Top Austin Car Accident Lawyer Serving Travis, Williamson & Hays Counties
Hurt in a car crash in Austin? The other driver’s insurance company started building its file the day it happened, and the first call you get will be from an adjuster who does this for a living. We take that call, and everything after it. SMB Law, PC has represented injured Texans since 2010, and we handle car accident cases on contingency — no fee unless we win. Free case review: (512) 561-5003.
What Our Clients Say
Hurt in an Austin Car Wreck? Here Is Where We Start
Written and legally reviewed by Shane M. Boasberg, founding attorney at SMB Law, PC, licensed in Texas since 2002. Last updated August 25, 2026.
A car accident rearranges your life in about four seconds. Suddenly there is an emergency room bill, a car that may be totaled, a job that still expects you Monday, and an adjuster who wants a recorded statement before you have finished your first round of X-rays. Austin sees tens of thousands of crashes a year, and we mapped exactly where they cluster in our study of the 25 most dangerous intersections in Austin.
Our job is to take that whole mess off your desk. We pull the crash report, get your medical records in order, find every insurance policy that could pay, and put a number on your claim that holds up. You focus on getting better. We handle the personal injury claim, the adjusters, and the deadlines that end cases before anyone reads the file.
Key Takeaways
- Texas gives you two years from the date of the crash to file suit. Miss that deadline and the claim is gone, no matter how strong it was.
- Texas follows a 51% bar rule. If the insurer can pin more than half the blame on you, you recover nothing — which is exactly why adjusters push the fault question in the first week.
- The first offer is almost never the last offer. We do not let a claim settle until your doctors can say where your recovery is headed.
- You pay nothing up front, and nothing at all unless we recover money for you.
Why Hiring an Austin Car Accident Lawyer Changes What You Recover
Insurance companies are not neutral. The adjuster assigned to your file has authority to settle for a certain number, a supervisor watching that number, and a playbook for keeping it low: a fast offer before you know how hurt you are, a recorded statement designed to get you saying “I’m fine,” and a two-week gap in your physical therapy turned into an argument that you were never really injured.
We push back on all of it. After two decades of Texas auto accident work we know what the carriers writing policies in Austin pay for a herniated disc versus a soft tissue strain, and we know when a file is worth trying instead of settling. That is the difference between a check that covers your deductible and a recovery that covers what comes next.
It also matters that we handle the full range of crashes on Austin roads. If a rideshare vehicle was involved, our Uber and Lyft accident lawyers deal with the layered commercial coverage those claims bring. If an 18-wheeler was involved, our Austin truck accident lawyers move fast, because the trucking company’s investigators are on scene the same day.
What Is Your Austin Car Accident Claim Worth?
There is no average automobile accident case, but there is a starting point, and it is the same one adjusters use: add up your economic damages, then apply a multiplier for pain and suffering based on how badly you were hurt. The calculator below runs that math. Enter your medical bills, lost wages, and property damage, pick the injury level that fits, and you will have a range in about a minute.
Treat the number as a ballpark, not a promise. Liability, available coverage, the quality of your medical records, and Texas fault rules all move it. Want a version you can bookmark or send to a family member? Use the standalone car accident settlement calculator.
Please enter at least your medical bills or property damage to get an estimate.
Estimated Settlement Range
$0 – $0
| Economic damages (bills, wages, property) | $0 |
| Pain & suffering (est.) | $0 – $0 |
Insurance companies routinely offer far less than a claim is actually worth. In one free conversation, we can tell you what your case is really worth — and you pay nothing unless we win.
Disclaimer: This calculator provides a rough educational estimate only and is not legal advice or a guarantee of any recovery. Actual settlement values depend on many factors, including liability, available insurance coverage, the strength of your evidence, and Texas’s modified comparative fault rule, which can reduce or bar recovery. Use of this tool does not create an attorney–client relationship with SMB Law, PC.
Recent Car Accident Results
No lawyer can promise you an outcome, and you should be skeptical of one who tries. What we can show you is the kind of work we do and what it has been worth to the people who hired us:
- $1,000,000 — truck accident collision. Multiple injuries. Full policy limits recovered. (2026)
- $100,000 — rear-end collision. Herniated disc. Full policy limits recovered. (2026)
- $100,000 — Uber collision. Back injury. Full policy limits recovered. (2026)
In each of those cases the available insurance coverage was paid in full. That is worth noting, because the limit on a claim is often the policy, not the injury — one reason we look at every possible source of coverage before we ever discuss settlement.
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case turns on its own facts, the injuries involved, and the insurance coverage available.
How We Handle Your Car Accident Case
From the day you hire us, three things run at once: we build the proof, we manage the insurance side, and we get you set up to keep treating without the bills stopping you. You should not be calling the body shop and the records department between appointments.
Most of our Austin personal injury cases resolve without a courtroom. That is not because we avoid filing suit. It is because a file documented well enough to try is usually a file the carrier would rather pay. Here is what that work actually looks like.
Building the Evidence That Proves Fault
We start with the CR-3 crash report the responding officer files with TxDOT, and then we go past it. Officers write those reports in twenty minutes on the shoulder of a highway, and they are wrong about who did what more often than people expect. We pull 911 audio, chase down camera footage from nearby businesses and traffic poles before it gets overwritten, call the witnesses whose numbers the officer wrote down but never used, and photograph both vehicles before the salvage yard crushes them.
On serious cases we bring in an accident reconstructionist to put the physics on paper. Skid marks, crush damage, and event data recorder downloads do not change their story under cross-examination the way drivers do.
We do the same groundwork on the less common cases, from motorcycle and pedestrian collisions to RV and motorhome crashes, where who was operating the vehicle can decide the entire claim.
Negotiating With the Insurance Company
Once you hire us, the adjuster calls us instead of you. No recorded statement. No signing a blanket medical authorization that hands over ten years of your history so an insurer can go hunting for a pre-existing condition.
We do not send a demand until your doctors can say where you are headed. Settling before you reach maximum medical improvement is how people end up paying for their own surgery two years later. When the demand does go out, it goes as a package: records, bills, wage documentation, photographs, and a clear explanation of why the number is the number.
Most claims settle at that stage. When one does not, we file suit.
Taking Your Case to Court
Filing changes the leverage. Discovery lets us put the other driver under oath, subpoena the carrier’s own documents, and get an expert in front of a jury. A carrier that would not move past $40,000 tends to look at the file differently once there is a trial setting on a Travis County docket.
We try cases when trying them is the right call, and that is part of why we can tell you honestly whether the offer on your table is a good one. A firm that never files suit has no answer when the adjuster says no, and adjusters keep track of which firms those are. Your personal injury case gets built for trial whether or not it ends up there.
What You Can Recover After a Car Accident in Texas
Texas sorts an auto accident claim into three categories. Knowing which apply is how you tell a fair offer from a low one. A settlement is supposed to cover what the crash has already cost you and what it is going to cost you going forward — the surgery you have not had yet, the promotion you are not going to get, the things you used to do on Saturdays.
Here is how the three categories work in a Texas car accident claim.
Economic Damages
These are the losses with a paper trail: ambulance and emergency room bills, follow-up care, physical therapy, imaging, prescriptions, future medical treatment, the wages you lost while you were out, the earning capacity you lost if you cannot go back to the same work, and the cost to repair or replace your vehicle.
Documentation decides this category. We collect the bills, the pay records, and where it matters, a written opinion from a physician or a life care planner about what the next ten years will cost. Texas is an at-fault state, so the driver who caused the crash — and that driver’s insurer — is responsible for these numbers.
Non-Economic Damages
These cover what the injury did to your life: physical pain, mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. None of it comes with an invoice, which is exactly why insurers work so hard to shrink it.
You prove it with specifics. Not “he was in pain,” but that he has not slept through a night since March, that he cannot lift his two-year-old, that he gave up a softball league he had played in for eleven years. We gather that from you, your family, and your coworkers, because a jury — and an adjuster anticipating a jury — responds to detail, not adjectives.
Punitive Damages
Texas calls these exemplary damages, and they are not part of the average claim. They come up when the other driver’s conduct went past carelessness into gross negligence: a drunk driver, a street racer, a driver who left the scene. Their purpose is to punish and to deter, not to compensate you.
Chapter 41 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code caps exemplary damages and sets a higher standard of proof than ordinary negligence requires. When the facts support them, though, they can change what a case is worth, and they are worth investigating early — while the evidence of how the other driver was behaving still exists.
Texas's 51% Bar: How Shared Blame Cuts Your Recovery
Texas uses modified comparative fault. Section 33.001 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code says that if you are 51% or more responsible for the crash, you recover nothing at all. At 50% or less, your recovery is reduced by your share of the blame.
The math is simple; the stakes are not. If your damages come to $1,000,000 and a jury assigns you 25% of the fault, you collect $750,000. Move that same number to 51% and you collect zero.
This is why the adjuster asks how fast you were going, whether you glanced at your phone, and whether you had “a couple of drinks” at dinner. Every percentage point they can shift onto you is money off your claim. It is also why we do not let clients give recorded statements before we have seen the file.
How Long Do You Have to File a Car Accident Claim in Texas?
Two years from the date of the crash. That is the general rule under Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and courts enforce it without sympathy. File on day 731 and it does not matter how badly you were hurt or how obviously the other driver was at fault.
Some deadlines land much sooner. If a city bus, a school district vehicle, or another government vehicle was involved, the Texas Tort Claims Act requires written notice of your claim within six months, and some cities require notice even sooner under their own charters. Underinsured motorist claims carry notice requirements written into your own policy. A wrongful death claim runs from the date of death rather than the date of the crash.
Not sure where your dates fall? Run them through our Texas injury deadline calculator, then call us. Waiting costs you more than time: camera footage is overwritten in days, vehicles get sold for scrap, and witnesses move away.
What to Do After a Car Accident in Austin
The hour after a crash is loud and confusing, and what you do in it shows up in your claim months later. If you can move safely, get everyone out of traffic and call 911 so an officer documents the scene. Then photograph everything: both vehicles, where they came to rest, the intersection, the skid marks, the traffic signals, and your own injuries.
Get names and phone numbers from anyone who saw it happen. Witnesses are the piece of evidence that disappears fastest. Report the crash to your own insurer with the facts and nothing more, and be careful about apologizing at the scene — “I’m sorry” is good manners in Texas and an admission in a claim file.
See a Doctor Within 72 Hours
Get checked out even if you feel like you can walk it off. Adrenaline hides a lot, and the injuries we see most often after Austin crashes — disc herniations, concussions, rotator cuff tears — frequently do not announce themselves until day two or three.
There is a claims reason too. A gap between the crash and your first medical visit is the first thing an adjuster points to when arguing that you were not really hurt or that something else caused your pain. Going within 72 hours, and then actually following the treatment plan your doctor gives you, protects your health and the value of your claim at the same time.
Report the Crash and Get the Report
When an officer works a crash involving injury, death, or significant vehicle damage, that officer files a CR-3 crash report with TxDOT. It usually becomes available through the state crash records system about ten days later, and it is the document every insurer starts from.
If no officer came out, the crash still has to be documented, and that becomes our job: photographs, witness statements, medical records, and a written account taken while your memory is fresh. We pull the CR-3 for our clients at no cost, read it for errors, and correct the record when it gets something wrong. Crash reports name the wrong driver, list the wrong direction of travel, and miss witnesses more often than you would think.
Call Us Before You Talk to the Adjuster
Call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003 before you give a statement, sign an authorization, or accept anything. The consultation is free, so it costs you nothing to find out where you stand, and one conversation can be the difference between a $12,000 offer and what the claim is actually worth.
Early matters. The evidence is still there, the vehicles have not been repaired, and the other driver’s story has not been rehearsed. We handle car accident cases on a contingency fee, so you owe nothing unless we win, and we work out of our office at 1204 San Antonio Street in downtown Austin, a few blocks from the Travis County courthouse. If it is hard for you to get here right now, we will come to you.
What Causes Most Austin Car Accidents
Distracted driving causes more of the crashes we handle than anything else. A driver looks down at a text on the I-35 upper deck, traffic stacks up ahead, and the car in front takes the hit. Phones, navigation screens, and drive-through coffee put more people in the hospital in this town than bad weather ever has.
Drunk driving is second, and it produces the severe cases. Downtown, Rainey Street, and the Sixth Street corridor push impaired drivers back onto the road every weekend, and the wrecks that follow tend to happen at speed.
Following too closely turns Mopac and I-35 into a chain of rear-end collisions every rush hour. Add unsafe lane changes on US-183 and Ben White, drivers running lights at the intersections we have mapped as the city’s worst, and construction zones that move every few months, and you have most of the car accident cases that come through our door.
Car Accident Injuries We See Most Often
Some crash injuries show up on the ambulance report. Others take weeks to surface. The ones we see most often in auto accident claims:
- Whiplash and neck injuries, which insurers routinely undervalue even when the pain is real and lasting
- Disc herniations and back injuries, which often start as stiffness and end in injections or surgery
- Traumatic brain injuries, including concussions with no loss of consciousness, which affect memory, mood, and the ability to hold a job
- Spinal cord injuries, where the claim has to account for a lifetime of care
- Fractures, internal injuries, and burns, especially in high-speed and rollover crashes
Psychological injuries count too. Post-traumatic stress, anxiety behind the wheel, and sleep problems after a serious wreck are compensable under Texas law, and they are treatable. Tell your doctor about them, and tell us.
When a crash takes a life, the claim becomes an Austin wrongful death case, with its own rules about who can bring it and what the family can recover. Our guide to wrongful death claims after a car accident explains who qualifies to file, the Texas deadlines, and how a survival claim works alongside the wrongful death claim.
Hit by an Uninsured or Underinsured Driver in Austin
Texas requires drivers to carry only $30,000 per person, $60,000 per crash, and $25,000 in property damage. That is the legal minimum and it does not go far. One ambulance ride, one emergency room visit, and one MRI can pass $30,000 before you have seen a specialist. Plenty of drivers on Austin roads carry nothing at all.
This is where your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage earns its keep. UM/UIM can pay when the at-fault driver has no insurance, does not have enough, or drove off. Most people have this coverage and do not know it. Send us your declarations page and we will read it and tell you what you have.
UM/UIM claims are their own animal, because you are now negotiating against your own insurance company. Texas requires you to establish the other driver’s liability and your damages before your carrier owes you a dollar, and your policy has notice requirements you can miss without realizing it. Call law enforcement, get the crash report, and get us involved early.
How a Car Accident Lawsuit Works in Travis County
Most claims never become lawsuits. When one does, the process is predictable even if the timeline is not. We file a petition in the appropriate Travis, Williamson, or Hays County court. The defendant answers. Then the case moves into discovery: written questions, document production, and depositions of the drivers, the witnesses, and the experts.
Somewhere in the middle the court will usually order mediation, where a neutral third party works both sides toward a number. A large share of filed cases resolve there. If yours does not, we take it to trial and let a jury decide it.
You are not managing any of it. We handle the filings, the deadlines, and the discovery, and we call you when a decision is genuinely yours to make. Whether to accept an offer is always your call, never ours.
Mistakes That Cost Austin Crash Victims Money
Four mistakes come up over and over. Skipping medical treatment, or letting a long gap open in it. Giving the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement before talking to a lawyer. Posting about the crash, your injuries, or your weekend on social media, where defense counsel will absolutely find it. And taking the first offer because the bills are due and $8,000 today feels safer than an unknown number later.
There is a fifth that is quieter: people stop keeping records. Save every bill, every explanation of benefits, every pay stub showing missed time, every receipt for a prescription or a rental car. Keep a short written log of how you feel and what you cannot do. Two months from now you will not remember the details, and that log is often the best evidence of non-economic damages we have.
What to Bring to Your Free Case Review
You do not need anything ready to call us. But if you have them handy, bring the crash report or its report number, photographs from the scene, names and numbers for any witnesses, your own auto policy declarations page, any letters or emails from either insurance company, and whatever medical records and bills you have so far.
Be ready to walk us through the crash in your own words, including the seconds before it. Tell us about prior injuries too, especially to the same part of your body. A prior injury does not sink a claim. A prior injury the other side finds before we do can.
What Does an Austin Car Accident Lawyer Cost?
Nothing up front. We take car accident cases on a contingency fee, which means our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you, and if we recover nothing, you owe no attorney’s fee. Contingency fees in Texas injury cases generally run between 33% and 40%, with the higher end applying when a case has to be filed and litigated.
We put the percentage in writing before you sign anything, and we explain how case expenses — records, filing fees, expert witnesses — are handled and repaid out of a recovery. Ask us anything about the fee agreement during the free consultation. It is your money, and you should understand exactly where it goes.
The Attorney Handling Your Case
When you hire this firm you work with Shane M. Boasberg, not a case manager you never meet. Shane has been licensed to practice in Texas since 2002 and founded SMB Law, PC in 2010. Before private practice he worked in the Texas Legislature and the Office of the Texas Attorney General, which is a useful education in how the other side of a dispute thinks.
He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Austin Bar Association, and the Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association, and has been recognized by Texas Monthly as a Rising Star and by Elite Lawyer. Our clients tend to mention the same two things in their reviews: they could reach their lawyer, and they always knew what was happening with their case. Those reviews are at the top of this page if you want to read them yourself.
Where Our Austin Car Accident Attorneys Practice
We represent injured drivers, passengers, and families across Central Texas out of our downtown Austin office. That includes Cedar Park, Leander, Georgetown, Kyle, Buda, Bee Cave, and Lakeway, along with Round Rock, Pflugerville, San Marcos, and Dripping Springs.
If you have searched for a car accident lawyer near me, this is the ground we cover. Travis, Williamson, and Hays County cases run out of one office. Set up a free consultation and we will tell you what we think, hire us or not.
Talk to an Austin Car Accident Lawyer Today
The insurance company has had someone working your file since the day of the crash. You should have someone working it for you.
Call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003 or request a free case review. We will read the crash report, go through your injuries and coverage, and tell you what an automobile accident attorney thinks the claim is worth and what it will take to get there. If the answer is that you do not need a lawyer, we will tell you that too.
If the crash took someone in your family, our Austin wrongful death attorneys can walk you through how a Texas wrongful death claim works and who in the family has the right to bring one. There is no fee unless we win, and no obligation for asking.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What should I not say to the insurance adjuster after a car accident?
Do not guess, do not minimize, and do not agree to a recorded statement. Avoid saying you are fine, avoid estimating your speed or the distance between the cars, and never accept a share of the blame — under Texas’s 51% rule, that admission can end your claim outright. Give your name and the basic facts of the crash, then tell the adjuster your lawyer will follow up. You are not required to give the other driver’s insurer a statement at all.
Do I need a lawyer for a minor car accident in Austin?
Sometimes you do not. If nobody was hurt and the damage is minor, handling it yourself may be fine. But injuries that seem small at the scene — neck pain, headaches, numbness in an arm — have a way of becoming MRIs and injections weeks later, and once you sign a release you cannot reopen the claim. The consultation is free, so it costs nothing to find out before you sign anything.
How much do lawyers take from a car accident settlement in Texas?
Contingency fees in Texas car accident cases generally run between 33% and 40% of the recovery, with the higher percentage applying when a case has to be filed and litigated. Case expenses such as records, filing fees, and expert witnesses are handled separately and spelled out in the fee agreement before you sign it. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney’s fee.
How long does a car accident settlement take in Texas?
A straightforward claim can settle within a few months of the day you finish treating. Cases involving surgery, disputed fault, or a filed lawsuit usually take a year or more. The biggest factor is your medical treatment: we do not send a demand until your doctors can say where you are going to end up, because settling before then means paying for your own future care out of the settlement.
Can I still recover money if I was partly at fault for the crash?
Yes, as long as you are 50% or less responsible. Texas uses modified comparative fault under Section 33.001 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, so your recovery is reduced by your percentage of the blame, and at 51% it disappears entirely. Shared fault is one of the most heavily fought issues in any claim, which is why what you say in the first few days matters so much.
How much is my car accident claim worth?
It comes down to your economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, and property damage — plus non-economic damages for pain and suffering, which adjusters often estimate as a multiple of your medical costs based on how serious the injuries are. Available insurance coverage and Texas’s comparative fault rule can move the number in either direction. For a quick ballpark, run your numbers through the free settlement calculator on this page, then call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003 for a free review of what your claim is actually worth.
Car Accident Lawyers Serving Nearby Communities
SMB Law, PC represents clients across Central Texas. Choose your city for local court, filing, and case details: