Real people.
Real cases.

The drunk driver had a $30,000 policy. The bar that over-served him had $2 million.

Car accident · Texas Dram Shop Act · Commercial alcohol provider liability

Our client was stopped at a red light in southwest Houston on a Friday night. The driver who hit them had a blood alcohol content more than twice the legal limit. Our client spent four days in the hospital. They came home to a medical bill that was already larger than the drunk driver's entire insurance policy.

Most firms would have written a demand letter for the $30,000 policy limit, taken their 33%, and moved on. That's a clean file. It's also the path that leaves the client holding a $80,000 medical tab with no way to pay it.

We took a different approach. In the first 72 hours, we pulled the driver's credit-card statement and traced every bar they'd been in that night. We sent preservation letters — by overnight courier, signed delivery — to each establishment before surveillance cycles overwrote the footage. One bar's cameras showed the driver being served three more drinks after visible signs of intoxication — staggering, slurring, cut off briefly and then served again by a different bartender.

Under the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code §2.02, that conduct brings the bar's own commercial general liability policy into the case. We filed against the establishment. The available coverage went from $30,000 to over $2 million overnight. Read our full dram shop law guide →

Another firm told them there was $50,000 in coverage. There was $1 million.

Uber & Lyft · Trip-phase coverage analysis · Second-opinion case

The client came to us six months into their case, frustrated. An Uber driver had T-boned their car at a Houston intersection and they'd hired the first firm that returned their call. That firm had told them the only available insurance was the driver's personal auto policy — a state-minimum $30,000 policy. The medical bills alone were already four times that.

Rideshare insurance doesn't work the way most attorneys think it does. It's layered by phase of the trip:

• App off: Only the driver's personal policy
• App on, no ride accepted (Phase 1): $50K contingent
• Ride accepted, en route to pickup (Phase 2): Up to $1,000,000
• Passenger in car (Phase 3): Up to $1,000,000

The difference between Phase 1 and Phase 2 can be over $900,000 in available coverage. Proving which phase applies requires Uber or Lyft's timestamp records — data they don't volunteer and that routine data-retention policies will eventually purge.

We sent a preservation and records demand letter to Uber's legal department within days of taking the case. The trip-state logs — timestamped to the second — confirmed the driver had accepted a ride request four minutes before the crash and was en route to the pickup when the collision occurred. Phase 2. $1 million policy. We also stacked the client's own UIM coverage on top. See how rideshare coverage actually works →

They were asked to sign a paper that waived their right to sue. They called us first.

Workplace injury · Texas non-subscriber law · ERISA benefit plan analysis

Our client was hurt on the floor of a Houston-area warehouse — a forklift hit them from behind while they were picking product. They were discharged from the ER the same day with a back injury that turned out to be far more serious than the initial X-rays showed.

The employer's HR representative visited our client at home two days later with paperwork. It was described as "enrollment in the injury benefit plan — so we can get your medical bills paid right away." What it actually was: a 14-page document that, on page 9, waived our client's right to sue the employer and forced any dispute into private arbitration with an arbitrator chosen by the plan administrator.

Texas is the only state in the country where private employers can opt out of workers' compensation entirely. These employers are called "non-subscribers." When they opt out, they lose three powerful defenses: contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, and the fellow-servant rule. In other words, an injured worker at a non-subscriber employer can sue directly — and the employer is stripped of the usual protections. The math of that civil case is often much better than whatever the injury benefit plan pays.

Our client had called us before signing. We told them to put the pen down. Under Texas Labor Code §406.033, we built a direct negligence claim against the employer — failure to train the forklift operator, failure to maintain aisle clearances, failure to enforce the company's own safety SOP. The benefit plan waiver was never signed. The case was never forced into arbitration. Understand Texas non-subscriber law →

The trucking company's investigator beat the ambulance to the scene.

Commercial trucking · FMCSA preservation · Hours-of-service falsification

A multi-vehicle chain-reaction crash on I-10 westbound, just past the Grand Parkway interchange. Our client's SUV was the third vehicle hit. By the time our client was being loaded into an ambulance, the trucking company's rapid-response team was already on scene — photographer, accident reconstructionist, investigator — taking statements from drivers still bleeding on the side of the freeway.

This isn't a coincidence. Large trucking carriers contract with 24/7 response firms whose entire job is to arrive before anyone hires a lawyer and build the defense file. The working theory they were developing: our client had changed lanes suddenly, causing the truck driver to brake. The narrative makes our client 51%+ at fault, which under Texas's modified comparative negligence rule would have barred recovery entirely.

We were hired three days later. The first thing we did, before requesting a single medical record, was send a formal preservation letter demanding:

• The tractor's Engine Control Module (ECM) data — speed, brake application, steering input at the moment of impact
• Dashcam footage (many commercial rigs now have forward- and driver-facing cameras)
• Driver's Record of Duty Status logs for the 14 days before the crash
• Electronic Logging Device (ELD) data
• Driver qualification file, drug & alcohol testing records, and prior roadside inspection history

The ECM data showed the truck traveling 68 mph with no brake application in the two seconds before impact — inconsistent with the company's "emergency braking" narrative. The ELD data showed the driver had been on duty for 13.5 hours when the crash occurred, with the last two hours likely falsified against the paper logbook. Both are federal violations under FMCSA regulations. The case reframed from "improper lane change" to "fatigued commercial driver at excessive speed." Our approach to 18-wheeler cases →

The driver fled. Their own insurance company told them "you can't sue a ghost."

Hit-and-run · Uninsured motorist (UM) claim · UM arbitration

A classic Houston hit-and-run. Our client was rear-ended at a Westheimer intersection on a Tuesday evening. The driver pulled around, paused for maybe two seconds, and fled. Police took a report but — despite partial plate info from a witness — were never able to identify the driver. No arrest. No at-fault party to sue.

In hit-and-run cases, recovery shifts entirely to the victim's own uninsured motorist (UM) coverage. Under Texas Insurance Code Chapter 1952, UM coverage stands in the shoes of the phantom driver — the insurer pays out as if it were insuring the at-fault party. That's the theory. In practice, insurers do not treat UM claims like any other third-party claim.

The client had called their own insurer expecting advocacy. Instead the adjuster told them, in effect, that without an identified at-fault driver there was nothing to pursue. That statement is legally incorrect and insurers know it is — but it's also effective. Plenty of UM claimants hear it and give up.

We pulled the policy, confirmed UM applied, and filed the claim formally. When the initial offer came in at a fraction of case value, we invoked the policy's arbitration clause — a procedural tool that insurers hate because it takes UM disputes out of the quiet internal negotiation track and onto a real hearing calendar. In parallel, we pulled surveillance footage from three businesses along the likely route of flight. Two had cameras pointed at the roadway. One captured the at-fault vehicle — full plate. The case resolved on the UM claim without needing the criminal identification. More on how UM/UIM coverage works →

Four prior 911 calls to that same parking lot. The property manager said it was "an isolated incident."

Premises liability · Negligent security · Foreseeability evidence

A large Houston apartment complex. Our client was attacked in the parking lot returning from their car. The property's initial response through its insurance carrier was the standard playbook: tragic incident, nobody's fault, criminal acts of a third party cannot be predicted, here is a sympathy statement, please direct all further inquiries to counsel.

Texas premises-liability law turns on foreseeability. A property owner is not an insurer of tenant safety in the abstract — but when prior similar incidents put the owner on notice that something like this was likely to happen, and the owner failed to take reasonable steps, the analysis changes completely. The question becomes: what did they know, and when did they know it?

Answering that question requires evidence the property owner controls. Incident reports. Prior-tenant complaints. Internal emails about security concerns. Security-company proposals that were declined for cost. None of it arrives voluntarily.

We issued Rule 205 subpoenas for the property's incident history and separately pulled HPD call-for-service records for the address going back three years. The HPD records alone showed fourteen incidents within a half-mile radius, including four at the same parking lot in the eighteen months before our client's incident. Two of those had prompted letters from tenants asking the management to install additional lighting and gate controls — letters the management had filed away without action. What had been framed as "an isolated incident" became a well-documented pattern of inaction in the face of foreseeable risk. The case resolved on premises-liability theory with access to the property's commercial general liability policy. How we handle premises cases →