Among the growing stacks of paper and unscreened phone calls, Janet Frickey remains unusually calm. Maybe it's the sight of the gorgeous mountains, the photos of her family in clear view or her confidence in getting others what they deserve.

Frickey is a plaintiff's lawyer who represents people suffering from an on-the-job injury or occupational illness usually battling insurance companies. She's been running Frickey Law Firm in Lakewood since her father Norton Frickey retired in 1993.

Even after winning countless awards and accumulating millions of dollars in financial compensation and benefits for clients since opening in 1984, the interior hasn't changed much. Frickey maintains the firm's real priority is helping others. Although the lobby has been remodeled since, the setting feels right out of an '80s movie - minus the big hair and bright makeup.

Since many people are intimidated by going to a lawyer, she said, the interior isn't flashy or overwhelming, but welcoming like a living room.

For 23 years, Frickey has specialized in workers' compensation, sometimes dealing with people who live in their cars or need to be sent to shelters while seeking help.

Current cases she is working on include a sheet metal worker who came to her when he was diagnosed with nasal cancer and couldn't return to his job. After researching the matter and finding the work environment to be a cause of nasal cancer, Frickey helped him make a claim to his employer .

As a result, the man's employer hired an expert to say his cancer is not work-related, although his doctors at Rocky Mountain Cancer and National Jewish Hospital beg to differ.

While in the process of working on this occupational cancer case, Frickey is fighting for a woman who was severely injured when a cheese machine fell on her.

The woman works at a cheese plant in Longmont, but while in Oklahoma helping to open a new location, a machine fell on her. Since she wasn't in Colorado at the time of the incident, her employer's workers' compensation insurance carrier didn't want to cover her accident, so she had to hire Frickey to make them admit they were responsible.

Frickey said this woman is a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic who is now living in her parents' living room requiring 24-hour care. And even after the insurance carrier admitted to being responsible, there are still problems.

Not only is Frickey trying to get her a van for hospital transportation needs, but she's fighting with the woman's employer over who her primary doctor should be.

Taking each critical step in particular cases such as these are the tasks Frickey tackles in a typical day.

Does she ever just break down?

"And have a bad day? Yes, of course I do. But it takes a certain person to do this job," she said.