Jany Mart\u00ednez-Ward didn’t have quincea\u00f1era photos or a party because she traded them for weekends studying English.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
No one who hears her on the Miami radio stations promoting her multimillion-dollar law firm, The Ward Law Group, PL, would imagine that Mart\u00ednez-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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first job was at the Opa-locka flea market selling stockings,\u201d remembers Mart\u00ednez-Ward, who was 15 at the time.<\/p>\n
Born in Cuba during the Per\u00edodo Especial, a period of deep economic crisis on the island after the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989, Mart\u00ednez-Ward emigrated with her family to Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sang, acted in plays. I didn\u2019t know what communism was,\u201d she said of what she recalls as a happy childhood in Cuba.<\/p>\n
But her mother\u2019s university teaching salary wasn\u2019t enough, Mart\u00ednez-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.<\/p>\n
Triumphing against all odds 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 <\/p>\n
In Miami, Mart\u00ednez-Ward defied the prediction of a high school teacher who told her she would never be a lawyer.<\/p>\n
Like all immigrants, she had to take ESOL classes to learn English before starting regular classes.<\/p>\n
The teacher gave the students an assignment to write a letter in English describing how they imagined themselves in 10 years.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez-Ward anticipated she would be a lawyer, but the teacher told her she didn\u2019t have the English skills to achieve that dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started to cry. It was traumatic. If it weren\u2019t for my family, I almost would have believed her,\u201d said Mart\u00ednez-Ward, who used that rejection as a challenge to keep going.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you train yourself, you educate yourself, you can break those statistics,\u201d said Mart\u00ednez-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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud to be a Hispanic woman who owns a law firm with more than 250 employees, with offices in Miami, New York and Orlando,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A letter, a love Jany Martinez-Ward and Gregory Ward are the owners of Ward Law Group, which has offices in Miami, New York, and Orlando. Courtesy <\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez-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 \u2014 this time the one she wrote to God.<\/p>\n
It was Dec. 31, and the pastor of Jany\u2019s church, Alpha & Omega, asked the congregation to write a letter outlining their wishes for the coming year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked for an American who was like me, sensitive,\u201d Mart\u00ednez-Ward confesses, though she can\u2019t explain why she specifically requested someone \u201cAmerican.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was more an ideal she\u2019d inherited from the romantic movies she watched as a child, she admits.<\/p>\n
The universe listened. Shortly after, she met Greg at a lawyers\u2019 luncheon, and they\u2019ve been together for 15 years, married for 14.<\/p>\n
On behalf of the victims 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 <\/p>\n
At the time, Gregory Ward was the attorney defending the interests of large companies against claims from injured people.<\/p>\n
Jany convinced him to change the direction of his career, and they used Gregory\u2019s more than 15 years of experience in that area of law to take on large insurance companies on behalf of victims.<\/p>\n
In 2013, they started their firm, carrying $460,000 in debt, with a plastic chair and the computer Jany used in college.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cTop 40 Under 40.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Within the firm\u2019s division of labor, Mart\u00ednez-Ward focuses on the negotiation process, while her husband handles trials in court.<\/p>\n \u201cMy strong suit is intuition. I know when people are telling the truth or lying,\u201d said Mart\u00ednez-Ward, who studied psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville before attending law school.<\/p>\n The firm\u2019s 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.<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mart\u00ednez-Ward, who lives in Sunny Isles Beach, says the hardest part has been growing and scaling the company\u2019s vision without losing the values they started with.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to bring my vision to the rest of the employees so they understand why it\u2019s important to support immigrants,\u201d the attorney said.<\/p>\n That was one reason they opened an office in New York, where many Venezuelans need representation.<\/p>\n Mart\u00ednez-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.<\/p>\n \u201cI want immigrants to feel they have a voice,\u201d she said, \u201cespecially now when immigrants are being shut out.\u201d<\/p>\n