Hi I’m Brian Wiklendt with Garfinkel Schwartz I’m coming to you from our Maitland Florida
office which is a suburb of Orlando, that’s where I live.
We also have offices in Titusville Florida on the space coast of Florida next to Port
Canaveral.
We also travel all across the country representing longshore and Defense Base clients.
That’s all we do.
This video is kind of self serving in a way and usually I don’t do this but I’m going
to have to brag about our firm.
We are on paper a small firm.
A family atmosphere firm that’s based on a family that’s been doing this for thirty
years.
If you see us on paper, you see a couple people that are trying to help out many all across
the country might be a daunting task if you see that.
However we’re a small firm with very large resources.
Let me explain what I mean.
This area of law is very narrow the Defense Base Act and the Longshore Act are very narrow
areas of Federal law that are very complicated that people don’t really understand that
a normal general practitioner attorney is not going to know what to do.
That’s why we study this every day and we learn something new every day.
When I say that we’re a small firm with large resources, the resources come from thirty
years of experience in the industry.
We have a person, a paralegal, named Carol Anderson who has done this for 30 years.
When I say resources, she knows literally every administrative law judge that practices
in this area.
She knows basically every adjuster for the insurance companies that would be handling
client’s claims.
She knows the district director for thirty years for the Department of Labor.
So when you’re talking about big resources you’re talking about the ins and outs of
practicing this area of law.
It makes my job really easy because we also have a paralegal that is pretty special in
medical care named Myra.
And Myra, same thing: 30 years experience.
Knows all the labor market survey people.
She knows all the people who will be interviewing for vocational evaluations.
She knows the doctors to recommend all across the country in major cities as to who would
be more amenable to help Defense Base Act or Longshore claimants.
These resources although look pretty small on paper end up being pretty large in the
long scheme of things.
This is a small close knit community I know probably almost every defense attorney that
could ever come our way.
I know them personally or through other people.
I’m getting to know all the judges but like I said all I have to do is ask either Carol
or Myra you know: “What does this judge do in this certain circumstance?
What does this judge look for?
What does this adjuster want to see to pay out on a claim?
Well how much is this case worth in the community?
What’s the going rate?
They know this.
They’ve known it for 30 years.
How do you analyze a person’s average weekly wage?
There’s been wars going on in that for the last five to ten years.
They know all the arguments, they we already have the briefs all the briefs.
There aren’t many issues that I come across that we haven’t already been at battle at.
My predecessor Mr. Schwartz actually set the law for Longshoremen going to the federal
court and getting people that work on boats that are a certain size under the Longshore
Act.
That was his job and his pioneering that he did.
He was also a military veteran in the Vietnam War.
So we our firm has a very close touch with people that serve the country and that’s
why we’re there, that’s why we’re here.
So when you look at a small firm and you look at the few people that are involved on our
website, just remember we have big resources.
And the website is www.DefenseBaseActLaw.com I hope you can learn some things.
We have a bunch of articles and a lot of self-help tips for people that may become injured overseas
or they’re injured on the waters and the ports in the United States.
Thank you very much for your time I appreciate it, I hope I can help you at some time in
the future.
Again this is Brian Wiklendt signing off from the Maitland Florida offices of Garfinkel
Schwartz.