Meet Dorothy Clay Sims
Dorothy Sims is the founder of the law firm of Sims and Stakenborg, P.A. with offices in Gainesville and Ocala, Florida.She grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, moving to Florida when she was 15. Her mother received a degree in psychology and worked towards her masters and her father worked for the phone company. Her mother was active in AA and when she passed, she’d already been awarded her 10 year chip of sobriety.
Dorothy attended the University of Florida and helped pay for her schooling with student loans and monies saved from waitressing at Steak & Shake and packing fruit.She ultimately studied international law at Oxford University and traveled throughout Europe relying upon the kindness of strangers who fed and housed her. Her budget was so limited, she realized she could not travel short of hitchhiking…so she did sometimes, surviving on food leftover by others in restaurants or donations from truck drivers and their wives. (Something she most definitely does not advocate)Dorothy received her B.A. and J. D. from the University of Florida.
Dorothy’s younger brother, a former prosecutor and judge, practices law in Kentucky.
She and her husband have a blended family of five children and encouraged them all to volunteer when growing up, whether at St. Francis House, Habitat for Humanity or other organizations. One son spent 4 months volunteering at a shelter in Nepal, ultimately being one of the youngest interns for the International Federation for Human Rights. Another son traveled to D.C. at age 13 to protest the Iraq war and spent 5 weeks volunteering for the Student Conservation Association, living in tents and rebuilding trailheads. While attending UF, he headed an afterschool program for disadvantaged children, obtaining donations for a marathon he ran to be donated to that program. He will be joining the Peace Corps in July.
A third son volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and obtained his pilot’s license at age 18 and currently attends Embry Riddle. The oldest daughter volunteered extensively in shelters for abused women and graduates from the University of Florida College of Law in May. Her sister owns and runs her own international business, involving environmentally friendly aquarium materials and cares for any stray animal that comes her way.
Dorothy’s travels took her to the Amazon jungle with donations where she saw first hand the destruction of the jungle by corporations who displaced the Shuar Indians.
She also trekked donated medications to the Mount Everest region in Nepal several years ago.
Dorothy was most influenced by her oldest brother, who suffers from Down syndrome. She saw how he was treated by strangers, sometimes with pity, sometimes with cruelty, and decided to devote her life to working with the injured and disabled who often had no voice when pitted against people/organizations more powerful than themselves.
Her grandfather, John Y. Brown, Sr. was another powerful influence. As a child growing up, she listened to his stories about his clients, poor victims of an unfair system, heard how he “rode shotgun” during mining strikes representing miners against the powerful (and well armed) Mining companies during dangerous times, which put his own life in danger repeatedly, on behalf of those who had no other spokesman. He was a state representative for nearly three decades, serving as speaker of the House of Representatives and as majority floor leader. He was also a member of Congress and well-known trial lawyer who practiced law until he was 85. She grew up hearing stories like, “I once saved a man’s life by eating a hamburger” and then heard his explanation of how he went to a neighborhood wherein a crime had occurred. His client was facing the death penalty and was wrongly accused. Brown interviewed all the witnesses he could find, no one knew anything. He kept knocking on doors. Finally, long after most lawyers would have given up, he knocked on the door of a woman who invited him in for a hamburger, believing she knew nothing and he began to prod as he ate. In fact, she did recall a key event that ultimately resulted in the exoneration of his client. Dorothy learned early on how important it was to keep knocking on those doors.
Her grandfather sponsored the state’s first civil rights legislation in spite of death threats to both himself and his entire family including a frightening late night call the evening before he was to introduce the legislation telling him, “If you introduce that bill, your entire family will be killed.”Dorothy found herself in a similar situation when she began cross-examining doctors. She received information that someone upset with her work had broken into her home and was coming back to leave toxins in her food. This resulted in increased security for herself and her family after conferencing with civil rights lawyer Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center whose life had also been threatened.She initially represented miners in Kentucky denied Black Lung Benefits. She went into the bowels of a mine in Eastern Kentucky at the face of the mine where dynamite was placed, and then felt the vibrations as the miners “shot coal” (exploded portions of the face to loosen the coal). Despite wearing a paper mask, she found herself coughing and sneezing coal dust for days and only then began to understand the potential for pneumoconiosis in miners who had spent decades in the mines.
After representing coalminers, she then began to represent wrongfully denied Social Security Disability benefits. She also began representing injured workers, which she continued to do for over 20 years. She co-founded the state’s first organization devoted to serving as a watchdog for insurance abuses for the injured: Florida Worker’s Advocates, and ultimately serving as president of this organization. She volunteered her time lobbying for over a decade on behalf of the injured and was the first woman to be elected Chair of the Florida Bar Worker’s Compensation Section in its 25-year history. She served as President of the Marion County Bar Association.
While practicing worker’s compensation law, she began to notice an alarming pattern. Defense medical experts were testifying against her clients and their conclusions were strikingly similar. Either her clients werea. not injured,
b. were injured but had been cured, or
c. were exaggerating.
She decided to change the focus of her career. She met with psychologists who explained how data could be manipulated. She spent over ten years, nights and weekends, studying the process, having physicals performed upon her to learn how defense doctors hid or mislead the evidence. She traveled the nation at her own expense meeting authors of various psychological tests and interviewing them about examples of how their tests were abused in the wrong hands.
Dorothy began publishing on the subject in various state and national legal journals. She has lectured extensively on medical/legal issues with focus on direct and cross-examination of medical experts hired by the defense. She has lectured throughout the U.S., Canada, Japan and India on legal/psychiatric issues giving over 200 speeches to doctors and lawyers.
She created www.mdinabox.com, a company devoted to helping lawyers and plaintiffs in the US understand the medical issues in their case using doctors in developing nations. The doctors who work with MDinaBOX analyze defense reports and critique them for weaknesses as well as assist lawyers in cross examining defense medical experts. They help lawyers screen cases, create questions for cross examination. The doctors watch videotapes of medical exams and compare them to the actual report written by the defense expert and are able to point out when the exam is at odds with the report. After their presence was announced, the doctors have listened in on depositions given by defense medical experts through the internet and instant messaged the attorney with suggested questions to ask and perform research as the deposition is progressing. 
She has given courses in India teaching the doctors typical games played by defense experts and how to spot them.She authored chapters in books and many other national and international journals and publications. She also co-authored the Florida Impairment Guide. Ms. Sims is a Martindale-Hubbell AV rated attorney.Dorothy is now a board member of the American Association for Justice Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group. This association was formed nearly twenty years ago by a group of attorneys who were specifically interested in representing clients with traumatic brain injuries.
Her new book, Exposing the Deceptive Defense Doctor, has been very well received. James Pawel, owner of James Publishing stated, “”Never before have we so quickly received so many positive comments about one of our newly-published titles. And lawyers are not simply saying they like Dorothy’s book; they’re saying they love it.”A portion of her profits goes towards the International Federation for Human Rights and she also donates portions of her book to various organizations for which she volunteers such as Florida Worker’s Advocates.Ms. Sims is contacted by lawyers to provide in house lectures to lawyers on issues involving cross-examination of medical and vocational experts and reducing overhead with technology. She brings with her a trained paralegal, Coreen Yawn, who has l8 years of experience. Coreen trained researchers for www.mdinabox.com. She demonstrates to other paralegals how to use technology and how to assist the attorney in conducting research and providing information to the attorney before and even during cross examination in trial and/or depositions.
Dorothy also conferences with lawyers on an individual basis in areas involving various methods used by defense experts. Topics include medical/legal aspects of various medical and psychiatric conditions and common tactics used by the defense to avoid diagnosis and causation. This included determining when DME’s have misrepresented psychological and neuropsychological data.
She can be retained to research defense experts, prepare notebooks for cross examination and, in some cases, conduct the cross examination herself. In some cases, with proper notice, she is available to instant message suggested questions to lead counsel as he or she conducts the cross examination in real time while Dorothy listens to the testimony of the defense expert.
She devotes an average of 8 hours per week to assisting other lawyers at no cost in pro bono cases. She lives part time on a sailboat and conducts depositions via cell phone and Skype on the boat.If you are seeking her assistance please email the nature of the assistance you need to cly@ocalaw.com
Dorothy’s favorite quote?
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
learn about EARS, Endangered Animal Rescue Sanctuary.