Board Certified Fort Worth Car Accident Lawyers
After a serious car wreck, the insurer’s first offer is rarely its best, and adjusters know exactly which law firms will take them to trial. Ours is one. Talk to a Fort Worth car accident lawyer who has actually stood in front of a jury.
How Our Fort Worth Car Accident Lawyers Can Help
If you or a family member was hurt in a car accident you didn’t cause, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries, your lost income, and the damage to your property. Getting it is another matter. Insurance companies and their defense lawyers work from a familiar playbook of tactics designed to minimize your claim, and time favors them, because evidence fades while medical bills grow.
Accident victims rarely learn what a claim is truly worth until an experienced attorney values it, and an experienced car accident attorney levels that ground. From the first days after a crash, we help you understand and protect your rights, identify every party who may be held accountable, gather the evidence your claim needs before it is lost or forgotten, and push back on insurer tactics, turning them against the company when it acts in bad faith. If an adjuster has already called you, read what you should know before speaking to an insurance adjuster first.
Our law firm has spent decades trying auto accident and truck injury cases across Texas, with multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements among the results. Both partners practice personal injury law full time, both hold Super Lawyers recognition, and both are the rare kind of personal injury attorney whose certification is matched by a real trial record. Past results do not predict future ones, but we bring the same preparation to every case we accept.
Why Trial Experience Changes What Insurers Offer
Here is something many people never learn until it costs them: plenty of lawyers, including some with board certification, have tried very few cases in front of a jury. The insurance industry knows precisely which lawyers those are. When the other side negotiates, it prices the settlement against the real risk that your lawyer will take the case to verdict, which means your lawyer’s trial record shapes your outcome long before any courtroom is involved.
Between them, Steve Laird and Seth McCloskey have tried close to 300 jury cases. Both are frequent speakers at national conferences that train other car and truck accident attorneys, has served as President of both the Fort Worth and Texas chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates and of the Tarrant County Trial Lawyers Association, and is the only lawyer to receive both the Professionalism Award from the College of the State Bar of Texas and the Tarrant County Bar Association’s professionalism honor. When we sit down across from an insurer, that history is in the room.
Serious Injuries Change What Your Claim Needs
Many accident cases involve serious injuries, from broken bones and whiplash to spinal damage and brain injury, and serious injuries change everything about a claim: the medical proof required, the future costs to be calculated, and the insurance companies’ motivation to fight. Personal injury claims of that size are exactly where injury lawyers earn their contingency fee, because the difference between an undervalued settlement and full compensation can follow a family for decades. If you were injured in a car crash caused by someone else, do not let the insurer define what your case is worth. It is also why many clients end up hiring us as their Fort Worth personal injury lawyer for the long haul, not just their car wreck counsel.
What Texas Law Says About Your Car Accident Claim
Fault decides everything in a Texas car accident case, and fault is rarely as obvious as it feels at the scene. Texas applies proportionate responsibility, which means you can recover compensation as long as you are not more than 50 percent at fault, with your award reduced by your assigned share. Insurers exploit that math by pushing blame toward you, which is why the evidence collected in the first days matters so much, and why you should talk to a Fort Worth car accident attorney before accepting any version of fault.
The deadline matters too. In most cases you have two years from the date of the wreck to file a personal injury lawsuit, and building a strong case takes far longer than people expect. Damages in car wreck cases may include current and future medical and medication expenses, pain and suffering, rehabilitation costs, temporary or permanent impairment, lost wages and future earning capacity, emotional distress, and property damage.
What You Should Do After a Car Accident in Texas
Every piece of information gathered at the scene helps your lawyers build the case that gets you the compensation you deserve. If your injuries keep you from doing these things yourself, ask someone to handle them for you:
- File a police report.
- Write down everything you remember about the accident while it is fresh.
- Take pictures as soon after the crash as possible.
- Collect eyewitness accounts, or at least names and contact information.
- Note whether the other driver seemed distracted by a phone, GPS, or passenger.
- Watch for signs the other driver was under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or medication.
- Note whether the other driver was speeding, ran a red light, or fell asleep at the wheel.
- Consider whether a mechanical failure, like brakes, played a role.
- Find out whether the other driver was on the job at the time of the wreck.
Missing details are normal. Much of this only surfaces in our investigation, but anything you heard at the scene or in later conversations is worth sharing with us, and an experienced car accident lawyer in Fort Worth TX can obtain the rest.
Serving Fort Worth and Tarrant County
The Law Offices of Laird & McCloskey is at 1119 Pennsylvania Ave. in Fort Worth, near the Tarrant County civil district courts in the Tom Vandergriff Civil Courts Building, where car wreck lawsuits from this area are usually filed. After an accident in Fort Worth, we represent people injured on I-30, I-35W, I-20, Loop 820, and the surface streets in between, throughout Fort Worth, Arlington, Weatherford, and the rest of Tarrant County. As part of a DFW accident practice, we also take serious cases across the Metroplex.
Fort Worth Car Accident FAQs
Who is the best car accident lawyer in Fort Worth?
No lawyer can honestly claim that title, so judge the question the way insurers do: by verifiable credentials and trial record. Ask whether the attorney is board certified and by which organization, how many jury trials they have tried, and whether they will handle your case personally. Any car accident attorney Fort Worth offers should be willing to answer all three directly.
How much do car accident lawyers charge in Texas?
Most work on a contingency fee, meaning the fee is a percentage of the recovery rather than an hourly bill. We charge no upfront fees, your free consultation carries no obligation, and there is no cost to you unless we win. We also invest in your case ourselves, retaining investigators and consultants when the case needs them.
What is the average settlement for a car accident in Texas?
Averages mislead, because settlements track the specifics: injury severity, future medical needs, lost income, available insurance, and how fault shakes out. A minor-injury claim and a life-changing one have nothing in common financially. The useful number is a case-specific evaluation, which we provide in a free consultation.
Is it worth getting a lawyer after a Texas car accident?
For a wreck with real injuries, almost always. Claim value is built on evidence, insurance companies negotiate differently against injury attorneys with trial records, and represented claimants are not facing a professional adjuster alone. A lawyer working in your best interests changes the arithmetic. If your case is too small to benefit from a lawyer, we will tell you that in the consultation rather than take it.
Where will my car accident case be heard?
Most Fort Worth area car wreck lawsuits are filed in the Tarrant County civil district courts in downtown Fort Worth. Venue can shift with where the crash happened and who the defendants are, and we try cases across North Texas.