Jack Davis, acclaimed attorney and advocate for Lansing, dies at 81: 'He was a giant'

Jack Davis leaves this earth a giant. Superman. A model citizen. A counselor to mayors. Cherished by young professionals. A champion of Lansing. Missed already. 

We should all aspire to be described how friends and colleagues of Davis described him Thursday in the hours after his death.

A lifetime of warmth, skill, generosity and stewardship poured out of those he impacted in conversation and in tributes on social media.

Davis, a renowned attorney and advocate for Lansing and its people, died Thursday morning at the age of 81. His friends thought he’d live forever. 

Davis had been with the Loomis Law Firm in Lansing since 1966. He was married to his wife Sue for more than 50 years, and is also survived by two children, Greg and Jennifer, and four grandchildren. And a community that lost a civic icon. 

“I told someone today that Superman died,” said J.V. Anderton, Davis’ colleague at Loomis. “What he did for the community, what he did for me, what he did for the firm, his clients. He was a legend. He was the man.”

Davis was a product of Lansing schools — Foster Street and Mount Hope elementaries, Walter French Junior High and Eastern High School — where he became a state champion debater, before attending the University of Wisconsin, where he met Sue, and then Harvard Law School. 

Davis was a decorated attorney, a philanthropist with a table at every fundraiser and energy for every cause that tugged at him. And if it had to do with Lansing or its children, he usually deemed it worthy. 

“He always showed up and he always followed through,” said David Hollister, Lansing’s mayor from 1994 to 2003. “There wasn’t any major project in the city or region that hasn’t been impacted by Jack, directly or indirectly.”

Perhaps none more significant to the long-term health of Lansing than keeping General Motors from leaving town. He chaired the blue ribbon panel in the 1990s that convinced GM to build two new assembly plants in Lansing and Delta Township, respectively. 

“He was absolutely critical,” Hollister said. “He played all these roles, but he was also a shrewd businessman.”

“GM had never changed their mind about closing a plant,” said Ray Tadgerson, the project manager of the keep-GM efforts. “And they had made their mind up, they were going to close these plants.

“It was his never-say-die attitude (that helped get it done). He really showed his leadership capabilities in analyzing problems and coming up with solutions and helping us in our debates with folks who were having a hard time believing we could get this done. It was so hard not to, I don’t want to say idolize the guy, but I certainly put him on a pedestal, because he was something special.”

Davis’ influence and soothing presence at City Hall didn’t begin or end with Hollister.

“He was a mayor whisperer,” said Virg Bernero, Lansing’s mayor from 2006 to 2018. “But not a whisperer, a bellower. When there was an issue, he was my go-to guy. I became mayor. I didn’t know how to be mayor. He had this ability to put you at ease and make you feel like he was there for you. There was just a sense of assurance that he gave you just by being there. You knew you were going to get through it and you knew he had your back. 

“When I say Lansing’s indispensable guy, that’s not just a catchphrase. This guy had his hands in everything … the BoarsHead Theater, saving the Lansing Symphony. You name it, there he was. He didn’t know how to say no.”

Mostly, he didn’t want to. Not to the Lansing Art Gallery or Fenner Nature Center, which opened the Susan and Jack Davis Pavilion last December. And definitely not to Lansing’s kids.

He twice served as president of the Lansing School District’s Board of Education — renting an apartment inside the city limits and changing his voter registration so he could run — and spent decades on the board of directors for the Boys & Girls Club of Lansing. He helped to create the HOPE Scholarships for Lansing schools and was a fervent supporter of the Lansing Pathway Promise.

“My objective is to care about those who don’t have family motivation and I try my best to spend money and time on those organizations that are trying to deal with that citizen group so that they can have successful lives,” Davis said in a podcast interview last fall with Kristin Beltzer.

“He was just a giant. He was a hero,” said Lansing School Board Vice President Rachel Willis, who’s known Davis since she was a child. “He didn’t treat anybody any differently. No matter who they were. He was around some pretty famous people, pretty important people. And I’ll never forget, I was at an MSU basketball game with him and we were in a suite and Magic Johnson walks in. And when Magic Johnson walks in, Magic comes in with his entourage. My family, we all hopped up, ‘Oh, we’ve got to get out of here, Magic Johnson needs a place to sit.’ And Jack turns and looks at us, ‘I’m standing. He can stand. It’s fine.

“He taught me a lot about how to carry myself, how to treat people, how to just be in spaces with very powerful people.”

Davis was part of a delegation of attorneys sent to China in 1987 and the Soviet Union two years later. He also chaired the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce in the late 1990s and helped to form the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP). He was a longtime Rotarian and an advisor to notable athletes, including basketball star Steve Smith.  

But you didn’t have to be Steve Smith to have his attention or to feel his kindness.

Former MSU golfer Rachel Lubahn became The First Tee of Mid-Michigan’s first program director in large part because of Davis, a relationship that continued throughout the rest of his life.

“He invited me to every economic club luncheon. It’s the same buffet chicken dinner thing. He had a table at all of them,” Lubahn said. “He would invite his philanthropic partners that he supported and his paralegal would reach out and say, ‘Hey, Jack wanted to see if you wanted to come out for the lunch.’ I knew in the moment that it was special and Jack had done more for me than I could ever do for him. Yet, he kept pouring into me. I was one of so many people he did that for.”

Davis had an incredible collection of books from all over the world, first editions, some signed by famous authors. Lubahn said during their last conversation, Davis was in the process of donating a number of them to MSU.

“He talked about some of the authors he had collected and books he had signed and he was so proud of that and so proud to give it away,” Lubahn said. “And that seems to epitomize what he stood for: He spent so much time and energy building something and then he would give it to someone else.”

The son of a jewelry store manager, Davis was born in Toledo, Ohio, and lived his early years in Battle Creek, before moving to Lansing at age 8.

As a teenager, he and Joel Ferguson struck up a friendship as caddies at the Lansing Country Club, one black, the other Jewish, at a club without any black or Jewish members. They were high school rivals — Ferguson at Sexton, Davis at Eastern — but would hang out together at the old Lincoln Community Center, which closed in 1969.

“He was just so down to earth. And even as a kid, he was just the barest, most giving person you could ever meet,” Ferguson said. 

That carried on throughout his life.

“Jack was a friend, not only to both (my wife) Erin and I but to the entire City of Lansing,” Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said. “His near constant giving of his time, talent, and treasure, left an indelible mark on this city, one that has and will continue to help shape Lansing in ways that we may never fully appreciate.”

Davis’ family has asked that condolences and tributes be shared through jack-charles-davis.forevermissed.com. Arrangements for a celebration of life are pending, according to his law firm.

“Words cannot express the sense of profound sadness we feel

at the loss of our partner and colleague,” a statement from Loomis read.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.