Why You Should Consult Personal Injury Lawyers After an Accident in Texas

If you or someone you know has been hurt because of another person’s negligence, whether that negligent party is an individual driver, a corporation, a healthcare provider, a government entity, or anyone else who failed in their duty of care, talking to personal injury lawyers should be one of your first steps. Many accident victims hesitate to make that call because they assume it will cost them money they do not have. It will not. Our San Antonio car accident lawyers at J.A. Davis Injury Lawyers offer free consultations to every person who reaches out, and we never charge a dime unless we recover compensation on your behalf. That is not a marketing gimmick. It is the way personal injury law works in Texas, and understanding how it works puts you in a much stronger position to protect yourself after an accident.

We encourage injury victims across South Texas to speak with more than one set of lawyers before choosing representation. By sitting down with several legal teams, you get multiple perspectives on the strength of your claim, what your options look like, the likelihood of recovering damages, and the realistic chances of winning your case. You also get the chance to find the lawyers you are most comfortable working with, and comfort matters when you are trusting someone with something as serious as a personal injury claim. Our McAllen car accident lawyers welcome that process because we are confident in the results we deliver for our clients and the way we treat the people who walk through our doors.

Whether your injuries came from a car wreck on Loop 410, a truck accident along U.S. Highway 83, a slip and fall at a San Antonio business, or medical negligence at a Valley hospital, our personal injury lawyers are ready to listen to your story and give you an honest assessment of where you stand.

Free Consultations Are the Standard, Not the Exception

No reputable personal injury lawyer charges money for an initial consultation. The reason is simple: personal injury lawyers operate on a contingency fee structure, which means whether they get paid depends entirely on whether they win your case. If they lose, you pay nothing. If they win, their fee comes out of the compensation they recover for you, never out of your own pocket. This arrangement eliminates the financial barrier that keeps so many injury victims from seeking the legal help they need and deserve.

The contingency model also aligns your lawyers’ interests directly with yours. Because our fee depends on the outcome of your case, we have every incentive to fight for the maximum recovery possible. We are not billing you by the hour, which means we are not padding time or dragging things out. We are working toward one goal: getting you the best result in the shortest reasonable timeframe. That built-in motivation is one of the biggest advantages of working with personal injury lawyers on a contingency basis.

What Happens During a Consultation

When you meet with lawyers for a consultation, you will walk them through the details of how you were injured, the medical treatment you have received so far, what your doctors have told you about your prognosis, and how the injury has affected your daily life. Be thorough and honest. Do not leave out details, even if some of them make you uncomfortable or seem unfavorable. If there is any negligence on your part that may have contributed to the accident, your lawyers need to know about it upfront so they can build a strategy around it rather than getting blindsided later.

The consultation is a two-way evaluation. While you are sizing up whether a particular legal team feels like the right fit, those lawyers are evaluating whether they believe your case has merit and whether they can deliver a positive outcome. A good lawyer will be completely honest with you during this process. If the evidence suggests your claim is weak or that the chances of winning are slim, an ethical lawyer will tell you that directly rather than taking your case and stringing you along. That honesty protects you from wasting months or years on a claim that was never going to succeed.

How Contingency Fees Work in Texas

Under a contingency fee arrangement, your lawyers receive a percentage of the damages awarded to you through a settlement or jury verdict. You never write a check from your own bank account. If the case is unsuccessful and no money is recovered, you owe your lawyers nothing for their time or effort. That is the fundamental difference between contingency-based personal injury lawyers and other types of lawyers who charge flat fees or hourly rates.

Contingency fee percentages in Texas typically range from 33 to 40 percent of the total recovery, depending on the complexity of the case and whether it settles before trial or goes to a jury. While that percentage may sound significant at first glance, consider this: studies consistently show that injury victims represented by lawyers recover significantly more in compensation than those who try to negotiate with insurance companies on their own. Even after paying the contingency fee, represented claimants typically walk away with more money in their pocket than unrepresented victims who accepted whatever the adjuster offered. According to the Insurance Research Council, claimants with legal representation receive settlements that are approximately 3.5 times higher on average than those without lawyers.

If you speak with several personal injury lawyers and none of them are willing to take your case on contingency, that should tell you something important about the strength of your claim. At that point, your only option would be a lawyer who charges hourly or flat fees, and pursuing a case that experienced contingency lawyers have already declined carries real financial risk. In that situation, it is worth carefully weighing the likelihood of a positive outcome against the money you would spend out of pocket to get there.

Other Costs You Should Know About

The contingency fee is not the only expense involved in a personal injury case. Pursuing a claim generates administrative costs, and those costs add up. Filing fees, court costs, charges for obtaining police reports and medical records, photocopying and postage expenses, fees for hiring expert witnesses and accident reconstruction specialists, costs for depositions, and expenses for medical illustrations or demonstrative exhibits can all factor into the total. In complex cases that go to trial, these out-of-pocket costs can reach thousands of dollars.

The good news is that you should not need to pay any of these expenses upfront. When your lawyers work on contingency, they typically advance all case-related costs as the case moves forward. If the case is successful, those costs are deducted from your settlement or verdict along with the contingency fee. If the case is not successful, many firms absorb those costs entirely. At J.A. Davis Injury Lawyers, we invest our own resources into every case we accept because we believe in the claims we take on and the people we represent.

Depending on the specific rules in your jurisdiction, your lawyers may or may not be able to advance medical treatment costs on your behalf. If you cannot afford the care you need and your lawyers cannot advance those costs directly, they may be able to connect you with medical providers who offer treatment on a lien basis, meaning the provider agrees to wait for payment until your case resolves. Our team works with a network of trusted medical professionals across San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley who understand how this process works and who prioritize getting our clients the treatment they need without forcing them to pay out of pocket while they wait for their case to settle.

Talk to Our Lawyers Today

You were hurt because someone else was careless, and you should not have to bear the financial burden of their negligence. A free consultation with our lawyers at J.A. Davis Injury Lawyers gives you the information you need to make the right decision for yourself and your family without spending a single dollar. Call our San Antonio office at 210-732-1062 or our McAllen office at 956-994-0565 and let us give you an honest, no-pressure evaluation of your case. If we believe we can help you, we will fight for every dollar you are owed. If we cannot, we will tell you that too.