Car wreck attorney in Houston: what your attorney handles, and what stays your call

Hiring a car wreck attorney in Houston does not mean handing over your case and hearing nothing for a year. It means someone else carries the calls, the paperwork and the arguments, while the decisions that matter stay with you. Here is how that split works at each stage.

People often wait to call an attorney because they are not sure their case is big enough, or because they worry about the cost. The first worry is a good question to ask us on a free call. The second has a simple answer: No Fees or Costs Unless We Win: the firm advances the costs of your case, and you pay no attorney’s fee and no case costs unless we recover money for you.

Before you sign anything

The first conversation is a free consultation with our Houston office. We ask what happened, where, who was involved, what hurts and what treatment you have had. We tell you plainly whether we think we can help, and if we can, we explain the written agreement before you sign it. Nothing you tell us in that call is shared, and calling does not commit you to anything.

If we are not the right fit, we say so. Some wrecks are better handled by talking straight to your own insurer, and we will tell you when that is the case.

What your attorney takes off your plate

The phone calls

Once you hire us, the insurers deal with us. That includes the other driver’s adjuster, who may already have asked you for a recorded statement, and your own insurer on PIP and property claims. You do not have to explain the wreck again and again to people whose job is to find a reason to pay less.

The evidence

We order the crash report, find the witnesses, ask nearby businesses for video, and send preservation letters so vehicle data and recordings are kept. If the wreck involved a company vehicle, a rideshare driver or a government vehicle, we identify every party and deadline, including the written notice a claim against a city or county generally needs within six months (Civil Practice and Remedies Code 101.101).

The medical records and bills

We request records and itemized bills from each doctor, clinic, pharmacy and therapist, and we keep a running ledger of what was charged, what has been paid and by whom. This is slow work, and it is where many people who handle their own claim get lost. It is also where the claim is won or lost on paper.

The coverage questions

We read your own policy as well as the other driver’s. Texas policies include PIP and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage unless someone rejected them in writing (Insurance Code chapter 1952). PIP pays without regard to fault and must be paid within 30 days of satisfactory proof of the claim. If the other driver carries only the 30/60/25 minimum (Transportation Code 601.072), your own UM/UIM coverage may make up the difference.

What stays your decision

Your attorney advises; you decide. Three decisions are always yours:

1. Whether to accept any offer. We tell you what we think of it and why, but we never accept or refuse an offer for you.
2. Whether to file a lawsuit. We explain what a suit involves, how long it may take and what it costs to pursue, and then you choose.
3. How to handle your medical care. Your doctors decide what treatment you need. We never tell a client to get treatment for the sake of a claim.

You can ask about your case at any time, and you should hear from us when anything changes: a new record, an offer, a question from the insurer.

How fault is argued, and what your attorney does about it

Texas reduces a recovery by the injured person’s own share of fault and bars it above 50 percent (Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.001 and 33.012). In practice that means the insurer’s first move is often to argue about fault rather than about your injury. Did you brake late? Were you speeding? Were you looking at your phone? Texas does make texting while driving an offense (Transportation Code 545.4251), and an adjuster who can suggest you were distracted will try.

Your attorney answers those arguments with evidence, not opinions: the physical damage to the cars, the position of the vehicles, the timing on a traffic signal, phone records of the other driver where a court allows them. The more of that we have early, the less room the insurer has to guess.

Who your attorney is at LAWBOSS

Our Houston office has three attorneys, and all three came from the insurance side. Ian Nelsen was an adjuster and an insurance defense attorney before he joined the firm in 2016. Howard Hill worked more than 20 years for two of the country’s largest auto and commercial insurers. Jonathan Harris, Board Certified, Personal Injury Trial Law – Texas Board of Legal Specialization, spent more than a decade as a senior trial attorney for a major automobile insurance company and now leads the firm’s litigation.

That background matters in a practical way. They have read demand letters from the other side of the desk. They know which ones move an adjuster and which go to the bottom of the pile. Read more on our Houston team page.

How you can help your own case

A good attorney does most of the work, but a few things only you can do, and they make a real difference to how the claim reads on paper.

• Keep a short daily note of pain, sleep and what you could not do. Two lines a day is enough, and months later it is better evidence than memory.
• Stay off social media about the wreck and your injuries. Insurers look, and a single smiling photo can be twisted.
• Send us every letter, email and check an insurer sends you before you answer it or cash it.
• Tell us about any earlier injury to the same part of your body. We would much rather hear it from you than from the adjuster.
• Keep your own copies of receipts, pay stubs and the dates you missed work.

None of this is homework you will be graded on. It is simply the record of what the wreck did to your life, kept while it is happening, and it helps us show the insurer the whole picture rather than the version in its file.

The deadline your attorney watches

A Texas injury lawsuit generally has to be filed within two years of the wreck (Civil Practice and Remedies Code 16.003). For a child, the time generally does not start to run until the child turns 18 (section 16.001). A claim against a government unit needs written notice much sooner. We note every deadline at the first call and track it from there, so a good claim is never lost to the calendar.

Where to read next

For the order a claim usually runs in, from the crash report to the last offer, read our page on a car wreck lawyer in Houston. If you were hurt near Pearland or Katy, see our pages for a car accident lawyer in Pearland and a car wreck lawyer in Katy. If the other driver was impaired, read about drunk driving accident claims in Houston.