Trisha Cowart | Entrepreneur of the Month | February 2019

By: Sarah Phillips

I have the great honor to introduce to you Trisha Cowart, our February 2019 Entrepreneur of the Month. Trisha is a co-founder of the innovative law firm Cowart Dizzia LLP. This cloud-based, multi-jurisdictional, all female law firm focuses on providing dynamic solutions in the field of regulatory healthcare counseling for a wide variety of clients. The firm provides healthcare facilities with educational trainings, collaborates with agencies and caseworkers to resolve healthcare eligibility issues, and enforces facilities’ rights under Medicaid laws.

Trisha received her B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University, then graduated from Penn State University’s Dickinson School of Law, and shortly after graduating, began working as a Clinical Professor at the law school’s Elder Law and Consumer Protection Clinic. Before starting Cowart Dizzia LLP, she was a partner at a national law firm, where she focused her practice on Medicaid eligibility, civil litigation, and Medicaid regulatory issues. Trisha was kind enough to sit down and share her business and entrepreneurship story with us.

Elements for Success

The first element of success is finding the right and trusted business partner.

What does Trisha credit for the success of her law firm? That’s easy. Trisha says that the key to the law firm’s success has been the strong and balanced relationship between herself and co-founder of Cowart Dizzia LLP, Gina Dizzia. For Trisha, operating a great business is all about finding the right people to go into business with. Trisha recommends that picking your business partner be a slow and deliberate process; it is important to find a partner with complementary skills, but also a partner who has different strengths and can excel in different areas.

 Creating the right company culture is also crucial to developing a business that people want to be part of. For Trisha and her business partner, this means fostering a work environment where the attorneys are enjoying their work and happy in their personal lives. Allowing the firm’s attorneys to telecommute is unique, but for Cowart Dizzia LLP, it’s what makes them successful.

As our conversation continued, it seemed clear that a big element of Trisha’s success as an innovative entrepreneur is that the law firm she and her business partner created has allowed Trisha to pursue a career she is passionate about. Trisha has devoted countless hours to developing meaningful client relationships and putting in the extra time and care to make sure the business flourished in its early stages-all because she was passionate about the work, her clients, the law firm and truly believed in the mission.

Developing strong relationships with clients is also fundamental to your business’ success. Click here for more on why forming long lasting relationships with your clients matters according to Trisha.

Entrepreneurial Risk

You have to think about taking a risk, but you also need it to be a well thought out and calculated risk.

Inherent to being an entrepreneur is taking risk, but Trisha explained that successful entrepreneurs will take calculated risks. For her, that meant taking a risk and leaving her old firm, but doing enough planning ahead of time to set herself up for success.

Part of that planning involved identifying her market, and also determining if there was room for her growing business in that market. Without growth potential, it can be hard to carve out and sustain a place in the marketplace.

Trisha also strongly believes that entrepreneurs can plan for success by finding ways to utilize each team members’ unique strengths. Hear more from Trisha about the value of risk taking and effective management.

Lessons Learned

Our clients’ needs have changed, and you have to adapt and grow with those needs.

If there was one theme that kept coming into our conversation, it was the importance of accepting that change is an inherent part of running a business. If you can be ready to adapt as your clients’ needs shift, you will be able to better meet those needs or fill that opening in the market. Part of this is also understanding that how your business starts may not be the way it ends, and that can be a good thing if it means that you are changing in a positive direction.

Trisha also learned quickly the value in seeking advice from others, especially in the early stages of starting her business. Trisha and her business partner consulted with an attorney and an accountant to make sure that they took all the necessary steps to establish their law firm correctly.  By consulting with experts, they felt more confident in the potential success of their entrepreneurial endeavor.

Learning to adapt best management practices can also play an integral role in the long-term success of your business. Hear Trisha explain why this is important.

Advice for Today’s Entrepreneurs

Keep your costs in-check.

Finding and using innovative methods to lower costs, especially in the early phases, can be extremely helpful when starting your business. Trisha’s law firm uses cloud-based platforms, shared works spaces and a website creation platform to limit costs where possible. This has allowed them to focus on growing in their market niche and establishing themselves as the leader in their field. Trisha explained that after you’ve solidified your identity and experienced financial success, then you can reinvest for expanding or adding on “extras” to your business.

For more creative ways about how to limit costs, click here.

Advice for Today’s Law Student

Your cover letter is your first chance to make a great impression.

Being open to learning about different areas of the law is important as a law student. Trisha found her passion by accepting an internship opportunity at the school’s Elder Law Clinic. Law school, and your early career, should be focused on finding what makes you happy and discovering which area of the law you can be passionate about. Taking advantage of every new experience that comes along is just one way Trisha hopes current law students will continue to challenge themselves as they work through law school.

Trisha also strongly encourages all law students to learn the value of a personal and well-planned cover letter. The cover letters should reflect interest in the position and should demonstrate that your experiences match well with the firm or business. A cover letter that simply copies and pastes pieces from older versions will not make you stand out, and chances are it will not reflect your best qualities.

Being open to learning about different areas of the law is also important as a law student. Trisha found her passion by accepting an internship opportunity at the school’s Elder Law Clinic.

Hear Trisha explain why taking advantage of new experiences is valuable.

Videos containing Trisha Cowart’s great insights can be viewed through links in the above article.

This post was authored on February 2, 2019.


Sarah Phillips, at the time of this blog post, is a second year law student at Penn State’s Dickinson Law. She is from West Amwell, New Jersey and has interests in agricultural, land use and business transactional law. She is currently serving as a Honor Code Representative and a Law Lion Ambassador.

Photo source: https://www.businessknowhow.com/money/bizexpenses.htm

Author: Prof Prince

Professor Samantha Prince is an Associate Professor of Lawyering Skills and Entrepreneurship at Penn State Dickinson Law. She has a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center, and was a partner in a regional law firm where she handled transactional matters that ranged from an initial public offering to regular representation of a publicly-traded company. Most of her clients were small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs, including start-ups. An expert in entrepreneurship law, she established the Penn State Dickinson Law entrepreneurship program, is an advisor for the Entrepreneurship Law Certificate that is available to students, and is the founder and moderator of the Inside Entrepreneurship Law blog.