If you ever collide with another vehicle in the Houston area, you might have to get yourself a lawyer. That lawyer can defend you if you caused the accident and the other driver decides to sue you. They can also try to get money for you if the other driver caused the crash, and their insurance will not cover any or all of the damages.
If you start looking for lawyers in the Houston area, though, you’ll find dozens of them. Many of them say they’ll take car accident cases, but which one should you choose? You’ll probably want one that has plenty of experience with these cases.
Why should you only hire an experienced car accident lawyer? We’ll take some time and answer that question right now.
They Need to Know the Law
If you start looking at lawyers you can hire, you’ll soon see that they specialize in many different areas. You can hire a tax attorney or a corporate lawyer. Some only do constitutional or criminal law.
If you hire a lawyer, they might have experience, but perhaps that experience does not connect to traffic accidents in a meaningful way. Maybe the attorney or law office you hire doesn’t usually take these cases, so they don’t have any direct experience with them.
These lawyers or law offices can’t serve your needs best. They might miss something that causes you to lose at trial. If so, you won’t collect any money to recoup your financial losses.
An Inexperienced Lawyer Might Make a Mistake
You might hire a lawyer who seems very nice. Their disposition shouldn’t be your primary concern, though. Instead, you need a lawyer or law office that’s professional and competent.
Remember that if you take another driver to court, they will doubtless hire their own lawyer or law firm to represent their interests. You’re facing off against them in court, and your lawyer will face their attorney as well. Legal jousting will commence, and an inexperienced lawyer might not prove to a jury that the other driver caused the accident, even if you know they did.
You want to get along with your lawyer, but you don’t necessarily need someone nice. You need a bulldog-style lawyer who can win your lawsuit and get the money you need to pay any medical bills, repair your car, and recoup your lost wages after a car accident.
Inexperienced Lawyers Are Not Decisive
Inexperienced lawyers generally aren’t as decisive or confident as experienced ones. You might get a lawyer who just passed the bar. Maybe they know the law, but they’ve only read about it in books. They’ve never had a chance to argue in front of a jury before.
An inexperienced lawyer might freeze up in front of a judge and jury in a courtroom setting. They may stammer or forget certain key points that they need to bring up if you’re going to win your case.
By contrast, an experienced lawyer won’t feel any intimidation when they have to argue on your behalf with many people watching. Lawyers who argue in front of judges and juries must have some performative skills. They’re trying to win your case for you, but they’re also putting on a show for the jury.
If your lawyer can’t convince the jury the other driver caused the accident, you might lose at trial, even if you produced plenty of evidence to back up your story regarding the crash. An attorney who does not know how to present that evidence might lose a slam-dunk case for you that a veteran could easily win.
Experienced Lawyers Already Have an Established Reputation
When you are looking at car crash lawyers to hire in Houston, you should also think about the intimidation factor. You can see that at play with certain sports teams.
If a team that seldom wins steps on the field with one of the most storied franchises in the game, they’ll expect to lose. When they do, it won’t surprise them. It’s much the same with lawyers.
If you hire one of the best-known names in the legal profession, the judge will know their reputation. Jury members might as well. They’ll know you hired someone who knows how to win and who’s a master litigator.
Perhaps that intimidation factor shouldn’t matter in courtrooms, but it does. If you hire an attorney or firm that never loses, their victory will seem like a foregone conclusion. If you hire a lawyer who has never appeared in a courtroom before and has no relevant, real-world experience, that sends the wrong message about your chances.
An Experienced Car Accident Lawyer Knows How to Gather Evidence
If you say a car wreck happened one way, and the other driver says something completely different, you’ll probably have to sort the matter out in court. Maybe one of you has the facts mixed up, and only physical evidence and witness testimony can determine the trial’s outcome.
An experienced car accident lawyer will definitely know how to gather any physical evidence that exists. They will know to use a crash site investigator to take pictures to present to the jury. They’ll know to tell that investigator to produce any traffic camera footage that backs up your story, or perhaps store camera or smartphone camera footage exists that can help you win.
An experienced lawyer might hire expert witnesses to talk about the crash site. Based on any physical evidence that they find, they can prove your story beyond any doubt.
Once they do that, you will likely win your case. No matter what the other driver or their lawyer says, physical evidence, witness testimony, and anything else relevant your lawyer uncovers should decide the matter. If you hire an inexperienced attorney, they probably can’t conduct themselves with the same vigor and determination as a veteran lawyer.
There’s no doubt hiring an experienced lawyer to handle your Houston car crash case makes sense.
