by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
For the past five years, Legal Art Works has been working to become a household name in the Northeast Florida legal community. And, it has worked.
The small company owned by Jeff Davis has grown from one operating out of a garage to a modern, renovated space on Bay Street. Legal Art Works specializes in producing demonstrative evidence, which includes everything from detailed drawings of the human body and the damage done to it to models of intersections to high-tech virtual re-enactments. This evidence is used primarily by attorneys all over the area.
Later this year, law school students all over the country will become familiar with Legal Art Works and the company’s drawings as well.
“They are going to be in two completely different textbooks,” said Davis.
One of the books is on trial advocacy and was co-authored by Ronald Clark, who lectures across the country and is Practitioner in Residence at the Seattle University Law School. Clark is also the former senior training counsel for the National College of District Attorneys and the National Advocacy Center. Davis said Clark found his company.
“It kind of fell in my lap,” he said. “It was not some kind of brilliant marketing strategy, it was just a coincidence. He called, said he’d seen our work and wanted to use it in his books.”
Davis said he’ll make some money off the deal, but there’s more value in having the name Legal Art Works listed prominently among the credits. He said the biggest value is knowing future trial attorneys will get a portion of their education through his illustrations.
“Hopefully, they will remember seeing our illustrations,” said Davis.
The other book comes out in February and is by Dorothy Clay Sims, the founding partner in the Ocala law firm of Sims, Amat, Stakenborg & Henry. Sims is also the first woman to chair the Florida Bar’s Workers’ Compensation Section in 22 years and she’s a former president of the Marion County Bar.
Davis said he met Sims at a seminar in Daytona Beach. A friend, who’s a radiologist in Virginia, was going to be there and invited Davis down. After the seminar, Davis told Sims her lecture would have been even better if she would have used illustrations from Legal Art Works. The interest was piqued, the two traded business cards and began e-mailing each other.
When “Exposing Deceptive Defense Doctors” comes out next month, it will feature dozens of illustrations from the Jacksonville company, again providing Davis with some income and valuable free publicity.
“The exposure is the whole thing,” said Davis. “For me, it’s also a way of giving back to the field where our income comes from. I love to donate boards and time to our clients.”
Davis estimates that about 90 percent of his current clientele is attorneys. That may change soon. He’s looking to move into the medical field as well, possibly providing illustrations for clinics and hospitals.
“There is no question at some point we would like to expand to the medical world,” said Davis. “It would be a totally separate animal, though.
“The original plan when I started this five years ago, was to build it as big as I could, then start doing medical animations. When we reached five years (last year), there was still so much of the market share (to get). There are so many new attorneys and they want completely interactive presentations. There is so much potential in just that area.”
It’s no coincidence that Davis is able to adjust his company and what it can provide to what the market wants. Ten years ago, Davis owned a skateboard company and still rides as often as he can. Like surfing, snowboarding and other unstructured sports, skateboarding allows for improvisation and free-form movement. Davis says believe it or not, running his company is a lot like riding his skateboard home years ago when he lived in 11E — you can go as fast as you want and take any path.
“There are a lot of parallels between skateboarding and running a business,” he said. “There’s the element of falling a bunch of times before you land that trick. It takes guts to risk that landing and you might get hurt. But, you have to be committed to the trick.
“Big companies navigate like a cruise ship. We navigate like a skateboard.”
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