For more than 15 years Bean Kinney & Korman’s Carol Schrier-Polak has been one of Northern Virginia’s top matrimonial attorneys. But that distinction to some extent conceals a character – of warmth, humanism and feisty originality – that’s hardly typical of most buttoned-up lawyers of large, multi-discipline firms. Indeed, the unique career path of the North Carolina native is a testament to both her and her 30-attorney firm, whose leaders – mostly commercial litigators and tax and real-estate experts -- recognized her pluck and skill early on.

By her own estimation, “I never thought I’d become a lawyer”. Growing up in far-off Asheville, North Carolina, where her Brooklyn-born father was treasurer of a fabricated steel business, Schrier-Polak developed her progressive instincts for helping the less-fortunate and powerless, particularly children. She went to Brandeis in the mid-1960s – “it was a fabulous time” – and majored in sociology, ultimately earning a masters degree in social work. In the early 1970s she led an Atlanta social-planning agency, at ground zero of the fast-growing city’s social ills. In meetings she noticed “if a lawyer proposed something, people around the table would actually respond.” She resolved that a law degree would help her advance policy and practice. Though she initially second-guessed herself (“When my friends gave me a 10-lb.Black’s Law Dictionary, I asked, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’”), she excelled at Temple Law School in Philadelphia (“A great juvenile law program”). She led a pilot program, sponsored by the Philadelphia Bar, which represented abused and neglected children; she later became the agency’s first director.

A few years later her husband, an electrical engineer, was offered a job in Northern Virginia and she decided to pursue a private practice in family law.

Clearly Schrier-Polak’s success also stems from her reputation as a children’s advocate, her creativity, her restraint (“Some lawyers want to go for blood – that’s not me”) and an intense commitment to her clients – “people, not corporations.” “Some of the other partners will make fun of me, how I love my clients. But I could never do this if I wasn’t passionate about it.”

She and her husband have lived in Falls Church since 1983. She includes in her life yoga, sailing, and travel to destinations throughout the world. “That’s when I turn off my cell phone, my email, my computer, and give myself some downtime. Everyone should turn off their machines now and then.”

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