Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith, P.C., often shortened to HGSK, is a law firm concentrating on personal injury and related claims. The Reading office sits at 138 N 5th St in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania, a few blocks from the Berks County Courthouse and the city's central business district. The office can be reached by phone at +1 610-374-8344.
The firm represents people who have been hurt in accidents, injured on the job, or denied benefits they believe they are owed. Its practice is built around claims brought against insurance carriers, employers' workers' compensation insurers, and government benefit programs, which means much of the daily work involves medical records, policy language, administrative hearings, and settlement negotiation rather than courtroom drama alone.
Areas of Practice
HGSK handles a broad set of injury and benefits matters. The core areas include:
- Motor vehicle accidents, including car, truck, motorcycle, and pedestrian collisions
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims, along with disputes over the scope of auto policy coverage
- Workers' compensation, covering wage loss benefits, medical treatment disputes, specific loss claims, and settlement agreements
- Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income claims, including initial applications, reconsideration, and hearings before administrative law judges
- Slip, trip, and fall cases and other premises liability claims
- Medical malpractice and nursing home neglect
- Product liability and defective equipment injuries
- Construction and workplace injuries involving third parties beyond the employer
- Wrongful death and survival actions
- Long-term disability and insurance bad faith disputes
A single incident often produces more than one claim. A worker hurt in a vehicle crash while on the clock, for example, may have a workers' compensation claim, a third-party liability claim against the at-fault driver, and eventually a disability application. Firms that handle all three under one roof can coordinate the pieces so that a settlement in one matter does not quietly undercut recovery in another. That overlap is a recurring feature of the firm's caseload.
The Reading Office
Reading serves clients across Berks County and the surrounding region, including Wyomissing, West Reading, Shillington, Mohnton, Kutztown, Boyertown, Hamburg, Fleetwood, Birdsboro, and the communities along the Route 222 and Route 422 corridors. Berks County has a substantial manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, and agricultural workforce, and injury claims from those sectors, including repetitive trauma, lifting injuries, forklift and machinery incidents, and highway crashes involving commercial vehicles, make up a meaningful share of the work in this part of Pennsylvania.
The downtown location places the office close to the Berks County Courthouse and within reach of city bus routes, which matters for clients who are not driving because of their injuries. Street and lot parking are available in the surrounding blocks.
Accessibility and Practical Information
The office has a wheelchair accessible entrance, a wheelchair accessible restroom, and wheelchair accessible parking. Restroom facilities are available to visitors. Because many clients arrive with mobility limitations, crutches, braces, or assistive devices as a direct result of the injuries that brought them to the firm, these features are a practical necessity rather than an afterthought.
Appointments are recommended. Calling ahead at +1 610-374-8344 allows the firm to confirm that the attorney handling the relevant practice area is available and to let the caller know what to bring. For a first meeting, useful documents typically include:
- A police report or incident report, if one exists
- Insurance declarations pages for any auto policies in the household
- Correspondence from insurance carriers, adjusters, or claims administrators
- Medical records, discharge paperwork, and bills related to treatment
- Employer notices, wage statements, and workers' compensation forms
- Denial letters or determination notices from the Social Security Administration
- Photographs of the scene, vehicle damage, or visible injuries
Clients who do not have all of these should still call. Much of this material can be gathered by the firm after representation begins, and waiting to collect paperwork can run down the clock on a filing deadline.
How Personal Injury Representation Works
Personal injury and workers' compensation firms in Pennsylvania generally work on a contingency basis, meaning the attorney's fee comes out of a recovery rather than from the client up front. Initial consultations in this field are customarily free. Anyone considering a claim should confirm fee arrangements directly with the firm, since terms vary by case type and are governed by Pennsylvania rules, with workers' compensation fees subject to approval by a workers' compensation judge.
Timing matters. Pennsylvania sets deadlines for filing injury lawsuits, and workers' compensation law imposes separate and shorter deadlines for reporting a work injury to an employer. Social Security appeals have their own strict windows after a denial notice. Missing any of these can end a claim regardless of its merits, which is why early contact is generally advised even when a person is unsure whether they have a case.
What Distinguishes the Firm
HGSK is a multi-attorney firm with named partners who are long established in Pennsylvania injury practice, and it draws a significant portion of its Reading clientele through referrals, including referrals from other lawyers who send along cases outside their own practice areas. Referrals from attorneys tend to follow technical reputation, particularly in areas such as auto insurance coverage, where the outcome can turn on the interpretation of stacking provisions, household exclusions, and underinsured motorist limits rather than on the facts of the crash itself.
The firm also maintains a dedicated Social Security Disability practice. Disability claims operate on a different track from injury litigation, with their own medical evidence standards, vocational analysis, and administrative hearing procedure, and they often require years of persistence through multiple levels of appeal.
Staff at the Reading office handle intake, scheduling, and ongoing client contact alongside the attorneys. For people managing medical appointments, lost wages, and insurance paperwork at the same time, the administrative side of a claim is frequently as consequential as the legal strategy behind it.
Contacting the Office
The Reading office of Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith, P.C. is located at 138 N 5th St, Reading, PA 19601. Call +1 610-374-8344 to ask about a potential claim or to schedule a consultation. Spanish-speaking clients and those who need assistance arranging transportation or an accessible meeting time should mention that when calling so arrangements can be made in advance.