Q 1. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Answer: At Mazzaferro Law, we are focused on being the premier personal injury firm serving Rhode Island and South Coast Massachusetts. We have three convenient locations in Providence, RI, Fall River, MA, and New Bedford, MA. Our firm has extensive experience in handling a wide range of personal injury cases, including (but not limited to) car accidents and slip and fall accidents. The Mazzaferro Law team knows that no two cases are identical. We take the time to get to know every client we serve, which helps determine an appropriate, nuanced strategy to employ in each individual case. We are committed to fighting for the rights of the injury victims who entrust us with their cases. We work vigorously to maximize the benefits and compensation our clients receive as quickly as possible.
Q 2. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Answer: I am a graduate of Fairfield University, where I was president of the men’s Rugby team. After Fairfield, I attended Northeastern School of Law where I received my J.D. For the past decade, I worked as a defense attorney in personal injury and product liability litigation at large, national firms. In this capacity, I would work with well known companies and entities developing procedures and guidelines for defending against accidents and slip and falls which occurred on their premises. I would also represent them in court when suit was filed, or pre-suit, in the attempt to resolve any cases prior to litigation being utilized. In 2022, I was selected as a Rising Star in Litigation by Super Lawyers, a nationally recognized program which ranks lawyers in their field.
Q 3. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
For the last ten years, I worked as a defense attorney in personal injury and product liability litigation. I was hired by insurance companies to defend against the claims of injured people. I spent ten years poking holes in cases to deny compensation that in many instances was truly deserved. The insurance companies and their attorneys employ many tricks and traps in the attempt to pay as little as possible. Most individuals lacked the proper guidance and legal representation to avoid these traps. After a decade of working to deny just compensation, I had enough. I was tired of seeing injured people fall into the traps set by insurance companies and not get paid what they rightfully deserve. I firmly believe that when people are injured, those who are responsible should be held accountable. I established Mazzaferro Law, LLC with the primary goal of helping the injured receive the compensation they deserve.
Q 4. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Answer: I would say three pieces of advice are 1), to practice patience, 2), to maintain persistence, and 3), to demonstrate gratitude. Patience and persistence are intertwined. By this, I mean to say that success does not come crashing in overnight; it does not come in the first month, and may not come in the first year. You must be patient in pursuing your desired goals and not prioritize short-term satisfaction over long term success. If you believe in what you are doing, execute those beliefs, and are persistent in pursuing your desired outcome – the success will come. Patience is imperative to reaching the long term goals you set.
On the other hand, you cannot just sit around and wait for success. Success is something you must actively work toward. You must persistently pursue your goals, engage in trial and error to see what works, and network regularly with people who are successful in your field to learn how they achieved the same success you are after. When you combine patience with persistency, you will get to where you want to be.
The idea of gratitude is simple – people want to work with people they like. Be humble, be polite, and be courteous, and people will want to work with you.
Q 5. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
The top three skills needed are time management, communication skills, and leadership qualities. For time management; when you start any business, your days are filled with many different tasks of varying levels of priority. You must be able to determine what needs immediate attention and what can be delayed and/or outsourced. You must be able to identify the difference between a ten-minute job and a two-hour job so you can allocate your time accordingly. It will do you no good to spend two hours on something that should take ten minutes. Vice versa, it will do nothing but hurt you to spend ten minutes on something that should take two hours.
Communication skills are critical to becoming successful. As an entrepreneur, you not only need to have a clear vision of your goals, but also articulate those goals to the people helping you reach them. Additionally, you will have various people working for you and you need to understand how to communicate effectively with them so there is no mistaking what you need done and how the work should be performed. Finally, you must be able to respectfully engage with clients, discuss their issues and concerns, and relay how you will be uniquely helpful to them.
Strong leadership qualities are essential for running a successful business. Your employees will look to you for guidance. Leading your team by example, overcoming difficult challenges while staying calm and collective is no easy task, yet extremely important. Developing a leadership style geared towards your employees and business will allow your organization to be the most effective.
Q 6. How many hours do you work a day on average?
I typically work 10-12 hours per day. I usually start early in the morning. This allows me to get uninterrupted time to finish work, review cases, and respond to emails that may have come in overnight. I find that if I can get the majority of my desk work done in the morning, it frees up my days to allow more time for client interaction and completing other tasks without the burden of knowing I have a pile of desk work to complete.
I have three young children and I try to make sure I am home for dinner with them every night, have time to help them with homework and sports, and bring them to their extracurricular activities. If needed, I will log on after the kids are in bed to once again send any emails that need to go out and respond to emails that may have come in since I left the office.
Q 7. To what do you most attribute your success?
Answer: You have to be able to trust yourself and your own intuition. When you start any venture on your own, it’s a daunting process. You can be departing from relative security and attempting to start something without any guarantee of success. You need the self-assurance to trust that you are smart enough, will work hard enough, and are fully capable of achieving the success you desire. You need to trust yourself in making a life-changing decision.
The other aspect of success is surrounding yourself with the right people. With any venture, you need to have intelligent, driven people around you. You need to have people who you can trust, people who can push you, and people who can challenge your ideas with different viewpoints or different concepts.
Q 8. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Answer: I do a mixture of online marking and traditional paid advertising. The results are about even.
Q 9. Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Answer: Luckily a law firm does not have a high initial startup cost and I was able to save for a time before starting the firm. I then invested most of the money I made back into the firm to help with growth.
Q 10. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Answer: Long-term success is best achieved by being the best at what you do and being the best person you can be. People will want to work with people they like, but they also want to work with people who get the best results. If you can get the best results and be a person people want to work with, you are on the right path for long term success.
Q 11. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Answer: My goal is for Mazzaferro Law to develop into one of the most prominent firms in greater Providence, RI and Southeastern MA. I see myself bringing on a larger support staff team and employing more attorneys so we can better serve our community.
Q 12. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Answer: It is not a company or business I admire the most, but rather, the work of two people – my father and grandfather – who are both entrepreneurs. I watched them grow their own businesses first-hand. I saw the sacrifices they made and how they worked ceaselessly to achieve success. As I have now done the same thing, I feel I can relate to them more and my admiration for what they accomplished bears even more understanding and appreciation.
Q 13. How important have good employees been to your success?
Answer: You will only go as far as the people who you surround yourself with will allow you to go. One of the most critical decisions an entrepreneur makes is in the employees he/she hires. With any venture, you need to have smart, driven people around you. You need to have people who you can trust, people who can push you, and people who can challenge your ideas with different viewpoints or different concepts. The vitality of any successful business hinges on the retention of its strong employees.
Q 14. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Answer: I think that depends on the idea. The idea of starting a business may take years to come to fruition, and it may be worthwhile to really stick it out for the long term. However, in my day-to-day, I am not stuck to ideas for very long. If the ideas are not proving relevant to the end-goal in mind, I scrap them quickly and move on to trying something else.
Q 15. What motivates you?
Answer: The easier answer is my clients. When you hire me as your attorney, that is the greatest professional compliment I can receive. I work very hard to ensure you never regret that decision and I am extremely motivated to achieve the results you want.
My children are also my motivation. They are very young and do not realize it yet, but everything I do, I do for them. I want them to be proud of the work I accomplish, the legacy that I create, and the person I am. I work every day toward being a great attorney and great person, so they can proudly call me “Dad.”
Q 16. What are your ideals?
Answer: My two main ideals are 1), hard work, and 2), honesty. I want my clients to know that I will never be outworked. I will work on their behalf to achieve the best possible outcome. Also, honestly is incredibly important to me. In the legal profession, sometimes there are things that must be said which may not be popular or are not what people want to hear. I am always honest and try to explain the difficulty surrounding some situations with a sense of integrity and obligation to my clients’ best interest.
Q 17. How do you generate new ideas?
Answer: New ideas are primarily generated by brainstorming with co-workers or colleagues. I also read the published work of colleagues and other public figures who I admire to generate ideas from how they handled situations that may be applicable to my business.
Q 18. How do you define success?
Answer: In my mind, success goes far beyond being financially comfortable. I want to be the business owner, father, husband, friend, and family member that people are proud to be associated with and want to be around. I want to build a firm that clients come back to and refer their friends and family to. When a client refers someone they care for to me, that is the ultimate compliment and sign of success in my mind. It means they trust me with their loved one, and trust that I will help them in their time of need.
Q 19. How do you build a successful customer base?
Answer: The best way to build a customer base is through referrals. This done by being a good attorney and getting results that surpass your client’s expectations. The more successful you are for your clients, the more people they will refer to you.
Q 20. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Answer: It’s the knowledge that you that you built something and the freedom that comes with working for yourself.
Q 21. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Answer: My most satisfying moment in business was when I signed my first client after opening my own firm. I was very nervous after I left a comfortable job, and certainly had my doubts. Signing my first client made me think, “I can do this.”
Q 22. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Answer: To be entrepreneur you must be an inherent risk taker. There is no guarantee that a business will work, but entrepreneurs are willing to take that risk to live a life they desire.
Q 23. What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Answer: We have a culture of open communication. When you hire Mazzaferro Law, you are hiring the firm. I encourage people to voice their ideas and opinions, because I know my ideas and opinions are not always right. We work to together to determine the best strategy for our clients and through a joint effort work toward achieving the best results possible.
Q 24. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Answer: Exhilarating.
Q 25. If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Answer: I would start my own firm earlier in my career. It was something that I wanted to do for a long time, but for one reason or another, I held back. Starting over, I would have taken the plunge much earlier.
Q 26. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Answer: It certainly allows me to more present at home, even though I am working more than ever. I can work on my schedule which allows me to be home for dinner and attend my kids’ events and games.
Q 27. How did you decide on the location for your business?
Answer: I decided to open my firm in the area where I live and have practiced for the past ten years. I established both personal and professional relationships in the area and it is a spot in which I want to be and help create a better community.
Q 28. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Answer: I think the path is different for everyone and there is no set pattern or formula. There are, however, certain ideas and concepts which are necessary for being a successful entrepreneur such as hard work, integrity, and honesty. But the path to success is different for every traveler.
Q 29. If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?
Answer: I am a big history buff, and spend a good deal of time reading about historical events or biographies of people I admire. There are a lot of people who I would like to ask one or two questions. However, I just finished reading a couple of books about Ulysses S. Grant and he is fresh on my mind. He was a fascinating individual who devised the military strategy that ultimately led to the Union’s victory in the Civil War and then became president. While the north lauded his accomplishments, the south hated him. Nevertheless, he was charged with overseeing the rebuilding of the country. Grant is ultimately judged harshly by history, and lot of that has to do with scandals during his presidency. However, most of those scandals appear to have been caused by people taking advantage of Grant. He trusted people and wanted to believe people were good. During the war, he had a terrific judge of character and surrounded himself with the best people which ultimately led to victory. Once he became president, this changed, and the people he surrounded himself took advantage of their positions which led to a lot of hardship for Grant. Ultimately, he is a key player in American History and is one of the most influential Presidents and Generals we have had, but a lot remains unknown. I would love to speak with him to discuss leadership qualities, what he would have done different in judging the character of the people he surrounded himself with, and how he overcome so much adversity after the war. Furthermore, it would satisfy a lot of my own curiosity into the time-period.
Q 30. Who has been your greatest inspiration?
Answer: I go back to my father and grandfather. They are both entrepreneurs who started and created successful businesses. They did this while raising families, being involved in the community, and admired by their peers. As a child, it seemed easy to reach those goals, but as you grow and attempt to do it yourself, you learn that nothing is easy. The admiration I have for them turned into inspiration to attempt to do it myself.
Q 31. What book has inspired you the most? (OR what is your favorite book?)
Answer: My favorite book is “Where the Red Fern Grows.” I first read it in Mr. Bulger’s seventh grade English class. At that time, I was not really into reading books and had a hard time finishing them. However, I finished that book in a weekend. There was adventure, loss, learning, and growing-up and I just found it to be very relatable at the time. I re-read it every few years and the story never gets old. I have found something to pull out of the story that is applicable to my life stage when I read it.
Q 32. What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Answer: I really enjoy being outside and working around my house. I enjoy gardening and starting home projects. I also have a beehive where I process my own honey.
Most of my free time is spent with my kids. We have three children who are involved in various sports and activities and most Saturdays are spent on a field or at a gym.
Company Detail:
Company : Mazzaferro Law
Contact : Edward Mazzaferro
Address : 99 South Main Street
City : Fall River
State : Massachusetts
Zip : 02720
Country : USA
Phone : 401-335-0078
Email : ed@mazzaferrolaw.com