Company Leadership

James Publishing has been helping lawyers since 1981. The company remains privately owned by its management, and is currently led by:

Kara Prior, president, has a strong social media and writing background, working for several newspapers and managing Entrepreneur magazine’s 100,000-member social network before joining James.

Now she directs James’ referral and conversion system for lawyers — explaining to law firms how it works, customizing the program for different law firm needs, guiding James’ implementation team, and testing and rolling out new lead-generation, conversion, and referral strategies.

Kara was captain of her Division 1 college swim team and competed in the longest distance races. She brings the same work ethic, people skills, and dig-deep effort to helping her lawyer clients obtain more leads, referrals, and new clients.

Mike Margol, vice-president, has worked at James Publishing for over a dozen years, first as a legal editor, next in sales and administration for our law firm marketing agency, and then in administration for the whole company managing people and money.

Mike is an avid competitive runner. One of his office walls is rapidly growing heavy with medallions from top finishes.

Jim Pawell, company founder, started James Publishing in 1981 after working in a small law firm that handled divorces and estates. He built James’ booklist up to 100 titles before stepping back from management duties to help Kara develop James’ referral and conversion system for small firms. He has a business degree from USC and a law degree from UCLA.

In his spare time he enjoys outdoor endurance activities, and has completed many multi-day mountain bike climbs and other self-created riding, running, hiking, paddling, and swimming challenges.