Also see:
Jon Sutz: Raves from Legal Clients
Jon Sutz – Litigation Media Portfolio
Menu of services
The following are some of the services I offer:
(1) Creative consulting
(2) Visualization and graphic design
(3) Videography and photography
(4) Juror and settlement notebook design, writing, production
(5) “Plain English” text analysis & editing
(6) Research
(7) Executive message-crafting
(8) Website and PR consulting
To learn more or schedule a free 20-minute initial consultation, email or call me at 434.825.8428
(1) Creative consulting
Sometimes, the solution to a tough litigation media problem is obvious. When it isn’t, the input of an experienced creative consultant can give your project direction and focus.
Since 1989, I have developed or helped to develop winning creative strategies for a wide variety of organizations throughout the US and Southeast Asia, including Sharp Electronics, Intel, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and various corporations, advertising agencies and nonprofits. See my bio here.
Since 2000, I’ve been helping legal clients to look at their cases in different ways, and to craft winning media materials for the courtroom, and “the court of public opinion.” See client testimonials here.
(2) Visualization and graphic design
An excerpt from key visualizations I created for a wrongful death case against Ford Motor Company. Details here.
Research shows that people typically obtain between 75% and 85% of their knowledge and perceptions through visual media, and that quality visual aids increase audience comprehension and retention by between 100%-650%.
I have a long, proven track record for synthesizing and converting complex and controversial data and arguments into compelling visual media that jurors and laypeople can understand, and retain. See my portfolio here, and legal client testimonials here.
The core visual media services I offer include:
- Creative consulting and direction
- 3D modeling/animation design & direction
- Graphic design for charts, illustrations, etc. (“infographics”)
- Call-out insertions (text boxes to highlight certain portions of documents)
(3) Videography and photography
Whether for investigative or on-site research (such as “day-in-the-life” sequences), I can help you obtain quality video footage and photographs, ready for integration into your presentations.
(4) Juror and settlement notebook design, writing, production
Custom-crafted “notebooks” provide jurors and other key audiences, such as insurance adjusters and government officials, with a convenient, easy-to-use means of accessing all the key evidence and supporting materials that your argument is built upon.
My extensive print media design experience (1, 2, 3) enables me to help you create “notebooks” and/or key elements thereof, carefully weaving text and visual elements into a logically-arranged, custom-designed presentation that will inform and persuade your target audience.
(5) “Plain English” text analysis & editing
The gap between “legalese” and the average American adult is wide, and growing wider every day. Research shows that half of American adults cannot read above the eighth-grade level, and most college students struggle with what’s termed “complex but common literacy tasks,” such as understanding the arguments in a newspaper editorial, and comparing the cost-per-ounce of food.
I can help you to bridge this gap, by:
- Translating complex subject matter into a written format that is understandable and persuasive to laypeople
- Acting as a critical set of second eyes, as a “trial” audience member, identifying concepts or passages that are less than 100% clear – before your key audience does, in court
(6) Research
I have deep experience in conducting open-source and investigative research, to obtain, organize and summarize key information.
(7) Executive message-crafting
When an organization is accused of wrongdoing — or one accuses another of wrongdoing — it is increasingly common for the chief executive, or senior official of the tor the organization to make official statements concerning the conflict, whether in live or recorded events, or in written form.
To have the greatest chance of achieving the desired outcome, this person’s messaging be crafted with the utmost care and precision.
Many advisers to senior officials in such situations will urge them to steer clear of stepping on any cultural land mines. In general, this is a wise approach.
There are other realms, however, in which the integrity of one’s position requires taking a firm, principled stand on an issue — cultural land mines be damned. One example is the shameful display we recently witnessed when the presidents of America’s “top” universities testified before Congress, on their schools’ facilitation of escalating incitement, threats and violence against their Jewish students.
On paper, what distinguishes me among executive message-crafters is my combined experience in litigation media design and consulting, advertising, corporate communications, and national security investigative journalism.
Undergirding all that, however, is my belief that many people in the general public are yearning for rational principles, consistently and evenly applied, and transparent accountability.
My life is dedicated to creating quality informational media that meets this standard, and is understandable and persuasive even to adolescents. Some examples include:
- Helping to resolve the largest land-use dispute in Ft Lauderdale, FL history, in my client’s favor, after a two-year campaign of lies against him and his luxury condominium tower proposal
- Helping the co-founder of America’s largest, most influential grassroots educational reform organization to navigate and respond to a libelous assault by an array of activists, masquerading as “nonpartisan journalists”
- Helping the founder of America’s most influential pro-freedom, anti-terror Muslim reform organization to clarify its message, prepare for public speeches, editorial-writing, and Congressional testimony, and analyze the entire issue “battlefield” from a different perspective
- Helping to inspire, then producing key strategic media tools for an activism campaign that used principled humor to effectively neuter a wildly incorrect US Supreme Court ruling
- Writing, designing and producing a documentary that was hailed by several watchdogs, how one of the most popular ad-supported “nonpartisan news” organization consistently turns reality on its head, in order to help advance the interests of a US-designated foreign terrorist organization
- Producing an investigative report that documents the grim reality behind one of the “Big 3” US broadcast TV networks’ decision to hire America’s most influential supporter of the man the ADL calls “America’s Most Influential Anti-Semite,” to help it “report” on the Summer Olympics
- Designing and producing an infographic report that obliterates a myth that is peddled from the highest perches of the US and allied governments, and “news” organizations, that serves primarily to reward a US-designated foreign terrorist organization with its own state — several slides of which have been used to help inform members of Congress on these basic facts
- Writing, designing and producing a short documentary about how Twitter’s previous management quashed a campaign to help raise money to rescue US allies that were being hunted by the Taliban, after America’s disastrous withdrawal — while profiting by enabling the top leaders of the Taliban
There are no shortage of executive speechwriters and consultants. What distinguishes me is:
- My allegiance to a core set of freedom-oriented principles
- My ability to help executives that share these principles to advance and defend their organizational interests, and successfully navigate even the most difficult public messaging waters.
(8) Website and PR consulting
- Why should a plaintiff choose your law firm to represent them?
- What differentiates you from your competitors?
- Does your website convey this – clearly, concisely, and persuasively?
- How do you know?
Plaintiffs have lots of choices when picking a law firm to represent them. In addition to my experience as a litigation media designer and consultant, I can help to evaluate your website and PR campaigns from several crucial perspectives:
- As one with experience in marketing, corporate communications, user interface design and content architecture development (and redevelopment); see a bio of my professional background here
- As a website design consultant, copywriter and information architect (profile here)
- As a personal injury plaintiff (details upon request), in which I sought out and compared information on law firms through their websites
Using all these assets, I can:
- Provide a top-to-bottom analysis of all your outreach materials
- Conduct an analysis of your competitors, identifying things they are doing better than you, and areas of vulnerability that I can help you to exploit
- Help craft new, more dynamic means of publicly presenting your firm, and efficient ways of attracting new clients
To learn more or schedule a free 20-minute initial consultation, email or call me at 434.825.8428