You are hurt, your car is gone, and an adjuster is already being very friendly on the phone. Jose Robles Jr is an Air Force combat veteran and a Richardson car accident lawyer who handles crashes on US-75, the President George Bush Turnpike and Belt Line Road, from an office on Coit Road.
A Richardson car accident lawyer helps injured drivers and passengers recover medical costs, lost wages, and money for pain and lasting limits. In Texas you usually have two years to file, and you can still recover as long as you were not more than half to blame. Free consultation, and no fee unless we win.
See a doctor the same day, photograph both cars before anything is repaired, get the crash report number, and say very little to the other driver's insurer until you have advice.
The order matters more than people expect. Most of what decides a claim happens in the first fortnight, while you are still dealing with a rental car and a sore neck.
The two year filing deadline is the last thing to worry about, not the first.
SAME DAY
Get checked by a doctor even if you feel fine. Adrenaline hides injuries, and a gap between the crash and your first visit is the first thing used to argue you were not really hurt.
FIRST DAYS
Photograph both vehicles before they are repaired or towed away, and get the crash report number from the officer.
FIRST WEEKS
Camera footage from nearby businesses is normally recorded over in this window. Once it is gone, it is gone.
MONTHS
If a city vehicle or a public agency was involved, the written notice deadline can fall here, long before the two years are up.
2 YEARS
The general Texas deadline to file. After this, most claims cannot be brought at all.
One correction worth making, because plenty of Texas websites still get it wrong: you do not have to fill in and post a crash report yourself. The state stopped collecting the old driver's form years ago. The official report is the one the responding officer writes, which means the record your claim depends on is written by somebody who arrived after it happened.
If your crash was weeks ago and none of this happened, the claim is not lost. It has to be rebuilt from whatever still exists, which is ordinary work.
Less than $25,000. Three things come out before you see any of it: the lawyer's fee, the case costs, and the medical bills that are still owed.
This is the question people search for and almost nobody answers with real numbers. Here is the arithmetic. The percentages and amounts differ from case to case, so treat this as an illustration rather than a quote.
An example only, not a quote or a prediction. Fees, costs and medical balances vary by case.
The medical line is the one worth fighting over. Every dollar argued off a bill moves down into the bottom bar.
That last point is where firms genuinely differ. In Texas a hospital can attach a claim to your case if you were admitted within about three days of the crash, covering the bills from your first few months of treatment. Those charges are meant to be the normal going rate, and they are often reducible. A firm that settles fast and pays every bill at face value hands you a smaller cheque than one that does the unglamorous work of arguing them down.
On the US-75 service roads, at the Bush Turnpike ramps, and at the long signalled crossings along Belt Line, Campbell, Arapaho and Coit.
Each produces a different kind of collision. The service roads alongside Central Expressway generate side impacts, because drivers cross several lanes in a short distance to reach an exit or a business. The Turnpike ramps generate rear-end crashes, where traffic slows suddenly and the car behind does not.
The signalled intersections generate the accidents that hurt people most: left turns across oncoming traffic. A driver misjudges a gap, turns, and the oncoming car has no time to react. These are also the crashes most often blamed on the wrong person, because the turning driver is usually the one still able to describe what happened.
Proving who was at fault in those cases comes down to evidence rather than argument. The damage pattern, the resting positions and the sight lines at the junction say more about the at-fault party than either driver's account does, which is why our team collects them before the vehicles are repaired.
Richardson adds two things most suburbs do not. Four DART stations put pedestrians and cyclists into the traffic mix at predictable times of day. And a university means a steady population of younger, less experienced drivers on the same roads as commuter traffic. Our office is on Coit Road near Campbell, minutes from most of it.
It depends on your injuries, your treatment, the work you missed and the insurance available. Anyone quoting a figure before reading your medical records is guessing.
Texas lets you claim damages for medical care including treatment you still need, wages lost and earning ability lost, physical pain and mental distress, lasting physical limits, visible scarring, and the property damage to your vehicle. Those middle ones are what insurers work hardest to minimise, because they are the hardest to reduce to a receipt.
Health cover matters here too. If your own health insurance paid for treatment, it may want repaying out of the settlement, so the financial details need working out before you agree a number rather than after. Car accident lawyers who skip that step hand clients a nasty surprise at the end.
There is also a ceiling problem nobody warns you about. Texas requires a driver to carry only $30,000 of injury cover per person. One ambulance ride, an emergency scan and a night in hospital can pass that before any surgery is discussed. When the person who hit you carries the legal minimum, the recovery has to come from somewhere else, which is why we look at your own policy in the first meeting.
Every case turns on its own facts, and past results do not guarantee anything about yours.
You talk to the lawyer handling your case, not a rotating queue of case managers. That is the whole model of this firm.
Jose Robles Jr is a decorated Air Force combat veteran with a 95% success rate, $5M+ recovered, 1,000+ cases handled, and a 4.9 star Google rating.
Before becoming a personal injury lawyer, Jose "Joe" Robles Jr served nearly 15 years as an Air Force Military Police officer, including four combat tours in the Middle East, and earned his law degree from Texas A&M University School of Law. He then spent four years at Bailey & Galyen, rising to Managing Attorney of the Pre-Litigation Personal Injury Department, before founding this firm.
Running pre-litigation at a high volume firm means having seen, from the inside, how an insurer puts a number on a file in the first fortnight and what actually makes that number move. He built a smaller practice on purpose, so the person deciding what to do about your case answers when you call.
We also handle Richardson truck accident claims and motorcycle claims. For everything the firm does in this area, see our Richardson personal injury page.
Less than $25,000, and any firm that says otherwise is not being straight with you. Three things come out first: the lawyer's fee, the case costs, and any medical bills still owed. On a $25,000 settlement with a one third fee, roughly $8,325 goes to the fee, case costs might be a few hundred to a couple of thousand, and unpaid medical bills come out of what is left. A real part of the job is arguing those medical balances down, because every dollar knocked off a bill is a dollar that reaches you instead.
There is no useful average, and the published ones mix a bruised shoulder with a spinal fusion. What decides your number is concrete: how badly you were hurt, what your treatment cost and whether it is finished, how much work you missed, whether your injuries are permanent, and how much insurance is available to pay. That last one is a hard ceiling. Texas only makes a driver carry $30,000 of injury coverage per person, which one ambulance ride and an emergency scan can use up.
If you were not really hurt and your car is the only problem, handling it yourself is reasonable. If you were treated by a doctor, missed work, or the other driver is blaming you, the calculation changes. The first offer usually arrives before anyone knows what your treatment will cost, and accepting it closes the claim permanently, including your right to ask for more if you turn out to need surgery. A free consultation costs you nothing and tells you which situation you are in.
Do not guess. Not at your speed, not at distances, not at how long the light had been green. Do not say you feel fine, because you may not know yet. Do not accept their summary of how the crash happened. You are not required to give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement at all, and "I am still treating and I am not discussing my injuries yet" is a complete answer to almost every question they will ask.
You can still recover as long as you were not more than half to blame. Below that line your compensation is reduced by your share rather than wiped out. Being found twenty percent responsible on a claim worth a hundred thousand dollars means recovering eighty thousand. Over half, and you recover nothing. That is exactly why the questions in the first phone call are aimed at your speed and your attention.
Generally two years from the date of the crash. If a city vehicle, a school district or a public agency was involved, written notice is usually required much sooner, sometimes within a few months, and missing it can end the case regardless of how much time is left on the two years. Camera footage runs on a far shorter clock than either deadline.
Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage may cover it, and it is worth checking even if you think you turned it down, because a Texas insurer has to offer it and your refusal has to be in writing. Policies belonging to other people in your household can sometimes apply too. Going through every policy that might respond is part of the first meeting, not an afterthought.
No fee unless we win. Call us now or schedule your free consultation online.