Big Dreams From Small Roots: The CEO Lawyer's Climb to Success

ATLANTA, April 1, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- From his office on Peachtree Street in Atlanta's sought-after downtown district, ambitious lawyer Ali Awad often thinks about a different, much smaller Georgia town where his gratitude for life and professional motivation was born in the midst of a uniquely tough childhood. Circumstance can shape life's options, but attitude can transform them—a lesson which Awad remembers every day. As the son of hard-working refugees, attitude got him through scarcity, racism, and discrimination and he intends to find out just how far attitude can take him as he grows his practice, media interests, and business opportunities.

Having known the impacts of war and violent politics an ocean away, Awad's parents moved he and his five siblings to the southern town of Dalton, GA hoping for opportunity and safety from bullets and bombs. The isolated, entrenched factory town was a challenging fit for the family. They looked different, worshipped differently, and were busy on a family mission with which many refugees are familiar: sending much-needed financial resources to family members still endangered and impoverished overseas.

Although living in a town full of deep-rooted conventions, Ali and his family retained their faith traditions. Early each morning, Ali and his siblings would wake in darkness to drive to Dalton's tiny mosque for prayer. After visiting the mosque, they'd read the Quran reflectively, internalizing its lessons and stories. Nighttime devotion was equally important, but bedtime worship was often interrupted by gunshots in the neighborhood.

For Awad, time outside of school or the mosque was spent accompanying his father to various jobs in construction and to mechanic shops. On one occasion, Awad's father, Jamal, found work as a welder and set up a small operation inside a carpet factory. 8-year-old Awad experienced his first workplace injury there when a propane tank fell on the boy's foot, causing it to swell to the size of a small football. Dalton's little grade school had no appropriations for stairs or an elevator, so Awad's third-grade teacher took to the task of carrying the injured boy up and down the stairs for weeks so he could attend his classes.

The next year didn't ease up for the young worker. While airing up a used tire on an old Coats machine, be had a brush with death when it exploded in his face—his hearing leaving him for nearly a week.

Neighborly hospitality wasn't extended to the Awad family. When they spoke Arabic—their native language—members of the overwhelmingly white area would often harass the family, yelling at them to leave and go back to their home country. Ali, who focused intensely on education and working with his father, remembers a childhood spent feeling like an outcast. "Even in school, I never really felt like I fit in anywhere."
But Ali was determined to change the story. Instead of spending lunch hours and class breaks alone, he resolved to create a new world around him. Awad became fluent in Spanish by age 13 to get along better with Hispanic friends.

For Jamal, the financial burden of supporting a family of eight in America was an unshakeable load. Awad longed to help his father more, so at the age of 13, he began buying and selling used electronics, singlehandedly building a fully-operational e-commerce store.

While classmates were still reveling in adolescent concerns, Awad, a sophomore in high school, became financially independent. By 17, he founded AMD Wholesalers, a wholesale car audio company. The teenager would drive his mom's car, filled to the brim with equipment, upwards of 100 miles to meet with retailers and strike deals. Business was great until a customer whom Ali had extended credit to after a previously successful purchase gave him a series of postdated checks from a closed account—for $25,000 of already-delivered merchandise. After attempting to contact the customer, Awad's products weren't returned. Instead, he was met with the threat of a bullet in his head.

Awad saved enough funds for college and enrolled in Kennesaw State University to complete his bachelor's. He began his doctorate in law at age 21 at Atlanta's Georgia State University and calculated that finishing the 4.5-year program in an ambitious 3-year timeline would save him a sizable tuition payment. Awad graduated at age 24 as one of the youngest combined JD/MBA graduates in Georgia history—all the while becoming a published author, traveling overseas on study abroad trips, taking Chinese courses for fun, and commencing private pilot training.

At 26, the young Muslim who grew up poor in the Bible Belt opened the doors of his own law firm in Atlanta and now represents over 200 clients in personal injury cases nationwide with active plans for expansion. The long days with no end in sight and rough childhood memories were put to bed by Awad's impassioned attitude characterized by motivation and gratitude. "It's such a privilege to have options in this country while much of my overseas family lives in fear. I would be ashamed if I didn't get up and work hard every day to make the most of it. Life will keep coming at you—the question is whether you can meet it with courage and optimism." Recently mentioned in Forbes and now dubbed The CEO Lawyer, his ambition is to become the best personal injury lawyer in all of America. And who knows if Ali J. Awad will even stop there.

SOURCE Scylla Technologies LLC