Contact Information
This site is owned by the Master Strategy Group, a creative partnership of Cash Anthony and James R. Davis.
You can contact either of us using e-mail by clicking on our names.
Cash Anthony
(Elaine) Cash Anthony is an A-V rated member of the State Bar of Texas and, though now retired from her litigation career, she maintains a professional interest in the concerns of attorneys and mediators. An early-adopter of computers for law office management, Cash manages The Master Strategy Group and participates as a speaker at CLE seminars on matters of legal ethics related to the use of technology in the practice of law.
While managing a solo law practice in Houston for nine years, Cash ran in the primary and general elections for the 280th Civil District Court in 1988 and served as an adjunct professor for the University of Houston Law Center. She is a former Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, and for three years she was a member of the board of directors of the Willow Bend Civic Association, chairing the Deed Restrictions committee. She has also served as a general board member for the Art League of Houston and as managing coordinator for Actors in Process, a subsidiary of ActorSource Houston, Inc.
Cash has maintained a keen interest in electronic evidence issues since her first days in the courtroom as a prosecutor trying a case in which a national retailer alleged a series of thefts, proof of which hinged on understanding its inventory control software. In the mid-80s, she developed an expertise in the use of computer communications as a vital practice tool and assisted her client, James R. Davis, in the development of a suite of programs used to send e-mail around the world before the Internet became available to the general public. Jim's special interests was -- inventory controls. On such juxtapositions, a partnership formed.
After Jim requested her help in writing technical manuals and software support materials, Cash also wrote a set of network rules adopted internationally by volunteer system operators to manage both security and conflict resolution issues between them.
Bringing to MSG her background in performance arts as well as in the practice of law, Cash is a writer, director and producer for improvisational drama and for stage and film. She has been involved with the radio, theatre and film world for many years as an actor, first as a hobby and then professionally, and she has been a frequent public speaker.
Cash’s film roles include female lead in two feature-length films, Death Mask and Night Comes Slowly. She also appeared in Don’t Look Back, directed by Jeff Murphy, and recently made a cameo appearance in the Houston-based film Killing the Badge. She has been seen daily on Houston TV for over four years in a Channel 11 spot. She also produces and records a regular poetry show on HTBR for Houston Taping for the Blind, Inc.
Among her theatrical roles are Inez in No Exit; Alais in A Lion in Winter; Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Hannah in Night of the Iguana; Piglet in an adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh; Annie in Annie Get Your Gun; Queen Gertrude in Hamlet; Anne Sullivan in The Miracle Worker; and the Fool in King Lear.
“Anthony was a hoot!” -- Houston Press
As a member of the Texas Repertory Theatre for Children, Cash traveled for two years throughout the state with an acting troupe which often performed under "interesting" conditions in rural elementary schools. In Europe, she performed and directed as a member of an international troupe for the U.S. Special Services, in support of Army and Air Force personnel stationed abroad.
Her directorial work in the Gulf Coast area includes complex stage comedies such as The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia, with a nine-member, all-male cast (in which her experiences as Road Captain for a motorcycle club were invaluable!); and Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular, a holiday show which played at Clear Creek Country Theatre in December 2002. MSG partner Jim Davis wore many hats for this show and provided especially invaluable support as he took the lead to engineer, construct, and stage-manage many challenging special effects for three working-kitchen sets.
Because a major interest for both MSG partners is motorcycle touring, the creative efforts of MSG often include motorcycles and highlight various aspects of the sport. Cash and Jim share a passion for motorcycle safety, as well as a love for the adventures of the road. They have presented seminars together on various aspects of touring and group riding at state and regional rallies, bringing a fresh approach (and sometimes their impromptu stand-up routine) to questions of safety consciousness and the dynamics of motorcycling. (View a sample of Jim's recent safety presentation to a Houston BMW club by clicking here.)
James R. (Jim) Davis
Jim Davis brings to MSG the expertise of a senior executive in the IT world. He is frequently engaged in project planning, data analysis, and educating/interfacing with other executives and attorneys as a result of his strong industry background.
Jim has also appeared as a witness and computer forensics expert regarding computer software and intellectual property issues and has provided IT issue analysis to attorneys, related to cases in both federal and Texas state courts. In motorcycle accident litigation, he has also assisted in reconstructing rider and vehicle behavior based on accident reports. He has provided senior project management services to three major corporations, leading various aspects of their worldwide Year 2000 (Y2K) auditing efforts. He designed and supervised performance of a global hardware and software inventory for a multi-national oil and gas client; and after his teams of consultant specialists harvested their data from around the world, Jim designed risk management analysis tools and metrics to help his clients assess the data and determine what actions management should take.
Soon after its founding in 1988, The Master Strategy Group published Jim’s specialized commercial software for the flexographic printing industry. That software suite is one of many interactive business software products Jim has personally developed and maintained for businesses in Texas and New York. By 2001, Jim was responsible for creating an effective, world-class team for a publicly-traded software company, providing all aspects of both pre- and post-sales consulting support of its mainframe tools.
Jim's mastery of both contemporary and legacy software and hardware, including IBM mainframe, PC-servers/workstations, network security issues, embedded systems and wireless communications, makes him extremely valuable to MSG's clients. His broad knowledge of operating systems augments his skill in Visual Studio, FrontPage, InterDev, IIS, Site Server Commerce, MPS, SQL, MySql, Access, Excel, Word, Project, VB, Visio, Exchange, Illustrator, HTML, XML, ASP, ASP.NET, ADO, CDO, ODBC, CA-Unicenter TNG, Routing and RAS, DNS, and Active Directory.
In-house at MSG, Jim's work also taps into his second field of interest, finance. Formerly president of Owens Equities and VP-Finance for a Houston oil and gas company, Jim has been primarily responsible for developing capitalization or acquisition plans for many of MSG’s Houston clients. In addition to his skills at estimating project costs and assessing value, Jim provides investment portfolio management and analytical services to MSG. He has devised methods and strategies for using computer models to improve the financial performance of zero-coupon bonds and to recommend bank portfolio position swaps, and he maintains a keen interest in international economic policy debates.
Jim's strengths in problem-solving, data filtering, analysis and recovery, project organization and team-building have also been invaluable in supporting the diverse endeavors of the MSG partnership. MSG's technology resources and breadth of expertise are truly extraordinary as a result of Jim's seventeen years as a consulting partner.
A Two "Master" Team
The MSG partnership of two experienced, enthusiastic individuals -- both "bright generalists" -- brings a diverse set of unusual high-level skills to all the projects we undertake.