Step 1: Finding An Austin Truck Accident Attorney
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If you’ve been injured in a truck accident in Austin, there are several important steps you must be follow to ensure that you’re adequately compensated for your injuries. Likewise, if a truck accident has claimed the life of your loved one, the same steps will apply.
For more than 20 years, the Austin truck accident lawyers of Grossman Law Offices have helped injured persons and families who have lost a loved one due to a truck driver’s negligence in literally hundreds of cases. Our track record and experience speaks for itself. However, we invite you to peruse these cases to learn more about our approach to truck accident cases. On this and subsequent pages we’ll walk you through the various steps of litigating a truck accident case to victory.
Step 1 – Find the Right Attorney
There are many types of cases where we can candidly say that you may or may not need an attorney because of your circumstances. However, accidents involving 18-wheelers and other large commercial vehicles absolutely warrant legal representation. As such, finding the right attorney is the most important thing you will do in your entire case.
A good truck accident lawyer will have the following traits:
- They will have successfully litigated an abundance of commercial vehicle accident cases.
- They are recognized by their peers for their success and/or have had their work published.
- They will have the resources to litigate your case. It’s important to note that truck accident cases are an expensive endeavor for a law firm. If the law firm doesn’t have the capital to finance your lawsuit until it settles, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to win your case.
- The law firm needs to have open communication with you. As you unfortunately well know, you suffer greatly from your injuries or the loss of your loved one. Thus, you need an Austin truck accident lawyer who knows that only working 9-5 simply won’t cut it.
You need an attorney that understands your concerns if you’ve been injured or if a loved one has been killed. As you can probably tell from researching our law firm, we meet all of these criteria. However, there are several other important steps in the process of recovering compensation for your injuries caused by a negligent truck driver.
Investigate the Accident Scene
Your attorney must investigate the crash, which is a fairly involved process. Most thorough tuck accident investigations take weeks or even months. If you’re considering an attorney, they must be able to explain to you what they plan to do in their investigation. If they tell you that they’re planning on waiting for the police report, don’t hire them. Your attorney needs to go to the scene of the accident with an accident reconstructionist and go through the painstaking process of independently investigating your accident, even when the fault of the truck driver seems obvious.
Understand the Opposition
An aspect of your attorney’s job is to make sure that you understand what you’re up against. It doesn’t matter if the defendant was driving a UPS delivery truck, an 18 wheeler, logging truck, pickup truck for a construction company, delivery truck, bucket truck, or any other type of commercial vehicle– the bottom line is that all commercial vehicle driving defendants are going to take the same approach to defending themselves.
Make no mistake about it, theses commercial defendants have a lot of money on the line when one of their drivers has caused you to sustain an injury and will go to great lengths to avoid compensating you. In particular, there are a variety of common defenses these trucking companies will use, such as shifting the blame elsewhere by blaming the accident on a road condition or faulty sign, or blaming you for driving while distracted. The whole idea is that they will attempt to shift the blame elsewhere.
Understand the Elements You’ll Need to Prove to Win Your Case
You, as the plaintiff, shoulder all of the legal burden for proving the defendant’s negligence was the cause of your injuries. Simply put, Texas law never assumes that a commercial truck driver is negligent. In fact, many meritorious cases have been lost by inexperienced lawyers or injury victims who have chosen to represent themselves. This isn’t because the commercial truck drivers weren’t at fault, they simply lost their cases because they were unfamiliar with the rules of engagement (Texas RCP).
Thus, it’s very important that you understand the legal concept behind why a trucking company is vicariously liable for a driver’s actions. It’s especially important that you understand that trucking companies can themselves be liable for committing acts such as the negligent supervision or hiring of a truck driver. Throughout this article you will find many links that go into further details about the many aspects of 18-wheeler accident lawsuits.
Ensure That You Understand How Your Lawsuit Will Work
Our Austin truck accident lawyers also understand that it’s important that you have a strong understanding of how the litigation process works and how we determine the value of your 18-wheeler accident case.
As you can see, a truck accident case is an involved process. Rest assured that we’ll insulate you from all of the heavy lifting in your case. Our clients know that when we’re hired, we’ll do all the work required. If you’ve suffered injuries or have lost a loved one due to a truck driver’s negligent actions, we invite you to give one of our experienced attorneys a call any time, day or night, a free consultation at 1-855-257-1111.
