Ross legal voice for R.I. small-business owners

SIMPLE FORMULA: Miriam A. Ross has a simple formula for success: Work hard at what you love and stay focused. She’s pictured with Kevin P. Braga, of counsel for Ross’ law firm. / PBN FILE PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
SIMPLE FORMULA: Miriam A. Ross has a simple formula for success: Work hard at what you love and stay focused. She’s pictured with Kevin P. Braga, of counsel for Ross’ law firm. / PBN FILE PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

Miriam A. Ross may have the secret to being a successful business owner, and the answer isn’t all that surprising.
It takes passion, direction and lots of hard work, she says.
“I’m up early, and I’m up late,” said Ross, who has run her own law firm, Law Offices of Miriam A. Ross Esq., in Providence for the last eight years. “To be successful in anything, you need to be doing something that you love and [from which] you derive benefit. … [When you’re doing that], it all sort of falls in place.”
Of course, as hard work would imply, getting to that point isn’t quite that easy.
Ross wrapped up her philosophy on how to do it all while reflecting on the path her life and career have taken, from growing up in 1960s Ohio to becoming one of very few women-owned law firms in Rhode Island.
She recently was named the U.S. Small Business Administration’s New England Women in Business Champion of the Year, an honor she said she was humbled to receive.
Though she is, in her own words, “quite measured” in what she shares, she did admit that there have been bumps along the road to success.
“I have encountered, as I think most professional women have, resistance in the marketplace for a competent woman,” she said.
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan, Ross earned her law degree at Cleveland State University College of Law.
She began her career practicing corporate law, eventually relocating to the Providence area for a position with Textron Inc. She worked after that for GTECH Corp. as counsel managing the global compliance program.
Making the switch to entrepreneurship and to a focus on the Providence area’s small-business market, rather than corporate America, she said, was born out of her passion for business – this time a passion to run her own. The decision was driven, too, by wanting to help small businesses – which as a group she views as a major economic mover in the state – gain access to counsel they might not have otherwise.
“The target is to provide and grow the business in that segment that need legal services and can’t [handle] the overhead of a full-time lawyer,” said Ross.
She has made it a mission to be a visible voice of not only the small-business owner but also the female business owner.
“I go to [events for] networking and places to champion small-business issues, and inevitably I’m one of a few lawyers in the room. Invariably, I’m the only woman lawyer,” said Ross. “I think that says a lot about my commitment to the entrepreneur and the small-business community in providing and giving them a voice at the table, in whatever table that might be.”
With just one other counsel in house, and intermittent clerical assistance, it’s often Ross who answers the office phone. For all practical matters, it’s a one-woman law office, and her responsibilities don’t stop there. Ross also teaches at Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol.
She lost her 2010 bid as an independent candidate for the Rhode Island Senate in the third district to the Democratic incumbent Rhoda Perry, but says another run is a “distinct possibility.”
In the meantime, she’s focused on growing her law practice and balancing business and personal opportunities, drawing inspiration from her upbringing.
“There probably were no better role models than my parents,” she said. &#8226

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