The short answer: A personal injury lawyer levels the playing field against the insurance company. We handle every call and every letter so the adjuster can’t trap you, we lock down the evidence before it disappears, and we build your case to maximize what you recover. We get you in front of top doctors with no money out of your pocket, and then we negotiate down your medical bills and hospital liens so more of the money ends up in your hands, not theirs. We do all of it on a contingency fee, which means you pay us nothing unless we win.
You Don’t Have to Fight This Alone
Let me tell you what a bad wreck actually does to your life. One second you’re driving to work. The next second your whole world stops. You’re hurt, you’re missing paychecks, and the medical bills start stacking up on the kitchen table faster than you can open them. I’ve watched it happen to people for over two decades. I know exactly what that kitchen table looks like.
And here’s the question almost everybody asks themselves before they call me: do I even need a lawyer for this? I’ll handle the insurance claim myself. The insurance company will do the right thing and pay me what’s fair.
I hate to be the one to tell you. They won’t. The system isn’t built to help you. It’s built to protect corporate profits, and the moment your accident gets reported, a giant machine cranks up on the other side with one job: pay you as little as humanly possible.
Here’s the thing you have to understand about who you’re up against. A corporation doesn’t have a heart. It doesn’t have blood. It doesn’t have a soul. All a corporation has is money. So the only way you ever get one to do the right thing is to make it pay. That’s it. That’s the whole game. And you don’t win that game alone.
So below is exactly what I do for you, from the day you hire me to the day your case is done. No mystery. No legalese. Just the truth.
How Do Insurance Companies Treat You When You Don’t Have a Lawyer?
The most dangerous lie in this whole business is that the adjuster is your friend. They are not your friend. I’ll say it again because it matters: the adjuster is not on your side. Their job, the thing they get paid and promoted to do, is to protect their company’s bottom line by handing you as little as they can get away with. When you call them without a lawyer, they don’t see a hurt person. They see an opportunity.
And they’re trained. These folks run plays on you. They’ll drag the whole thing out for months, betting you’ll get so desperate for cash that you grab the first lowball check they wave at you. They’ll ask you for a recorded statement, and that’s a trap, plain and simple. They ask, real friendly, “Hey, how are you feeling today?” You’re a polite person, so you say, “Oh, I’m doing okay.” Boom. Now there’s a recording of you saying you’re fine, and they’ll wave it in front of a jury to argue you were never really hurt.
Then they slide a broad medical authorization across the table for you to sign. Sounds harmless. It is not. That form lets them dig through years and years of your private medical history, hunting for any old ache or twinge they can pin your new injuries on. Sprained your ankle in 2014? Watch them try to blame your busted spine on it.
Here’s what happens the minute you hire The Law Offices of Colby Lewis. All of that stops. We fire off a letter of representation that same day, and from that moment they are legally forbidden from calling you, texting you, or mailing you a single thing. Every call, every email, every piece of mail, it all comes to us now. We shut their playbook down and force them to deal with a Houston trial lawyer who knows to the dollar what your case is worth.
We Handle the Headache So You Can Heal
A wreck doesn’t just hurt your body. It buries you in busywork. You should be resting, going to your physical therapy, getting your life back. Instead, the folks who go it alone end up sitting on hold with an adjuster for an hour, arguing with a body shop, and begging somebody for a rental car. That’s nonsense. You’ve got enough going on.
We take all of it off your plate. We run a tight, organized shop, and handling the details is what we do. Here’s what we take over for you:
- Managing the property damage claim so your car actually gets fixed or replaced.
- Coordinating a rental car so you can still get the kids to school and yourself to your appointments.
- Pulling the official police reports and crash data.
- Tracking down and locking up every medical record and bill from every hospital and clinic that touched you.
- Hunting down every single insurance policy that might apply to your case, not just the obvious one.
Your job is one thing and one thing only: get better. Put a hundred percent of your energy into your recovery and let us carry the rest.
How Do I Get Medical Care If I Can’t Pay?
One of the things that shocks people most after a wreck is getting turned away by their own doctor. You’d think the one place you could count on is your own physician. A lot of times, you can’t.
Why Your Own Doctor Might Turn You Away
You call your primary care doctor after the crash and the front desk tells you, sorry, we don’t treat auto accident injuries. Why? Because a lot of doctors don’t want to deal with the billing mess of a third-party liability claim, and they sure don’t want to get dragged into a courtroom to testify. On top of that, your health insurance will often refuse to pay for accident-related care until the auto insurance limits are burned through first. So you’re hurt, you’re in pain, and you can’t find anybody who’ll see you. It’s a terrible spot, and it’s not your fault.
How a Letter of Protection Gets You Treated Now
This is a problem an experienced firm solves on day one. Over the last 20 years we’ve built real relationships with a network of top-tier providers: orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, physical therapists, imaging centers, the people who actually know how to treat a trauma.
We get you treated under what’s called a Letter of Protection, an LOP. In plain English, an LOP is a binding promise between our firm and the doctor that says: treat this patient now, and you’ll get paid out of the settlement or verdict at the end. The doctor gets the comfort of knowing the bill is covered, and you get care immediately, with no co-pays, no deductibles, and nothing out of your pocket today.
You get the treatment you need right now. The bills get sorted at the end. That’s how it should work.
Negotiating Your Bills and Liens (This Is Where the Real Money Is)
Here’s something most people never hear until it’s too late. Winning a big settlement is only half the fight. The other half is protecting that money from everybody lined up to take a piece of it before it ever reaches you.
When your case settles, you don’t just pocket the whole check. The providers who treated you have a right to get paid. If you went to the ER, the hospital probably slapped a lien on your settlement under Chapter 55 of the Texas Property Code. And if your health insurance paid for any of your care, they’ll come knocking too, through something called subrogation, demanding to be paid back out of your money.
If you handle the case yourself, here’s what happens: you pay all those people their full, retail, sticker-price amounts. And that can eat your entire settlement alive, leaving you with nothing for the pain you actually went through. I’ve seen it. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s avoidable.
This is exactly where a good lawyer earns the fee. We get aggressive on your outstanding balances, your hospital liens, and your health insurer’s subrogation claims. We use statutory reductions, the case law, and the relationships we’ve built over 20 years to slash what you owe. Every dollar we knock off a lien is a dollar that goes straight into your pocket instead of theirs. That’s the part nobody sees, and it’s one of the most valuable things we do.
How Do You Maximize What My Case Is Worth?
Figuring out what a case is truly worth takes real expertise, and it’s where people who go it alone get crushed. They’ll take a check that covers the ER visit and call it a day, completely ignoring future medical care, the earning capacity they lost, and the mental anguish that follows you home after a trauma like this.
Let me be straight with you about something, because I won’t blow smoke. This is not a lottery ticket. We are trading an injury for money. It is not a jackpot, and anybody who promises you one is lying. What we do is make sure you get every dollar that injury is actually worth, and not a penny less.
So we build the whole picture of your damages and chase down every avenue of recovery. If the driver who hit you carries a minimum-limits policy, we don’t stop there. We look for an umbrella policy. We check whether they were on the clock for an employer, because that opens up corporate vicarious liability. We look at your own Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage to stack the available money on top.
Ever wonder why you see those billboards everywhere? It comes down to simple economics. A car hits you, the other side might have thirty grand. An 18-wheeler hits you, now you’re talking about a million-dollar policy and a company behind it. Same crash, wildly different value, and you’d never know to look unless somebody who does this for a living was digging.
And here’s the part the insurance companies don’t want you to know. They only pay top dollar when they’re scared of what happens if they don’t. If a firm just settles everything and never sets foot in a courtroom, the carriers know it, and they pay those lawyers less. Every time.
That’s not us. We’ve got a strong record of winning, and we prep every single case like it’s headed to a jury. We use the heavy tools, like the Stowers doctrine here in Texas, which puts an insurance company in a brutal spot: pay the policy limits now, or risk a judgment that blows way past their coverage and lands on them. When the carrier knows your lawyer is ready and able to try the case, the offers go up. Not a little. A lot.
What Does It Cost Me to Hire You? Nothing Upfront.
The number one reason people sit on their hands instead of calling is they’re scared of the bill. Makes sense. You’re already missing paychecks. The last thing you can stomach is some lawyer’s hourly invoice landing in the mail. So let me put that fear to bed right now.
I believe justice shouldn’t be something only rich people can afford. That’s not a slogan, that’s why we work the way we work. We take these cases on a strict contingency fee. Here’s what that actually means for you:
- No upfront cost. It costs you nothing to hire us. Zero.
- No hourly billing. You will never get a monthly invoice from us for phone calls, emails, or court filings.
- We front the expenses. We pay for the police reports, the records, the accident reconstruction experts, the filing fees, all of it, out of our own pocket.
- No fee unless we win. Our fee is a set percentage of the final settlement or verdict. If we don’t recover money for you, you don’t owe us a dime in attorney fees. You won’t get a bill. Period.
Because we carry all the financial risk, our interests are nailed to yours. We don’t make money unless you make money, so we are flat-out motivated to get you the biggest recovery possible. Think about it: there is no good reason on earth to walk into a fight with a multi-billion-dollar insurance company by yourself when you can have an elite legal team in your corner for zero out-of-pocket risk. None.
What Should I Do Right Now to Protect My Claim?
Time is working against you the second you get hurt. In Texas you generally get two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit according to Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Ch. 16. But don’t let that two-year number fool you into waiting. Waiting even a few weeks can gut your case. The surveillance video gets recorded over. Witnesses forget what they saw. The skid marks fade right off the pavement. Evidence has a shelf life, and the clock starts the day it happens.
So here’s what to do, and just as important, what not to do. Do not give a statement to the adjuster. Do not sign any settlement release. Do not cash that quick check they send hoping you’ll go away.
Pick up the phone and call us. The Law Offices of Colby Lewis does free, confidential consultations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We’ll listen to your story, look at your case, and tell you straight what your options are. No pressure, no bill, no catch.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer
Do I really need a lawyer for a car accident?
If you were injured, the answer is almost always yes. Insurance companies have teams of lawyers working to reduce or deny your claim. A personal injury lawyer protects your rights, arranges your medical care, and works to make sure your final compensation reflects the true value of your damages, including future medical costs and lost income.
How much does a personal injury lawyer cost?
Nothing out of pocket. We work on a contingency fee, meaning we take a set percentage of the final settlement or verdict. If we do not win your case, you pay zero attorney fees.
Should I take the insurance company’s first offer?
Almost never. The first offer is typically a lowball figure designed to close your claim before you understand its full value or know your injuries’ long-term impact. Speak with a lawyer before accepting or signing anything, because once you sign a release, the case is over.
What is my car accident case worth in Texas?
There is no fixed formula. Value depends on the severity of your injuries, your medical bills, future treatment needs, lost income and earning capacity, pain and mental anguish, and the amount of insurance coverage available. An experienced lawyer evaluates all of these and identifies every applicable policy to maximize your recovery.
What if the accident was partly my fault?
You may still recover. Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule (proportionate responsibility): as long as you are not more than 50 percent at fault, you can recover damages, reduced by your percentage of fault. Do not assume you have no case. Let a lawyer evaluate the facts.
What if I already gave a recorded statement to the insurance company?
Do not panic, but do not speak with them again. Call a lawyer right away. We will step in, take over all communication, and work to limit any damage the adjuster tried to create by twisting your words.
Can I switch lawyers if I already hired one?
Yes. You have the right to change attorneys at any time, and it generally costs you nothing extra, because the fee is divided between the lawyers out of the same contingency percentage. If you are unhappy with your current representation, you can get a second opinion.
Will I have to go to court?
Most personal injury cases settle out of court through negotiation or mediation. But if the insurance company refuses to offer a fair amount, we have the resources and trial experience to take your case in front of a judge and jury, and the carriers know it.
How long do I have to file a claim in Texas?
In Texas, the statute of limitations for most personal injury claims is two years from the date of the accident. Certain exceptions apply, and evidence disappears quickly, so it is critical to contact a lawyer as soon as possible.
What if I cannot afford a doctor?
We can help. We work with a network of medical providers who treat injured clients under a Letter of Protection, so you get care immediately and the provider is paid out of your final settlement, with nothing out of your pocket upfront.
Will my health insurance cover my auto accident injuries?
Sometimes, but your health insurer will likely file a subrogation claim to be reimbursed from your settlement, and they often refuse to pay until the auto insurance limits are exhausted. We navigate this billing maze for you and work to reduce what you have to pay back.
Who pays my medical bills while the case is pending?
If you treat under a Letter of Protection, the bills are held until the case resolves. If you use health insurance, you may owe co-pays. Our goal is to make sure the at-fault driver’s insurance ultimately covers your medical expenses at the end of the case.
What is a Letter of Protection (LOP)?
An LOP is a document your attorney sends to a medical provider guaranteeing that the provider will be paid directly out of your future settlement. It lets you get treatment now without paying cash upfront.
What is a hospital lien?
Under Texas law, if you are admitted to a hospital within 72 hours of an accident, the hospital can place a legal claim (a lien) against your personal injury settlement to secure payment. We negotiate these liens aggressively to reduce what you owe.
Let’s Go to Battle Together
You’ve already been through enough. You do not need the extra stress of fighting an insurance company that looks at you and sees a file number instead of a human being. At The Law Offices of Colby Lewis, we expect more from the legal system, and frankly, so should you.
Take back control of your story. Let us carry the legal fight while you focus on your family and your health. That’s the trade I’ll make with you all day long.
Call us today at 866-265-2948 or fill out our contact form to set up your free, no-obligation consultation. We’re ready to listen, and we’re ready to win.
