The Personal Touch with Injured Clients

Before the holidays, we discussed one of our client’s automobile collision cases and talked about the legal assistant assigned to that case. In that blog, the idea of a “home visit” was mentioned. This week, we want to explain that strategy in a bit more detail. After an oilfield explosion, an 18-wheeler accident, or a construction injury, we have found that what people need most is just someone to listen to them and stick up for them when no one else will. Even once an injured person finds an attorney, the process of their case can feel confusing and overwhelming. GCJ started conducting home visits with clients as a means to quell our clients’ fears, encourage them in their time of difficulty, and to get to know them more personally in their own homes.
In a typical home visit, a client’s particular attorney and legal assistant will go together to the client’s home. The attorney starts off by asking if there is anything the client is particularly worried about or if there is information they have been wanting to know but perhaps didn’t know how to ask over the phone. After that, though, we really just want to visit. The time is never supposed to feel like an interview. At base, our firm wants to truly learn about each of our clients. About their lives, their home, their family, and their interests and goals. A few weeks ago, during a home visit, we got to learn about a client’s passion for photography. That is an incredibly small detail, but it is something we may never know unless we can go and talk with our clients about the particulars of their day to day lives. And quite truly, these details are what can win our cases.

Below you will find two lists. One is a list of the ways our clients benefit from home visits, and this list is based on what we have seen and what clients have told us themselves. The other is the way home visits are beneficial to GCJ and its staff.

Benefits for Clients

• Don’t have to travel to a very formal setting or office to meet their attorney
• Can tailor visits to their own schedules
• Getting to meet their attorney and support staff in person
• Can voice questions and concerns that may seem too trivial to discuss over the phone
• Getting to talk about not only their case issues, but also their own lives and families
• Feeling cared for and like they are more than just another case

One of our client’s recently had this to say:

“GCJ will fight for you. They are the most honest, hardworking law firm there is. You become family to them, not just a client.”

Benefits for the Firm

• Meeting our clients in an environment they are comfortable in
• Seeing the client’s home, their family, and all their photos and albums
• Building relationships that last until long after our clients’ cases are finished
• Ensuring that we are transparent in everything we do for clients and their families

These lists could go on and on. The positive impact of these home visits is so obvious every time we conduct them. Quite often, it seems, people expect to be treated like just another number or stack of paperwork. That feeling is exactly what we are trying to avoid. The cases we see are difficult, challenging, and each one unique. No one should have to go through their accident alone, and our firm understands the fact that a phone call once a month is simply not enough.

One of our past clients had dealt with attorneys before. We recently visited him and his wife, and the couple seemed overwhelmed at how available our firm was to them. They said they had never once felt left alone or in the dark. No other attorney had visited them in their house. It meant the whole world to the two of them.

It means the world to us.

 

To continue reading what our clients say about us, check out our Testimonials page!