Dallas Car Accident Lawyers

The crash was the easy part to explain. What comes after it is the part nobody prepares you for: the calls, the rental car, the adjuster who sounds friendly and is not.

Our Dallas car accident lawyers handle injury claims across Dallas, Fort Worth, and the rest of Texas. We deal with the insurance company, prove who caused the crash, and put a documented number on what you lost. The consultation is free and you owe no attorney's fee unless we recover for you.

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En español | All personal injury practice areas

Do I Need a Lawyer for a Car Accident in Dallas?

If you were hurt, almost always. If nobody was hurt and the only issue is a bumper, probably not, and we will tell you that on the phone instead of signing you up.

The dividing line is injury. Property damage claims follow a repair estimate. Injury claims follow a fight over two questions the insurer controls until you push back: who caused this, and how badly are you actually hurt.

Adjusters open that fight early. The recorded statement request in the first week is not paperwork. It is the insurer building its fault argument while you are on pain medication and have not seen a specialist yet.

You do not have to give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement. Let us take that call.

What Your Dallas Car Accident Claim Is Worth

Your claim is worth the total of your losses, reduced by whatever percentage of fault gets assigned to you. There is no multiplier formula that survives contact with a real adjuster, and any lawyer quoting you a number before seeing your medical records is guessing.

Here is what actually goes into the calculation.

Damage category	What it covers
Past medical bills	Ambulance, ER, imaging, surgery, hospital stay
Future medical care	Injections, therapy, follow-up surgery, pain management
Lost income	Time off work, plus reduced earning ability if you cannot go back to the same job
Physical pain and impairment	Ongoing pain and permanent limits on what your body will do
Mental anguish	Anxiety, sleep disruption, fear of driving
Property damage	Repair or total loss of your vehicle
Exemplary damages	Available only where the evidence supports fraud, malice, or gross negligence, which drunk driving cases sometimes do

Two things move the number more than anything else: the quality of the medical documentation, and how early the fault question gets locked down.

How Do You Prove the Other Driver Was at Fault in Texas?

Texas negligence claims come down to four elements, and your case has to establish all four. The driver owed you a duty of care, the driver breached that duty, the breach caused the crash, and the crash caused you real harm.

In plain terms: they were supposed to drive carefully, they did not, that is why you got hit, and you have the bills to show for it.

What proves it is evidence, and most of it has a short shelf life.

• The crash report and the officer's diagram
• Traffic and business camera footage, often overwritten within weeks
• Event data recorder downloads showing speed, braking, and throttle before impact
• Witness statements taken while memories are fresh
• Photographs of vehicle positions, debris fields, and road conditions
• Phone records where they are obtainable through the legal process

We send preservation letters early precisely because the footage that decides your case is usually gone before anyone thinks to ask for it.

Not sure whether the evidence still exists? Call +1 (214) 499-0667 for a free case review.

Can I Still Recover If the Crash Was Partly My Fault?

Yes, as long as your share of fault is not more than 50 percent. Texas uses proportionate responsibility, so your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, and it disappears entirely once you cross the halfway line. A $200,000 claim with 25 percent fault on you pays $150,000.

This rule is in Chapter 33 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and it explains a lot of insurer behavior that otherwise looks strange.

It is why the adjuster asks whether you were tired. Whether you had looked down. Whether you could have braked sooner. Every percentage point they move onto you comes straight out of your check, so a small admission in a friendly phone call is worth real money to them.

Do not argue about fault with an adjuster. Route it to us.

What If the Other Driver Had No Insurance?

Your own policy may cover it. Uninsured motorist coverage, usually written as UM, pays when the at-fault driver has no insurance at all. Underinsured motorist coverage, written as UIM, covers the gap when the driver has a policy but the limits do not come close to your bills.

Texas requires insurers to offer UM and UIM coverage, and you have to reject it in writing to not have it. Pull your declarations page before you assume you do not have it, because a lot of people carry it without knowing.

A hit-and-run driver who is never identified is generally treated as uninsured, though Texas law requires actual physical contact between the vehicles or with you for that type of claim. Report the crash to police the same day, because policies condition the coverage on prompt notice.

The Texas Department of Insurance publishes plain-language explanations of what each coverage does.

Drunk Driving Crashes and Claims Against the Bar That Served the Driver

When a drunk driver causes a crash, Texas law can hold more than the driver responsible. Under the state's dram shop law, which is the rule that makes a business answerable for the alcohol it serves, a bar or restaurant can be liable if it served someone who was already obviously intoxicated to the point of being a clear danger. The rule lives in Chapter 2 of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code.

That matters for a practical reason. A drunk driver often carries minimum limits and few assets. A commercial establishment carries a business policy.

Dram shop cases turn on evidence that disappears fast: receipts, point-of-sale timestamps, security video, and server testimony. Bars are not in the habit of keeping those on hand once they know a claim is coming, which is why these cases need a lawyer involved within days, not months.

The criminal case against the driver runs separately. You do not have to wait for it to finish before pursuing your own claim.

How Long Do I Have to File a Car Accident Lawsuit in Texas?

Two years from the date of the crash for most injury claims. Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code sets the deadline, and once it passes the claim is generally gone regardless of how clear the fault was.

One exception is much shorter and catches people every year. Claims involving a city, a county, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), or another government entity carry a separate written notice requirement of roughly six months. Miss that and the case can end while the two-year window is still wide open.

Waiting also costs you outside the courthouse. Camera footage cycles. Witnesses move. And a gap between the crash and your first doctor visit becomes the insurer's main argument that something else caused your pain.

Car Accident Cases We Handle Across Texas

We take injury claims statewide, not only in Dallas County. A Texas law license covers every county, and a case is generally filed where the crash happened, where an individual defendant lives, or where a company defendant keeps its principal Texas office.

These are the collision types we see most often.

• Rear-end collisions. Fault usually lands on the trailing driver, so the fight moves to how hurt you are.
• Intersection and left-turn crashes. These come down to who had the light, which is why nearby camera footage decides them.
• Highway and interstate crashes. Higher speeds, worse injuries, and frequently more than one policy in play.
• Multi-vehicle pileups. Several insurers each arguing someone else caused it.
• Rideshare crashes. Uber and Lyft carry commercial coverage that turns on whether the driver was on a trip, waiting, or offline.
• Drunk and drugged driving. Often supports both a liability claim and a dram shop claim.
• Hit and run. Handled through your own uninsured motorist coverage.

If a commercial truck or an 18-wheeler was involved, the case runs on different rules, including federal carrier regulations and evidence preservation deadlines that do not exist between two passenger cars. That work belongs with our Dallas truck accident lawyers.

If the person hurt was on foot, it is not a car-on-car claim at all. See pedestrian accidents.

Fort Worth and Tarrant County Car Accident Claims

Yes, we handle Fort Worth cases, and the case gets filed in Tarrant County rather than Dallas County when that is where the crash happened. The statutes are identical across the state line of a county border. What changes is the courthouse, the docket speed, and the jury pool, and those change case value in ways that are easy to underestimate.

Tarrant County civil district courts sit in downtown Fort Worth, and defense firms working that docket behave differently than the ones across the county line. Knowing which is which is part of deciding when to settle and when to file.

The crash patterns are also their own. I-35W through downtown, the I-820 loop, I-30 heading east toward Arlington, US-287 out to the north, and the Chisholm Trail Parkway carry a different mix of commuter and freight traffic than the Dallas corridors.

Our office is in Dallas, so almost all of your case runs by phone, video, and electronic signature. When a hearing or a deposition requires you in person, we schedule around your work.

For injuries in Tarrant County beyond vehicle collisions, see our Fort Worth personal injury lawyer page.

How We Build Your Car Accident Case

Here is what we do, step by step.

Stage	What happens
Free case review	We review the crash report and tell you honestly whether we see a claim
Preservation	Letters go out to protect footage and vehicle data before it is lost
Investigation	Witnesses, scene evidence, phone and carrier records where obtainable
Medical documentation	We work with your treating providers so the record reflects the full injury
Demand	The claim is presented with evidence and a documented damages figure
Negotiation	We push back on low offers and on inflated fault arguments
Litigation	If the offer stays unfair, we file suit and prepare the case for trial

Javier Perez has litigated hundreds of cases in Texas state and federal court, including over a dozen civil jury trials, bench trials, and final arbitration hearings. Insurers price cases partly on whether the lawyer across the table actually tries them, which is why that history is worth more at the negotiating table than any slogan.

Injured in a crash in Dallas or DFW? Call +1 (214) 499-0667 for a free consultation.

What Does a Dallas Car Accident Lawyer Cost?

Nothing up front. We work personal injury cases on contingency, so the fee comes out of the recovery at the end and you owe no attorney's fee if we do not recover for you.

Case expenses such as filing fees, records, and expert costs are handled separately from the attorney's fee. We walk through exactly how that works at the free consultation, and the full terms go in writing before you sign.

Frequently Asked Questions

Talk to a Dallas Car Accident Lawyer Today

In your time of need, Javier Perez is on your side.

If you were injured in a crash in Dallas, Fort Worth, or anywhere in Texas, we can review what happened and tell you where you stand. Call, chat, or request a consultation. It is free, it is confidential, and it commits you to nothing.

Call +1 (214) 499-0667 One Energy Square, 4925 Greenville Avenue, Suite 1450, Dallas, TX 75206