especially when the leader on belay fell and I caught him on a cliff face in Mount San Jacinto.

Dan:

You don’t consider that extreme. That’s not extreme.

Peter:

Well, that event was extreme.

Dan:

Okay, okay.

Peter:

So there other things. Surfing before court in the morning, just going out there at Malibu, surfing, showering on the beach and then dressing in my suit and coming into court and just being raring to go. Another sort of interesting diversion. I’m not the only surfer lawyer, but I loved it when I did it and it took me out of the zone of practicing law. The intensity, your mind’s completely taken off out of the practice of law.

Dan:

So do you consider yourself an adrenaline junkie? And besides the diversion, are there any other benefits that you get from these particular sports?

Peter:

I think the athleticism, the exercise, I mean really, my dad was a good example. He was an athlete, he jogged, he worked out at the gym. It’s how you keep yourself sane in our crazy business. I mean everybody does something and athletics, sports, gym, golf, scuba diving just kept me balanced. But everybody’s got to find their own way to do it and that was my way.

Lauren:

On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve been a longtime practitioner of meditation, not mediation. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Meditation for balance and calmness

Peter:

Well, it is embarrassing when I get them mixed up, but yeah, an article or something like that. But yes, I’ve been meditating since I was 17. I meditate every day, two hours a day. I often do long meditations, six to seven hours. And again, that keeps me balanced, sane, calm, but it’s still an effort. It’s an intense practice and I’m very devoted to it and built my life around meditation.

Dan:

Is it ever hard to find two hours a day to do that?

Peter:

It’s always hard to find two hours to do it. I mean, you come home, you’re exhausted, you’ve got to build your stamina and it’s a fight. It’s a battle of life. That’s my mantra. You got to win the battle of life and that’s part of the battle, to find time, to be within yourself, to be present, to change your whole focus. And so it’s not all outward but it’s inward directed.

Lauren:

How did you get started with meditation so early?

Peter:

Actually my dad had a client that they were at a meditation center and he got me interested in it and he invited them to teach yoga in our living room in Brentwood and that set me off on the path to meditation and practice. So it was really my dad’s influence.

Dan:

So it’s been a lifelong practice for you. How would you recommend somebody new to the practice to get started?

Peter:

Start with three minutes at a time. Find somebody that teaches meditation and the key is it’s not sleep-atation, it’s not thinking about stuff. It’s focused on the inner world, light, joy, love, it’s peace. All those are what you want to focus on and find somebody who will teach you and just become regular. Whether it’s a minute, a day, doesn’t matter, you got to start somewhere. But regularity is the key to practice.

Dan:

Is it ever too late to start, do you think for somebody?

Peter:

When you’re dead, yes.

Dan:

Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. So basically the lesson is start no matter what you’re doing, find three minutes. It doesn’t have to be two hours a day. Start.

Peter:

Just start. Just a minute a day, but sit still back away from the chair. Spine straight eyes focused at the point between the eyebrows, not cross eyed and focus. Take a word peace and repeat it over and over again.

Lauren:

What about art and music? I know that that’s played a big role in your life as well. Can you tell us about those interests?

Music and Photography

Peter:

So anything challenging is fun to me. And I was never musical. I think I might be tone deaf. I’m have enough tone to know if I’m tone deaf, but I took this great class in college, first year elementary musicianship, and you had to get up in front of the class and sing acapella and I said if I can do that, I can do anything. I learned to read music, I can play guitar basically. And it’s been a joy of my life and art through photography. I’ve been doing photography since I was a kid. My son’s a professional photographer. My mother was a fine artist and it’s just art and music are just part of my life.

Dan:

How did that love of photography develop for you?

Peter:

Well, my grandpa was a photographer and I had a dark room when I was a kid and Dan and I you and shared some fun chatting about photography and my first real camera was a Nikermat, had a dark room in my bathroom and it just was, and my daughter was into photography, she got into UCLA through her photography and my son’s a photographer.

Dan:

Do you miss the dark room in the shift to the kind of digital world, the printing?

Peter:

I don’t really, because I figure Lightroom and Photoshop are just a digital dark room and I don’t miss the chemicals and all that, but it sure was fun being in a dark room and just watching it show up in front of your eyes.

Dan:

Yes, it’s magic.

Peter:

It’s magic, yes.

Lauren:

Do any of these interests or hobbies inform your work as an attorney or is it just an escape from?

Hobbies help Build Emotional Intelligence

Peter:

No, I think it does. I mean what we do is creative. I mean it’s intuitive what we do. You could read all the books, but we have clients whose problems don’t fit in any mold and you’ve got to be able to read them, you’ve got to read the other side, you’ve got to read the judicial officer, the mediator. So much happens at an intuitive level. You’ve got to feel when you need to take the move, make the move, you got to know when to be aggressive and when to hold back.

You got to know when you’re getting paid and when you’re not. It’s so many judgment calls in this business that anything you do to open up your intuitive, your emotional intelligence, whatever you call it helps. I mean it can’t hurt. So you’ve got to have another life. This is not a place for technicians. We’re not dealing with computers, we’re dealing with human beings. Not to mention your staff, the employees, your family, everything that is part of life, family law, you can’t get much more real than that.

Dan:

So I mean we’re kind of dancing around it a little bit. It’s not just about avoiding burnout though, right? It’s about really having a full life. So what do you tell your younger attorneys, your associates, your family, maybe, if you involve them in these outside pursuits to do to really avoid that burnout and to bring all this into their practice?

Peter:

Well, I tell my associates to bill as many hours as possible if you really want to know. Don’t lead a balanced life. But yeah, I mean don’t know if the younger generation has that problem. They’re more balanced. They need to be motivated to work harder and drive more. So people of my generation are fighting for the balance and not being workaholics. younger generation, I want them to build the hours.

Lauren:

Why do you think that is? Why do you think there’s that generational divide?

Peter:

I think they saw their parents killing themselves and they said, I don’t want that life. I want to find something for me. And also I think out there is the idea you can find your passion and get joy from work. It may be elusory but then they realize they need to buy a house and make a living and that that’s when reality meets the road. Right?

Dan:

Yeah. It’s called work not fun. Right? Let’s talk about that path for you actually. I think that’s, let’s pivot a little bit and talk about your journey on the professional side and how you’ve built such a powerhouse firm. But let’s go all the way back. You talked about growing up a little bit in Brentwood. What was it like growing up in Los Angeles in the ’50s and ’60s?

Stuart Walzer’s Influence on Peter

Peter:

I mean, my dad was a Beverly Hills divorce lawyer and that’s when it was a thing and he started getting into it in the sixties and he was a major part. Stuart Walzer’s, my dad, he was a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in the first certified specialist group. He was on the Governor’s commission for no default divorce from ’66 to ’70 when California enacted no fault divorce. He was an instrument instrumental player. He founded the Southern California chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. And he was a speaker, he was a writer, he was a trial lawyer. He was a fabulous example. Plus he was a renaissance man. He was a master gardener. He’d always be reading three books at one time. He started the LA County Bar’s Lawyer Literary Society. He was a member of the Harvard Club, his temple board of directors, Beverly Hills bar, LA County Bar. I mean he was everywhere and did it all.

Dan:

So I mean that’s crazy. What was it like for you growing up in that house with someone like that?

Peter:

I’m sure it drove me crazy, but it was a good example. It was a high bar to meet and we have all have issues with our daddy and it was impossible to work there at times. And that was a challenge and that’s sort of why I set off on my own and said I will never work for anybody again and I will never do family law. One of those became true.

I never worked for anybody, but I did become a family lawyer by … I had to do it. I had to support a family and I had a name that was well known and it was a natural, it turned out to be good for me because I’m a people person.

Variety of Topics in Family Law

I love people, I love diverse interests. I like going to court.

I like settling cases, I like writing, I like speaking, I like teaching, I like mentoring lawyers, all that. You can do all that as a family lawyer. You could be an academic, you could do it all. And it covers everything from labor law to immigration to criminal aspects to civil procedure to real estate wills and trust. All of that you can do in family law. And I’ve done all that taxation. I’ve done crossover talks on all those topics so you never get bored.