The View From the Bottom - A Personal Injury Firms Receptionists Perspective

As you may have noticed, our blog entries have been written so far by Mr. Hemmat. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Hemmat is a terrific attorney and a great boss, but his view is limited as it is from the top. On the other hand, as the receptionist here, I have a completely different view of things here at Anderson Hemmat. My view is, frankly, from the bottom, and therefore a very unique view. I think you may find the view from the bottom to be very interesting and insightful, so here it is.

As the receptionist here, I have the privilege of talking with each and every client that either calls or walks through our doors. Each person has unique hardships that have been placed upon them due to no fault of their own. Some have been through horrific accidents that have nearly destroyed their lives; we recognize this and do our best to help them work through the ensuing emotional, physical and financial harms. Other clients have been cast aside by their employers after being injured on the job. Our firm's duty is to do our best to ensure that these clients are treated fairly and receive all the benefits they are due. While a multi-million dollar insurance company is trying to cut corners and horde every last penny, Anderson Hemmat cares about the people who have been injured and demands justice.

When I started working at Anderson Hemmat, I thought to myself 'what a somber group of people.' At former companies it seemed that a lot of time was spent at the front desk, laughing, telling jokes and generally just killing time. But here there is no time to kill because everyone is too busy working hard to resolve issues and problems for our clients. Because Anderson Hemmat actually cares about its clients, wasting time is not an option. Though it took me a few days to adjust to this busy and demanding schedule, I soon realized that even though everyone here works very hard, there is definitely a relaxed and collegial atmosphere in this firm. We very much embrace a team approach to our clients and everyone here is very helpful to each other. Every day presents new challenges and new opportunities to help those unfortunate enough to require our help.

Although our office is only open during business hours, it is not uncommon for certain firm members to be here early in the morning or late into the evening. On occasion, our attorneys have even met with a potential client on a weekend. We've had attorneys fly all over the country to take depositions, all so that our clients get the best representation possible. Our attorneys have met clients in the hospital, at home, or in the parking lot, because the client is too injured to journey to us. Our firm does everything reasonable to make sure that our clients are happy. We have a handful of translators on call for any language we don't speak. Basically, Anderson Hemmat takes the extra step to make our clients comfortable.

Now, as Chad has mentioned before, we're not perfect. But we strive for excellence. Sometimes I get a call from someone that is angry for one reason or another. Luckily, our firm members are able to deal with these callers efficiently and quickly, so that the problem is quickly resolved. We understand that our clients are going through a very difficult period in their lives.

I am also in charge of maintaining the storage room where we keep closed files. You may ask, 'why should I care about the storage room?' Well, like I said above, I speak with every single client from the day they retain us to the day their case is settled. I know quite a bit about their lives. So once their case is resolved, if they have questions, I can quickly find their file or request for it to be sent from our offsite storage facility.

Life at Anderson Hemmat may be busy and hectic, but every member of our firm is dedicated to helping our clients. We care about whom our clients are, what is going on in their lives, and how we can make their lives easier. Whether a client is speaking with an attorney or the receptionist, each one of us will do what we can to make the client's life a little bit better. While we can't solve all of a person's problems, we do everything possible within the limits of our representation. Although each member's view of how things operate may be different, our end result is the same...getting justice for victims.