Our Mission

Sphinx Publishing has made legal self-help easier. Sphinx Publishing offers a complete line of national and regional titles, designed to assist the reader with their legal questions.  Our goal is to provide you with the most up-to-date information and publications to meet your needs and educate you on YOUR specific situation.  Most of our publications are written by lawyers with extensive knowledge of their area of expertise.  These books are guides that can help you through your specific situation and help you understand different aspects of the law and speak knowledgably to your attorney.

Your questions can be answered with resources from Sphinx Legal.

SPHINX Publishing History

Sphinx Publishing was founded in 1983 by Mark Warda, attorney at law, when he realized that most of his clients would not have as many legal problems if they knew about the law ahead of time. At that time, there were very few books explaining the law to non-lawyers. The first book he wrote was Landlord’s Rights and Duties in Florida. Mark took his typewritten manuscript to a local print shop and had 500 copies printed. He designed a rough cover with rub-on lettering, bought a spiral binding machine, and put the books together in his law office. All 500 books sold in no time and he had to print more to keep up with orders.

Warda started working on other topics, such as starting a new business, small claims court, incorporation, wills, and real estate contracts. Edward Haman, a local attorney who was also interested in writing books for non-lawyers, soon joined Mark. Ed added books on divorce, bankruptcy, and child support. In 1986, Warda added copyright and trademark books. Even though libraries rarely buy spiral-bound books, these books became bestsellers to libraries, as there were no others like them for non-lawyers. Soon after, Sphinx started publishing individual state versions of many of its titles.

In 1996, he sent a catalog to Dominique Raccah, founder of Sourcebooks, Inc., after reading a glowing article about her in a publishing magazine. He wanted to reach a wider market. Within weeks Mark and Dominique came to an agreement, and the consumer self-help line of books became a division of Sourcebooks, Inc. Dominique redesigned the books, inside and out, and her publicity and marketing teams quickly got word out to even more customers. Warda continued to manage Sphinx in Florida until 2000, when the division became an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. and moved to its headquarters in Naperville, Illinois.

As a result of the available resources at the home office, Sphinx has managed to expand quickly. Within the first year, titles were scheduled on a regular timeline for updates, topical coverage expanded into new states, and Spanish translations of some of the most popular titles became available for the growing Hispanic market. Expansion into more states and coverage of timely topics are only a few of the upcoming plans for the continued growth of Sphinx Publishing.