1-800-Lawyers founder Davis is dead at 70
Attorney Bruce Davis, who turned a toll-free phone number into a multi-million-dollar business, has died at his Manhattan home.
Davis, 70, was the creator of the 1-800-LAWYERS line for potential clients seeking local legal advice — and the selfproclaimed “busiest personal injury lawyer” in New York City. The cause of death remained unknown, although employees of Davis confirmed that he passed away at his West Village residence last week.
The Brooklyn-born son of a city cop once said the idea for legal consultation by phone came to him back in the day of the old rotary model. In the late ’70s, after graduating from law school, Davis had a 3 a.m. epiphany in a Greenwich Village bar: Getting the number 212-LAWYERS for his office phone.
After discovering the number existed at a Kennedy Airport pay phone, Davis convinced the phone company to give him possession of the digits — and business took off.
Davis thought the idea could work on a larger scale, suing a South Dakota phone company to gain control of 1-800-LAWYERS when they tried to charge him a huge fee for the 11 numbers. His mustachioed mug was soon appearing in late-night commercials from coast to coast, advising potential clients “you may be entitled to a lot of money.”
During his time in South Dakota, David met his wife Pamala when she was a 19year-old waitress.
The pair married in 1993, and became embroiled in a contentious divorce where Pamala charged last year that Davis duped her into a bad post-nuptial agreement. A lawyer for Pamala Davis said the divorce decree was still awaiting a judge’s signature.