Hurricane Ike: Have you been injured by the negligence of Mother Nature?

Much of Houston remains without power today, but there’s one power that’s back on and in full effect: plaintiffs lawyers. As of a few days ago, the Web site www.hurricanelawfirm.com went live, along with the phone number 888-IKE-LAW1, soliciting Texans affected by Ike’s wrath to contact the firm for help resolving insurance disputes. Behind the catchy marketing is a newly formed Houston firm called Press, Lore, Gilbert & Berger. The group’s sole focus is first-party insurance claims, says partner Paul Berger, and it takes a somewhat different approach to working up its cases. “Our lawyers are trained in damage valuation and estimating,” Berger says. “We actually go to the house and do what’s very similar to what an adjuster would do – if there’s a damaged roof, we write a repair estimate for the claim and present it to the adjuster. We meet the carrier at the house and explain why our estimate is valid, and 90 percent of the time -- more than 90 percent of the time -- it’s resolved right there." He says clients can increase their claim anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars; his firm's take is 10 percent of its estimate. Although he doesn't have any client statistics, he says, he knows the approach works. He’s done it hundreds of times before with the other firm he founded, the Florida-based Hurricane Law Group. The Houston office is his first foray outside Florida. He says he was too swamped with work in 2004 and 2005 to expand following Katrina, but with Ike looming over the Gulf Coast, he decided to take the plunge. “We have a lot of ties to Texas and friends in the Houston area, so when this happened, we realized we could help a lot of people in Texas,” he says. Linking up with Houston lawyers Dionne Press and Andrea Lore, Berger and his Florida partner Guy Gilbert quickly formed the firm and created the Web site; Berger says he and Gilbert are in the process of obtaining a Texas law license and fulfilling the applicable State Bar lawyer advertising requirements. (A call to the Houston phone number was not returned by presstime.) So far, so good, it seems. Says Berger, “We’ve gotten a bunch of calls already.”
– Jenny Davis