8686 E San Alberto #200 Scottsdale, AZ 85258‎ (480) 951-9700 My name's Kurt Hammond and I've been an attorney since 1989. I think I've always been argumentative and competitive in nature so this is a profession in which there is always a winner and a loser. It's a practical matter. That's what drove me into the profession and it's always interesting on a daily basis. For 20 years I was a partner at a law firm based out of Chicago where we did primarily insurance defense work. After 20 years of working for insurance companies and doing various other things and having partners in Chicago I decided it was time for me to be my own boss and came over to the firm of Rudolph & Hammond where my brother Kent already works and jumped in. Now I do personal injury taking cases against the insurance companies and I get to be the master of my own domain, so to speak. What do you love about being an attorney? Actually, I like the people. It's a very dynamic practice, in other words you get to meet interesting people all the time. As a plaintiff's attorney these days I get the opportunity to represent people and see what I can do to maintain their best interest and get them fair compensation. So it's always, elements change in the law, the arguments you make and the efforts you make to get them fair compensation change on a daily basis, so it's not a stagnant practice. The opportunity to build relationships with clients and work with people I think is the most enjoyable aspect because you learn things about people all the time when you're on the plaintiff's side, where as on the defense or the insurance defense side you do not. You represent a company that's all about money. What are some challenges you face on a regular basis? Well, one getting fair compensation for your clients on the plaintiff's side. In this market it's a conservative market, insurance companies are conservative. So there's always a challenge to find a new way to put an insurance company, as I would say 'put them in a box', to put them in a precarious situation in which they have to expand the value of the claim. My favorite thing to do is to get them to pay extra contractual damages and pay above and beyond the policy limits because they did something wrong with the processing or handling of the claim. Getting the fair compensation is the first most difficult aspect. The second is dealing with all the liens that arise from patient care. In other words, a person may have medical health insurance but they go to the emergency room and their health insurance pays the hospital who can still do what's known as a balance building to get the rest of their bill. So it's always difficult trying to get those people to reduce so you can put enough money in the injured person's pocket in order to fairly compensate them. So it's kind of a two step process. You're dealing with the insurance companies to get fair compensation and getting those who are claiming a piece of the money to reduce so that the poor injured person can get enough money in their pocket. What is a "Judge Pro Tem"? As a Judge Pro Tem you get appointed by the court most of the time to be a settlement conference judge. In other words, parties who have a case that needs somebody to mediate or help them resolve the dispute you get appointed to be the mediator to help them reach a resolution of their claim. There are other instances in which as a Judge Pro Tem you can take appointments to go down and be a commissioner for a day or fill a judge's docket for a day in order to assist the court when the judge needs a day off or has another conflict. What advice would you have for an aspiring entrepreneur? I guess going out on your own is: be prepared that you carry the burden of making the decisions. That's usually the one that most people don't understand, that the buck stops with you. In other words, before you always had somebody else who ultimately made the decisions and you could gripe about the decisions that were made. But when you have your own business, it's you that makes the decisions. So who you hire is important. Getting set up financially to at least get over the initial hurdle of starting your own business because often times it takes a while for the revenue stream to catch up with the expenses. So be prepared to be lean, be prepared to be responsible for the decisions and most importantly enjoy what you do. If you can't go to work every day and enjoy the actual job that you're doing, stay in some other practice where you get paid just to mull through the day. You have to enjoy what you do and if you do that the rest of it just kind of follows.

• published: 04 Apr 2014
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