A conversation with Monika Wszołek – owner of a law firm in Gliwice and winner of Charismatic Woman – turns into a moving story about strong character, passion for work, and extraordinary social commitment. Monika shares details on her professional journey, work with children and incapacitated persons, as well as her family stories. She is an inspiring voice, balancing law with empathy, professional success with a deep mission to help others.
You are known for your great love for children.
I’m active in many fields, engaging in issues related to child protection. As a lawyer frequently handling family cases, I believe that a child to be born and develop properly, needs both parents. Oftentimes, it happens that a divorced woman, who doesn’t restrict the child’s contact with the father unwilling to participate in the child’s life, is capable of raising the child well. On the other hand, an overprotecting mother, treating her child as a property and isolating them from others, in unaware of actually harming them.
Doctors are currently working on recognising parental alienation as a medical condition, as it’s more and more becoming the cause of future suicide. This matter is definitely not talked about enough. An isolated child usually falls into a conflict of loyalty – they side with the parent they live with, even though, deep down, they long for contact with the other. Years later, they resent their father for not fighting hard enough for them, which subsequently leads to deeply tragic situations.
I mother three biological children myself, but in my heart I’m a mother of fifty – I’m the legal guardian of children from orphanages and persons under full interdiction.
How do you cope with this?
Great! I often laugh that my oldest “daughter” is already 40 and calls me ‘mommy’. My 28-year-old ‘son’, Paweł, calls every day and asks, ‘What’s new, mommy? How are my sister and brother?‘ I‘ve got two wards who live with us. When you become a legal guardian, you often become the only close person for the incapacitated. We celebrate Christmas with family – I invite them to our home. Those living in nursing homes have their own Christmas parties, while those living alone are invited to my home.
Do you cooperate with social welfare homes?
Yes. Incapacitated persons are most often those struggling with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Oftentimes, seniors looking forward to seeing someone from their family with hope in their eyes, end up there – sadly, it‘s not uncommon for them to go without visitors for many months. Fortunately, social welfare homes are increasingly integrating with children’s homes – grandparents read fairy tales to children and participate in joint activities. Whenever I go there, I take a bag full of chocolates with me, to bring them a little joy. My biological grandparents died in the Warsaw Uprising, so these places are also a space where I can feel the presence of them both.
Where‘s this need to help others from? Were you already involved in social activities when at school?
I had a year-older cousin, Kasia, born disabled in the sixth month of pregnancy – she couldn’t walk. I spent all vacations with my cousins at my grandmother’s house in Masuria. Throughout the summer, I accompanied Kasia to workshops for people with disabilities. Even then, I told myself that if I managed to fulfil my life dreams, I would reciprocate my fate by helping those in need.
Have you always wanted to be a lawyer?
At first, I dreamed of becoming a prosecutor, because I grew up in a prosecutor’s office. My father was a prosecutor. I come from Warsaw, but later on we moved to Krakow, and when my father took the position of heading the prosecutor’s office in Gliwice, we lived in the prosecutor’s office building for a quite a while, because our apartment wasn’t ready yet. Every morning, I would go to my dad’s office with my teddy bear to say hello to him. After graduating from high school, I had a dilemma: whether to study psychology or law. My father once said that I could be a good psychologist and a good lawyer, but as a lawyer I would have greater career opportunities. Psychologists earned very little at that time, so I decided to study law at the University of Silesia, and devoted my master’s thesis to cassation in criminal law. Today, I merge both fields – I study psychology at the Humanitas Academy in Sosnowiec. Next year, I plan to defend my master’s thesis on matters concerning parental alienation. This is an issue that truly moves me.
Did you apply for attorney‘s training?
No. I‘m an example of a lawyer who obtained the license without training. I have over twenty years of practice and passed the bar exam. For two decades, I worked side by side with my father, dealing mainly with commercial law. Four years ago, my father passed away. He was the most important person to me, personally and professionally. He was my role model. Today, I do what I‘m truly passionate about – family law. Although I handle criminal cases as well, I largely act as a guardian for children. I‘m always on the defense side. I‘ve been working with the Narodowe Centrum Praw Ojca in Warsaw for over a decade, but, instead of defending the rights of fathers, I defend the rights of children. I never give advice on reducing child support, I have my rules. My work is my passion. I love what I do. To this day, when I go to court holding my robe, I smile at it. I truly am proud of it.
What else makes you proud?
I’m proud of being exactly where I am – that I run my own law firm. I employ two wonderful women, whom I can completely rely on. I‘m happy of having so many wards I’m so important to – this gives me great satisfaction. I really like my job. I‘m also proud I‘ve regained my self-esteem, severely shaken for years. Two years ago, I became seriously ill, and a year ago, I separated from my husband – it was a very difficult time for me. However, on New Year’s Eve, I decided to take matters into my own hands: I took the children and went on vacation. Today, I‘m happy. I‘ve met someone special whom I share passions with and whom I can count on. I used to love participating in world car rallies – now we do it together. We travel a lot, sightsee, shop together, and enjoy life.
What are your plans for the future?
I have lots of ideas – sometimes I joke of having ADHD, because I find it hard to sit still. For now, I don’t want to reveal any details, until I start their implementation. But there’s one thing I know for sure: I want to write a book. I have plenty of things to write about. Recently, I discovered that my dad was a child of the Holocaust – he was found years later. He came from one of the largest Jewish families in Krakow. The tenement at 12 Józefa Street in Krakow’s Kazimierz district, where, among other places, the Schindler’s list was filmed, belonged to our family. My aunt comes from the Horowitz family, also on Schindler’s list – they are our cousins. It’s a story that deserves to be told…
Dorota Kolano
