225BatonRouge.com

With 40 bus-stop benches, two billboards in the city and two more on the interstate, it’s hard to miss Jim Holt in his trademark Stetson, acting as his own scale of justice.

He’s holding a sack of cash in one hand and a car split down the middle in the other, with the words “Crash Cash” emblazoned next to him.

He’s been equated to Morris Bart, the New Orleans king of personal injury. 225 wanted to know if Holt makes good on his promise of “crash cash” to clients and whether it’s a ham-handed appeal to our worst populist tendencies, or a shrewd marketing message that gets results?

“You’ve heard the expression, ‘a picture paints a thousand words,’ and that’s all we’re doing,” Holt says. “The text has to be short and catchy, and your presentation needs to be to the point. All we’re saying is that, in your time of need, we’ll go to battle for you against the big insurance companies.

“You only have a few seconds to get your audience’s attention,” he says.

Holt, a 15-year veteran of law originally from Shreveport, won’t divulge how much he spends on advertising. But he concedes the ad campaign, which started a year ago, has been successful in bringing in new clients.

And the ads have shifted the focus of his business, which is now one-third criminal defense, one-third family practice and one-third personal injury and civil litigation.