The other driver's insurance company will call you within about 48 hours. That call is not customer service.
The adjuster will be friendly. They'll ask how you're feeling, ask you to confirm a few details, and ask for a recorded statement while it's all fresh. What they're actually doing is locking in your version of events before you know the extent of your injuries, and looking for a sentence they can use later — "I'm okay," "I didn't see him," "my neck's just a little sore."
You are not required to give that statement. You're also not required to sign the medical authorization they'll send, which is usually written broadly enough to pull your entire medical history looking for something pre-existing.
I'm Shane M. Boasberg. I've practiced law in Texas since 2003 and I've run SMB Law, PC in downtown Austin since 2010. A large share of what I do is representing people hurt in car and truck collisions across Travis, Williamson, and Hays Counties. If you take one thing from this page before you decide who to hire: don't give a recorded statement to the other side's carrier until you've talked to a lawyer. That conversation with me is free.
Car and auto accident cases I handle
Rear-end collisions and whiplash claims. Intersection and T-bone crashes. Head-on collisions. Highway wrecks on I-35, MoPac, US-183, US-290, SH-71, SH-45, and the SH-130 toll corridor. Drunk driving crashes. Distracted and texting-driver crashes. Hit-and-run cases. Rideshare collisions involving Uber and Lyft. Motorcycle wrecks. Bicycle, pedestrian, and e-scooter injuries downtown and near campus. Multi-vehicle pileups. And uninsured and underinsured motorist claims, which in Texas are more common and more complicated than most people expect.
I also handle wrongful death claims when a crash kills someone, on behalf of the surviving spouse, children, and parents.
The Texas rules that will actually decide your car accident case
Most people are surprised by at least two of these.
Fault gets assigned as a percentage, and 51% is a cliff. Texas uses modified comparative fault under Chapter 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. If you're found 20% responsible, your recovery drops by 20%. But cross 50% — meaning you're found 51% or more at fault — and you recover nothing at all. This is precisely why the insurance company works so hard to move a few percentage points onto you, and why what you say in that first phone call matters.
The minimum policy in Texas is far smaller than a real injury. State minimums are 30/60/25 — $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per crash, $25,000 for property damage. A single ambulance ride, ER visit, MRI, and a few months of physical therapy can exhaust $30,000 before anyone discusses lost wages. Plenty of drivers on Austin roads carry exactly that minimum, and some carry nothing.
Which makes your own UM/UIM coverage the most important policy in the case. Texas insurers have to offer uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, and you have to have rejected it in writing to not have it — so check your declarations page, because a lot of people have it and don't know it. Texas UIM claims also run on their own procedural track: under Brainard v. Trinity Universal Insurance Co. your carrier owes nothing until the other driver's liability and your damages are legally established, and under Allstate Insurance Co. v. Irwin (Texas Supreme Court, 2021) that can now be done through a declaratory judgment action. That change matters — it altered how these cases get built, and it opened a path to attorney's fees that didn't exist before. If a lawyer is treating your UIM claim like an ordinary demand letter, they are handling it wrong.
Check whether you have PIP. Texas insurers must also offer Personal Injury Protection — typically $2,500 — and it likewise has to be rejected in writing. PIP pays regardless of fault and can cover early medical bills while the liability fight plays out.
Two years, with shorter traps underneath. Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003 gives you two years from the crash to file suit. But if a government vehicle is involved — a Capital Metro bus, a county truck, a state vehicle — the Texas Tort Claims Act requires formal notice within six months. And if your claim is against the City of Austin, the city's charter shortens that notice window to 45 days. Forty-five days. That one closes while people are still in physical therapy.
Truck and 18-wheeler cases are a different kind of case
People often assume a truck wreck is just a car wreck with a bigger vehicle. It isn't, and the differences run in your favor if the case is worked properly and against you if it isn't.
A whole federal rulebook applies. Interstate carriers operate under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Hours-of-service limits alone give you a lot to work with: a driver may drive no more than 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive at all after the 14th consecutive hour following the start of the shift, must take a 30-minute break before driving beyond 8 cumulative hours, and is capped at 60 hours in 7 days or 70 in 8. A violation of any of those isn't just a fine — it's evidence.
The insurance is on an entirely different scale. Where a Texas driver may carry $30,000, a federally regulated interstate carrier generally must carry a minimum of $750,000, and considerably more for hazardous materials. That is not a reason to inflate a claim; it's a reason the defense is far more sophisticated and shows up far faster.
There is usually more than one defendant. The driver. The motor carrier, under respondeat superior. Potentially the carrier separately, for negligent hiring, training, retention, or supervision, and for negligent entrustment. Sometimes the broker, the shipper, the loader, or a maintenance contractor. Sorting out who is actually on the hook is most of the early work.
And the clock on the evidence is much shorter than the clock on the lawsuit. This is the part that costs people cases. Records of duty status and their supporting documents only have to be retained for six months under the federal rules. Electronic logging device data, the tractor's ECM "black box," dashcam footage, dispatch and messaging records, the driver qualification file, drug and alcohol testing records, and maintenance history all sit with the carrier — and much of it overwrites or ages out on its own. Meanwhile the carrier's rapid-response team is frequently at the scene the same day, photographing everything and taking statements.
The response is a spoliation letter — a formal demand to preserve every category of that evidence — sent immediately, not after you've finished treating. You have two years to file. You may have weeks to lock down the proof.
What I do in the first thirty days
Send preservation letters to every carrier and defendant. Pull the CR-3 crash report through TxDOT's Crash Records Information System once it posts, and read the officer's narrative and diagram critically, because those reports contain errors more often than people assume. Identify every applicable policy, including your own UM/UIM and PIP, which people routinely forget they have. Get you to appropriate treatment and keep the gaps in your treatment history from becoming the defense's whole argument. Handle the adjusters so you stop getting called. Investigate the scene while it still looks like it did — signal timing, sight lines, skid evidence, and whatever cameras are pointed at that intersection.
Then we wait on the medicine. Nobody can value a case before your doctors know whether you're going to need an injection, a surgery, or nothing further. Any lawyer who quotes you a number in the first week is guessing, and any calculator that hands you a firm figure — including mine — is giving you a range dressed up as an answer.
Austin roads, specifically
I built a free interactive map of Austin's most dangerous intersections from the City of Austin's Vision Zero crash data: 37,012 crashes, 286 deaths, and 25,060 injuries between January 2023 and December 2025, ranked and mapped. It's on my site, free, no email required. There are five other free tools there too, including a Texas injury deadline calculator with a live countdown that accounts for the 45-day Austin trap, and a settlement estimator that deliberately gives ranges rather than promises.
My office is at 1204 San Antonio Street, three blocks from the Travis County courthouse. I take cases throughout Travis County — Austin, Manor, Del Valle, Lakeway, Bee Cave — plus Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Leander, Pflugerville, Hutto, and Taylor in Williamson County, and San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, Dripping Springs, and Wimberley in Hays County. Also Bastrop, and the SH-130 and I-35 freight corridors that run through all of it.
What this costs you
Nothing up front, and nothing at all unless I recover money for you. Auto and truck cases are handled on contingency, the percentage is stated in your agreement before you sign anything, and you will never receive an hourly bill. The first consultation is free whether or not you hire me.
I'll also tell you plainly if I don't think you need a lawyer. Some property-damage-only claims and minor-injury claims are genuinely better handled without one, and I'd rather say so than take a case where my fee eats the benefit I bring.
Who I am
New Orleans by birth, Texas since college. B.A. in Government and History, University of Texas at Austin, 1999. J.D., South Texas College of Law Houston, 2002. Licensed in Texas since January 16, 2003, bar number 24038249, and admitted in the Southern District of Texas.
Before opening this firm I clerked at Gallagher, Lewis, Downey & Kim, practiced at Heard, Robins, Cloud, Lubel & Greenwood LLP in Houston, served as General Counsel to Texas State Senator Mario Gallegos, and worked at the Office of the Texas Attorney General on transportation, eminent domain, administrative law, and legislative liaison matters. The transportation and government work is directly relevant here — roadway design questions, governmental immunity, and municipal notice requirements are not abstractions to me.
Four-time Rising Star selection by Texas Monthly / Texas Super Lawyers — 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016 — an honor extended to about the top 2.5% of attorneys statewide through peer nomination and independent research. Member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association, the Austin Bar Association, and the State Bar of Texas. Accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
I also practice family law, which is unusual alongside injury work and occasionally very useful: if your marriage comes apart while you're recovering, or you were already in a custody case when the crash happened, you don't have to go find a second lawyer and start over.
Straight talk about fit
Hire me if you want the lawyer on your case to be the person you actually reach on the phone, and if you'd rather hear a realistic assessment than an encouraging one.
Hire someone else if you have a catastrophic-injury or mass-casualty claim requiring millions of dollars in case financing against a national defense firm. Firms are built for that and I'll point you toward one in the free consultation rather than take your case and learn that lesson on your dime.
Quick answers
Should I talk to their insurance company? Not on the record, not yet.
What if I was partly at fault? You may still recover, reduced by your share — unless you're over 50%.
What if the other driver had no insurance? Check your own policy for UM/UIM. It's often there.
How long do I have? Two years to file suit in most cases, cut to a six-month notice deadline when a governmental defendant is in the picture, and just 45 days when that defendant is the City of Austin.
How fast should I call after a truck wreck? Immediately. The evidence has a six-month retention floor and the carrier is already working.
What's a consultation cost? Nothing.
Reach me
SMB Law, PC · 1204 San Antonio Street, Suite 201, Austin, TX 78701 · ***********
Message me through Thumbtack or call. Free consultation. No fee unless I recover for you.
Shane graduated from South Texas College of Law in 2002 and began his legal career at Heard, Robins, Cloud, Lubel, and Greenwood LLP in Houston. In 2004, Shane moved back to Austin, TX to serve as General Counsel to the Honorable Senator Mario Gallegos in the Texas Senate. Following his time with Senator Gallegos, Shane worked for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott where he worked on a wide variety of legal and political issues related to transportation and eminent domain While working for the OAG-Texas, Mr. Boasberg also served as the Legislative Liaison between the Texas Attorney General-Transportation Division and the Texas Legislature.
Following his tenure with the legislature and the OAG-Texas, Mr. Boasberg reentered private-practice in 2010 and opened his law firm in Austin, TX. He has handled almost every type of civil case at some point during his career. Mr. Boasberg is actively engaged with the community is a member of Texas State Bar, Austin Bar Association, and the Capitol Area Trial Lawyers Association. He was also selected to Texas Monthly’s list “Rising Stars” for 2012, 2014 - 2016. Only 2.5% of eligible Texas attorneys are chosen by Super Lawyer based on nominations from their peers. His dedication to advocating for his clients and the consistent ability to deliver desired results has earned Mr. Boasberg the reputation of being a trustworthy advocate who will provide quality legal services.
