East Meets West With Black Attorney’s Help : Soft-spoken Newport entrepreneur bridges cultural, language differences to make deals between American and Asian companies.
To his Vietnamese-American clients, he is “Ong James,” and those from Japan respectfully call him “James san.”
Regardless of how they address James Albert Davidson, they greet the 49-year-old lawyer with friendship and respect. And that’s fine with Davidson, who helps put together deals between U.S. and Asian companies.
Since establishing his practice in Newport Beach in 1985, Davidson has cut through a maze of cultural and language barriers to represent several major Asian-American companies in Orange County.
His clients include two of the county’s most successful food importers: Sun Lee Inc., a Westminster rice dealer owned by a Thai immigrant whose business accounts for a major portion of the rice sold locally, and Vanco Trading Inc., whose subsidiary--Little Saigon Supermarket--is one of Westminster’s largest groceries. And recently, Davidson, with Asian partners, launched two trading companies in a move to tap into the growing demand for U.S. products in Asia.
Davidson said it was rough initially establishing ties with Asian business people. He was not readily accepted by the Asian business community in the county because he did not speak their languages.
“I knew virtually no one in Orange County, and it was very tough,” Davidson recalled recently. “Practically every function I went to I was the only black person in attendance.”
To tear down the walls of silence, he joined several organizations, including the Newport Harbor Chamber of Commerce, the Japanese American Bar Assn. of Orange County and the National Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce. His good friend, the late Municipal Judge, Calvin Schmidt, frequently took Davidson to lunch as his guest at the Balboa Bay Club, where he was introduced to other influential business people in the county.
As Davidson became acquainted with more people, they began referring businesses to him. Davidson built his practice in its first two years around an initial trickle of Asian clients. To make it convenient for clients, he arranged to meet them in their offices. He found that this helped him forge a stronger personal relationship with them.
Business was slow that first year, with his law firm grossing $25,000. He made more friends and his patience paid off. Last year, the firm--with four attorneys and 11 support staff scattered in three offices in Orange County and one in San Diego--grossed a little more than $1 million. Roughly 90% of its clients were referrals from other clients.
Davidson’s clients said he’s sharp, patient, soft-spoken and mild-mannered, which make it easy for them to discuss delicate transactions.
“He has a calm personality,” said Phu (Robert) Tran, vice president of Vanco Trading. “He can simplify very complex business matters and make it easy for us to understand.”
“He motivated us to think about using research instead of just going into a business based on hearsay, which is what most of us in the Asian community do,” said Tran, whose father, David, supplies processed food to many of the county’s Asian restaurants and supermarkets. “This makes it less risky for us when we want to start a business.”
Besides advising them on the soundness of business transactions, Davidson also encouraged his cash-rich Asian clients to diversify and invest their profits in other businesses.
Last year, Davidson began to explore international transactions, and he now travels to Australia and the Far East at least four times a year. In June, he started two companies: Overseas Investment Brokers Inc.--a joint venture with an Australian trading firm owned by Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants--which exports U.S. products to Asia, and Cohop International Inc.--a Garden Grove dry goods retailer he developed with a local Vietnamese-American businessman, which sells rice, noodles and soybeans to the Asian community in Southern California.
Davidson said he did not set out to specialize in Asian companies nor do business in Asia. After graduating from Howard University in 1966, where he was on the Law Review board, Davidson joined the antitrust division of the U.S. Justice Department in Los Angeles and later worked for Rockwell International Corp.
In 1972, he started his own law firm in Beverly Hills, specializing in entertainment law. Back then, Davidson said, he was the only black lawyer with his own practice in the city. As demand for his services grew, he moved to a larger office in Century City in 1975, when he took in three black lawyers as partners. By that time, he represented several foreign firms based in Australia, Ghana and Kuwait, which were acquiring U.S. real estate and companies.
The union didn’t last, and Davidson left the partnership in 1979 to work for Bendix Corp. Six years later, he established his own practice in Newport Beach, Davidson & Associates Inc.
If your Orange County company has annual sales of less than $10 million, we would like to consider it for a future column. Call O.C. Enterprise at (714) 966-7871.
