Ask for verifiable specifics, not a percentage. A useful track record shows how many car accident cases the firm handles, how many go to litigation, who at the firm would actually work your file, and what happens if the insurer refuses to pay. A single "success rate" number tells you almost nothing.

You are hiring someone during the worst month of your year, based mostly on advertising. It is a bad position to evaluate anything from. Here is how to do it anyway.

For scale: Harris County alone recorded 115,173 reportable crashes in 2024, per TxDOT. Every personal injury firm in Houston is competing for a slice of that, which is why the marketing is so loud and so uniform.

Why is a single "success rate" number misleading?

Because nobody defines it the same way, and nobody audits it.

A firm can report a 98 percent success rate by counting every case that resolved for any amount, including the ones that settled for less than they were worth. A firm can also report a low trial win rate simply because it tries the hard cases instead of settling them cheaply.

Three specific problems:

No standard denominator. Is it all cases opened, all cases accepted, or all cases that reached a verdict? Those are wildly different numbers.

Selection effects. A firm that only accepts easy cases will always look better on paper than one that takes complicated liability disputes.

No verification. Nobody checks these figures. There is no reporting body for law firm success rates.

If a number cannot be defined and cannot be checked, it is marketing, not evidence.

What should you ask instead?

These questions produce answers that are hard to fake.

"How many car accident cases does this office handle in a year?" You are testing whether car accidents are a real practice area or one item on a long list.

"Who will actually handle my file day to day?" Some firms sign you with a senior name and hand the case to staff you never meet. That is not automatically bad, but you should know.

"How many of your cases go into litigation rather than settling pre-suit?" This is the single most revealing question. An insurer's offer depends heavily on whether it believes the firm will actually file suit. A firm that never litigates has less leverage, and adjusters track this.

"Have you handled a case like mine?" Not a case with your same dollar value. A case with your same problem: disputed fault, a commercial vehicle, an uninsured driver, a delayed-onset injury.

"What is your fee at each stage, and how are costs handled?" Fees often step up if a case goes to trial. Ask for the number in writing before you sign.

How can you verify what a firm tells you?

You do not have to take their word for it.

• County court records. Harris County District Clerk records are searchable online. You can see whether a firm actually files lawsuits in Harris County and how often.
• The State Bar of Texas. Confirm the attorney is licensed and in good standing, and check for public disciplinary history. This takes about two minutes.
• Published results pages. Read them carefully. Look at whether results are recent, whether they are Texas cases, and whether they are the same type of case as yours.
• Reviews, read for pattern. Ignore the star count. Read the one-star and three-star reviews. If several people describe the same specific problem, believe them.

What does experience actually change about your case?

Experience is not a feeling. It shows up in concrete decisions.

Preserving evidence early. Traffic camera footage, event data recorder downloads, and commercial vehicle records disappear on their own schedules. Knowing which ones to demand, and how fast, is a learned skill.

Getting the medical picture right. Undertreating a case is the most common way people lose money. So is treating without documentation that connects the injury to the crash.

Reading the fault question. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001, your recovery drops by your percentage of fault and disappears entirely above 50 percent. Insurers push that percentage. Rebutting it takes evidence gathered early.

Knowing the deadlines that are not two years. Most people know about the two-year filing deadline in Section 16.003. Fewer know that a claim touching a city, county, or state agency triggers a notice requirement as short as six months under the Texas Tort Claims Act, and shorter still under some city charters.

Knowing when not to settle. The first offer is almost never the last one, and the difference is usually whether the firm is credible about filing suit.

What can you verify about the Law Office of Domingo Garcia?

Held to the same standard as above, here is what is checkable.

• Founded in 1989 by Domingo Garcia. More than 35 years representing injured Texans.
• Four Texas offices: Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Odessa. The Houston office is at 12929 Gulf Freeway, Suite 101.
• The firm's practice is personal injury. Car accidents, truck accidents, and work injuries are its three core areas.
• Cases are handled in English and Spanish directly, not through an interpreter service.
• An in-house medical coordination team helps clients schedule specialists and track treatment.
• An in-house property damage department handles the vehicle side of car accident claims, which most personal injury firms do not do.
• Contingency fees. Nothing is owed up front.
• Published case results are available at domingogarcia.com/settlements/.

Those are not included here. If the firm wants any of them on the page, they need attorney sign-off and each result must be presented as case-specific rather than typical.

Does the firm "specialize" in car accidents?

The firm focuses on personal injury, and car accidents are one of its three core practice areas. That is a description of what the firm does, not a formal certification.

Worth knowing when you are shopping: "Board Certified" is a specific credential from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. It is not the same as a firm saying it specializes in something. If a credential matters to you, ask which board and in what area, then verify it.

If so, this section should say so.

How should you set expectations from someone else's results?

Carefully. Published results tell you a firm has handled serious cases. They tell you nothing about yours.

Case value depends on facts you control almost none of: the severity of your injuries, how well you recover, the available insurance coverage, and how fault gets apportioned. Two crashes that look identical from the outside can resolve years and six figures apart.

The honest version is that a good lawyer improves your odds and your leverage. Nobody can tell you a number in the first meeting, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does.

Common questions

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