Jany Martínez-Ward didn’t have quinceañera photos or a party because she traded them for weekends studying English.
Just a year earlier, she had taken a three-hour Greyhound bus from Matamoros, Mexico, to cross the southern border of the United States. When she arrived in Texas, she spent more than a month in a foster home while her mother remained in an immigration detention center.
No one who hears her on the Miami radio stations promoting her multimillion-dollar law firm, The Ward Law Group, PL, would imagine that Martínez-Ward, who today owns two office buildings in Miami Lakes for which she paid more than $32 million, once shared a one-bedroom apartment in Hialeah with 10 relatives.
“My first job was at the Opa-locka flea market selling stockings,” remembers Martínez-Ward, who was 15 at the time.
Born in Cuba during the Período Especial, a period of deep economic crisis on the island after the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989, Martínez-Ward emigrated with her family to Venezuela.
“I sang, acted in plays. I didn’t know what communism was,” she said of what she recalls as a happy childhood in Cuba.
But her mother’s university teaching salary wasn’t enough, Martínez-Ward notes. To supplement income, her mother made stained-glass lamps, and they had the opportunity to attend an event in Venezuela. They stayed there until Chavismo took hold and the family had to leave again.
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Jany Martinez-Ward, co-founder of the law firm The Ward Law Group, is a Cuban immigrant who has made a successful career as an advocate for immigrant accident victims in Miami. Courtesy
In Miami, Martínez-Ward defied the prediction of a high school teacher who told her she would never be a lawyer.
Like all immigrants, she had to take ESOL classes to learn English before starting regular classes.
The teacher gave the students an assignment to write a letter in English describing how they imagined themselves in 10 years.
Martínez-Ward anticipated she would be a lawyer, but the teacher told her she didn’t have the English skills to achieve that dream.
“I started to cry. It was traumatic. If it weren’t for my family, I almost would have believed her,” said Martínez-Ward, who used that rejection as a challenge to keep going.
When she graduated from law school at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, the odds were stacked against her. It was almost unthinkable that a lawyer from a minority background would own a multimillion-dollar firm.
“If you train yourself, you educate yourself, you can break those statistics,” said Martínez-Ward, who likes to serve as an inspiration for women from an early age, as is the case with her 9-year-old twin daughters, who are the voices in the radio commercials where she advertises her work as a personal injury attorney.
“I’m proud to be a Hispanic woman who owns a law firm with more than 250 employees, with offices in Miami, New York and Orlando,” she said.
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Jany Martinez-Ward and Gregory Ward are the owners of Ward Law Group, which has offices in Miami, New York, and Orlando. Courtesy
Martínez-Ward, 38, is co-owner of The Ward Law Group with her husband, Gregory Ward, and when she tells the story of how they met, letters come up again — this time the one she wrote to God.
It was Dec. 31, and the pastor of Jany’s church, Alpha & Omega, asked the congregation to write a letter outlining their wishes for the coming year.
“I asked for an American who was like me, sensitive,” Martínez-Ward confesses, though she can’t explain why she specifically requested someone “American.”
It was more an ideal she’d inherited from the romantic movies she watched as a child, she admits.
The universe listened. Shortly after, she met Greg at a lawyers’ luncheon, and they’ve been together for 15 years, married for 14.
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Cuban-American attorney Jany Martinez-Ward with her husband, attorney Gregory Ward, at the offices of The Ward Law Group in Miami Lakes. The law firm specializes in representing accident victims, particularly Hispanics and immigrants. Courtesy
At the time, Gregory Ward was the attorney defending the interests of large companies against claims from injured people.
Jany convinced him to change the direction of his career, and they used Gregory’s more than 15 years of experience in that area of law to take on large insurance companies on behalf of victims.
In 2013, they started their firm, carrying $460,000 in debt, with a plastic chair and the computer Jany used in college.
The Ward Law Group, PL has helped 31,000 families recover nearly a billion dollars in compensation for car accidents, the attorney says. In 2018 the National Trial Lawyers Association named her among the “Top 40 Under 40.”
Within the firm’s division of labor, Martínez-Ward focuses on the negotiation process, while her husband handles trials in court.
“My strong suit is intuition. I know when people are telling the truth or lying,” said Martínez-Ward, who studied psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville before attending law school.
The firm’s growth, which represents many Hispanic clients, is reflected in its real estate acquisitions. In 2020, they established The Ward Law Group headquarters at a building located at 6625 Miami Lakes Dr., which they bought for $11.5 million. In 2023, they acquired the Kislak Building at 7900 NW 154th St. in Miami Lakes for $21 million.
Martínez-Ward, who lives in Sunny Isles Beach, says the hardest part has been growing and scaling the company’s vision without losing the values they started with.
“I want to bring my vision to the rest of the employees so they understand why it’s important to support immigrants,” the attorney said.
That was one reason they opened an office in New York, where many Venezuelans need representation.
Martínez-Ward says she often asks herself how a tragedy can be turned into change. They achieved that when the firm secured nearly $100 million for a client who uses a wheelchair.
“I want immigrants to feel they have a voice,” she said, “especially now when immigrants are being shut out.”
el Nuevo Herald
Sarah Moreno cubre temas de negocios, entretenimiento y tendencias en el sur de la Florida. Se graduó de la Universidad de La Habana y de Florida International University. @SarahMoreno1585