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Starting a new business can be challenging even when all macro- and micro-economic conditions align perfectly. Doing it while a pandemic is wreaking havoc on people’s lives in all ways that matter seems like a foolish errand.
But while a third of small businesses in the United States were still closed a year into the pandemic, as the World Economic Forum reported, the pandemic also had a surprising effect. Entrepreneurship simply – boomed.
The U.S. Census Bureau business formation statistics show that almost ten million new business applications were filed during 2020 and 2021. One of those applications belonged to Eric Scott Rosen, a trial lawyer who left a position in an established law firm to strike out on his own in January 2020.
At this point in his career, Eric Scott Rosen already had more than a few things going for him. He’s been working in the legal profession since 2007, starting his career as a prosecutor in Broward County, Florida. Then, a year later, he left the State Attorney’s office and worked solo for a year before joining Kelley|Uustal.
Eric Scott Rosen spent over a decade there, working on big lawsuits where the stakes were high and the opposing side was well-financed and powerful. Taking on Big Tobacco in a case destined for loss and winning it with an eight-figure verdict for his client gave him the confidence to know he was the exact kind of lawyer he always wanted to be.
The next step was obvious to him. “I decided to invest into myself and leave Kelley|Uustal,” Eric Scott Rosen says. “I left without any of my cases and opened my own firm. I was a co-counsel on one tobacco case with Kelley|Uustal.”
Rosen Injury Law’s first case ended with a verdict of $12.5 million in favor of Eric Scott Rosen’s client, the surviving spouse of a deceased police detective from South Florida who died after smoking for over 40 years. However, a short month after the victory, everything turned upside down when the pandemic hit.
Between hunkering down and locking the doors on his new firm or powering through on momentum and pure grit, Eric Scott Rosen felt he had only one choice.
“Instead of folding up, I doubled down on learning how to run a business and market it,” he says. “I learned how to use social media to grow the law firm, and I found ways to help others do it, too.”
A believer in honest hard work and dedication to his craft, Eric Scott Rosen decided to learn complementary skills to adjust to the new normal. And it paid off – his efforts to grow a firm at such precarious times resulted in doubling his team and taking on additional personnel. He even has marketing and social media specialists working with him.
The best thing about it is that he’s willing to share what he has learned. Through various forms of education and mentoring, Eric Scott Rosen imparts his knowledge to fellow lawyers and law students. He even organizes mock courtroom experiences for high school students interested in the legal profession. As far as he’s concerned, nothing tastes as sweet as the lemonade you make from the lemons life gives you.
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This content is brought to you by Shahbaz Ahmed
Photo provided by Coltan Barter