The Ballard Family

Brent Ballard showed up for the photo shoot sporting one of his father’s old neckties. He had plenty to choose from. In his father’s closet, he found what felt like a million of them, including a cache of vintage Cleveland Clinic ties from decades ago. When he wears one, people stop him to ask where he got it.

Lester Ballard, MD, believed a physician ought to look like one. A colleague once told the story of turning up for rounds without a coat and tie — and being dismissed on the spot. He could rejoin the group when he was properly dressed. Patients, Dr. Ballard insisted, expect to see a professional.

Brent has practiced law for more than 40 years. He reckons he might be the only man in his firm wearing a sport coat today.

Photographs of babies covered the walls of Lester’s office at Cleveland Clinic, where he led the Department of Gynecology for 15 years. He was considered the grandfather of pelvic reconstructive surgery. In addition to pioneering new surgical techniques, he oversaw the launch of a program for assisted reproductive technology, including cryopreservation of embryos.

He tried to recruit his son, to no avail. When Brent was still a young boy, his dad started bringing him to work. Parking him at a microscope with slides of cancerous tissue. Gowning him up. Giving him a front-row seat in operating rooms.

“I can tell you: It didn’t work,” Brent says.

The poor kid who kept getting lightheaded in the hospital became a lawyer instead. All the same, he learned enough lessons from his father to last a lifetime. That being a professional isn’t always convenient. That you take the call on a Sunday. That when you stand up to acknowledge the people who made your career possible, you thank the nurses and the assistants and the folks who lock up at night.

Brent plays cards with a woman who never fails to remind him that his father’s expert care is the reason she was able to have five children. Not to mention 18 grandchildren.

“There’s nothing you can do as a lawyer that beats that,” Brent says.

He joined the Cleveland Clinic Board of Trustees in 2024. He wishes that his dad had lived to see it.

Lester died earlier that same year at the age of 94. “If God is a woman,” his son said at his graveside, “her doctor has just arrived.”

Not long afterward, Brent came across his father’s white coat. His prescription book was still tucked in the pocket.

“He was ready,” Brent says. “Always.”