Bio

Mr. Mazzarella has enjoyed remarkable success as a true “trial lawyer” over the past 40 years, trying cases from San Diego to Washington D.C. Unlike most “litigators” today, who have very little actual trial experience, Mr. Mazzarella has tried 87 cases, mostly to judgment before juries, but also before judges and arbitrators. His trial experience and skills as a true trial lawyer have not just led to consistent victory for his clients in the courtroom, they have given him the reputation as someone who tries and wins cases, which in turn results in faster and more favorable settlements.

Mr. Mazzarella's skills as a trial lawyer have been recognized by his peers for decades. In the third year after Mr. Mazzarella first formed his own firm in 1992 it was recognized in a San Diego Metropolitan Magazine poll of downtown San Diego attorneys as one of the three most admired firms in San Diego. Since just his second year in practice, in 1980 Mr. Mazzarella received Martendale Hubble's AV rating, which he has received for the past 38 years. Since 2006, in polls of over 6,000 San Diego attorneys who were asked by the San Diego Daily Transcript to name the “Top Attorneys in San Diego” Mr. Mazzarella has been selected in the “Corporate Litigation” category. Every year since the results of the “Best of the U.S.” peer review polls were first published Mr. Mazzarella has been listed. In some years he was the only San Diego real estate litigator on the list. Every year since Thompson & Reuters has published the results of its peer review polls Mr. Mazzarella has been named a “San Diego Super Lawyer.”

Among the most highly regarded trial lawyers in California, Mr. Mazzarella has been asked repeatedly to join the faculty of the American Bar Association’s National Trial Institute, “How to Win A Business Jury Trial.” Since the year 2000, Mr. Mazzarella has been asked to participate in the trial demonstration programs at the Annual Trial Seminar of The Litigation Section of The California State Bar, and The Association of Business Trial Lawyers’ Annual Trial Symposium more than any other attorney in California.

Mr. Mazzarella is a past chair of the 10,000 member Litigation Section of the California State Bar Association, is a two-term past president of The Association of Business Trial Lawyers–San Diego, and is a member of the American Bar Association Advisory Panel. In 2007, Mr. Mazzarella was one of 3 San Diego attorneys appointed by the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to serve as a lawyer representative to the Judicial Conference of The United States Court of Appeal for the 9thCircuit. He has served as a judge pro tem for the San Diego County Superior Court, and chaired the ad hoc Committee on Bench/Bar relations for the San Diego County Superior and Municipal Courts, and the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of California, which was formed to help stabilize bench/bar relations in the wake of the 1996 bribery convictions in San Diego of three judges and one attorney. In 1992-1993 he was the principal draftsman of the Guidelines for Ethics, Civility and Professionalism for the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, to which 50 San Diego law firms pledged to comply. In 2006, Mr. Mazzarella was acknowledged by the San Diego Daily Transcript when it named San Diego’s “Top Influentials,” those who had the most influence on the San Diego business community.

Mr. Mazzarella graduated from Hilltop High School in Chula Vista, California, where he was class valedictorian. Mr. Mazzarella received his undergraduate degree from United States International University, Cal Western, where he graduated first in his class. He received his law degree from U.C.L.A. Law School, where he was appointed by the Dean to the U.C.L.A. Law School’s Standards and Admissions Committees, was a member of the U.C.L.A. Law Review and Moot Court Honors Program, and received the honor of giving the commencement address on behalf of the U.C.L.A. Law School graduating class of 1978.

Mr. Mazzarella began his law career in 1978 with the San Diego-based national law firm of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps. In 1986, in only his eighth year of practice, his partners elected him Chair of the firm’s 60 attorney trial department and one of six members of its Management Committee. In 1990, still in just his 12th year of practice, Mr. Mazzarella was recruited by California’s largest real estate law firm, Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble & Mallory, to become the Chair of the trial department of its San Diego office. He left Allen Matkins and started his own firm in 1991.

Mr. Mazzarella specializes in general business litigation, with an emphasis on real estate disputes. He has represented a wide range of individual and corporate clients, judges and lawyers, ranging from Governor/Senator Mitt Romney, Academy Award nominee Edward James Olmos and bestselling author Spencer Johnson to many who have had a significant influence on San Diego’s landscape, such as “Papa Doug” Manchester and The Manchester Financial Group, Arena Group 2000 (Ron and Ernie Hahn), Pacific Scenes Homes, The Phair Company and the Douglas Wilson Companies.

Mr. Mazzarella has enjoyed substantial business and management success, not just as the managing member of his own firms, but also as the Trial Department Chair and member of the Management Committee, of two of the largest and most highly respected firms in California.

As a licensed real estate broker, Mr. Mazzarella has been a principal in real estate entities which built or refurbished over 1100 condominium, loft and apartment units.

Mr. Mazzarella also is co-author, with renowned jury consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, of the New York Times and international bestseller, Reading People (Random House 1998), and Put Your Best Foot Forward (Simon & Schuster 2000), as well as scores of legal and lay articles. He has given hundreds of presentations regarding both legal topics and impression formation and management to a wide assortment of groups both nationally and internationally, and has been asked to comment on the impressions made by people in the news on such programs as “Larry King Live,” “Hardball with Chris Mathews,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “CBS This Morning,” “Saturday Morning with Tony Snow,” “The Kathleen Crier Report,” “The Edge with Paula Zahn,” “The Dan Abrams Report,” “EXTRA,” and scores of other ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and NPR news programs. Mr. Mazzarella has been quoted in hundreds of magazines and newsletters on a wide assortment of legal issues as well as lay topics as diverse as whether President Clinton “had sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky,” to “how to conduct a job interview.”

Mr. Mazzarella has worked with senior executives from over 30 Fortune 500 companies, as well politicians, attorneys and witnesses throughout the United States, to help them enhance the impression they make upon the public, the media, judges and juries.

Mr. Mazzarella is available to represent individuals and companies involved in, or seeking to avoid, business and real estate disputes, and as an expert witness and trial consultant.

Mark Carroll Mazzarella

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