Contact Mark Mazzarella
mmazzarella@mazzcal.com
Mark Mazzarella is co-founder and senior partner of the San Diego law firm of 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 appointed by the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to serve a three year term as a lawyer representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. 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. Mr. Mazzarella received his undergraduate degree in 1975 from United States International University, Cal Western, where he graduated first in his class. He received his law degree from U.C.L.A., where he was a member of the U.C.L.A. Law Review and Moot Court Honors Program, and earned 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 his eighth year of practice, he became the Chair of its 60 attorney trial department and one of six members of its Management Committee. In 1990 he became chairperson of the trial department of California’s largest real estate law firm, Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble & Mallory, for 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, lawyers and Bar Associations, including many who have had a significant influence on San Diego's landscape, such as The Manchester Financial Group, Lambert Development, Davidson Communities, Arena Group 2000 (Ron and Ernie Hahn), Pacific Scene Homes, Peter Janopaul, Carter/Reese and the Douglas Wilson Companies. As a licensed real estate broker, Mr. Mazzarella was a principal in real estate entities which built or refurbished over 1100 condominium and apartment units.
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,” and, over the past 10 years, 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 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. 
Mazzarella Caldarelli LLP, which was recognized in a San Diego Metropolitan Magazine poll of downtown San Diego attorneys as one of the three most admired law firms in San Diego. Each year since 2006, in polls of over 6300 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. In each of the past five years Mr. Mazzarella has also been recognized as one of the best attorneys in the United States by “The Best of the U.S.,” and has been rated as a “San Diego Super Lawyer” in a poll of his peers by Law and Politics. In 2006, The San Diego Daily Transcript also identified Mr. Mazzarella as among San Diego's "Top Influentials," those who had the most influence on the San Diego business community. In 2007, Mr. Mazzarella was one of only five real estate lawyers, and the only real estate litigator in San Diego listed in "The Best of the U.S." Mr. Mazzarella has a peer review rating in Martindale Hubbell, the most widely recognized attorney peer review publication, of "AV Preeminent," "5.0 out of 5," the highest possible peer review rating.
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 spoken frequently regarding 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,” “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 and CNN news shows. Mr. Mazzarella has been quoted in hundreds of magazines and newsletters on 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.
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