A St. Louis car accident lawyer with one number that never moves: 33%.
ClearScope Counsel takes car, truck, motorcycle, and pedestrian crash cases across St. Louis City and County on a flat 33% contingency fee — no upfront attorney fees, no costs out of pocket, and no fee at all unless you recover. Tell us what happened and a Missouri-licensed attorney replies within one business day.
A preliminary inquiry does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please hold sensitive records until we complete a conflicts check.
What should you do after a car accident in St. Louis?
Get medical care, get the crash report started, and say very little to anyone’s insurance company until you have talked to a lawyer. St. Louis crashes cluster where four interstates — I-70, I-64, I-44, and I-55 — braid through downtown and across the Poplar Street Bridge, and the report that documents yours may come from SLMPD, a county municipality, or the Missouri State Highway Patrol depending on where it happened. Chasing the right agency later is harder than noting it now.
- Get examined even if you feel “mostly fine” — a gap in treatment becomes the insurer’s favorite exhibit
- Photograph the vehicles, plates, debris field, signals, and lane markings before anything is moved
- Collect names and phone numbers for witnesses; they scatter within minutes
- Note which agency responded, and request the crash report when it posts
- Keep the clothes, the dashcam card, and every scrap of paper from the ER
- Decline to give any recorded statement until you have counsel
That last one matters more than people expect. The other driver’s adjuster will likely call within days, friendly and recorded. We wrote a plain-language explainer on what a recorded statement is actually for — read it before you pick up.
What if the crash was partly your fault?
You can still recover. Missouri applies pure comparative fault: your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault but is never cut off entirely, no matter how large that percentage is (Gustafson v. Benda, 661 S.W.2d 11 (Mo. banc 1983)).
Adjusters know this, which is why so much of a claim fight is really a fight about the percentage. A merge on the I-64/I-170 interchange, a lane drift on Gravois, a left turn on Kingshighway — each becomes an argument that you were 20%, 40%, 60% responsible, because every point of fault they pin on you is a point shaved off the check. The percentage is negotiated evidence by evidence, not decreed. That is where the crash report, the physical damage pattern, and witness accounts earn their keep.
Phone use is increasingly part of that evidence. Since August 28, 2023, Missouri’s Siddens Bening Hands Free Law (RSMo 304.822) has banned holding or supporting a phone with any part of the body while driving, with fines escalating from $150 to $250 to $500 for repeat violations — and a violation that causes serious injury or death is a crime, up to a class D felony. Police cannot stop a driver solely for a hands-free violation (RSMo 304.822.12), but in a civil claim, proof the other driver was on the phone reshapes the fault percentage fast.
How long do you have to file a car accident lawsuit in Missouri?
Five years from the crash for most personal injury claims — RSMo 516.120, a period that has stood unchanged since 1939 — but only three years if someone died (RSMo 537.100).
The five-year figure survived a real challenge this year. A 2026 bill to shorten the deadline (HB 1645, folded into HCS HBs 1664, 1610, 1645 & 2182) passed the House but died in the Senate — the five-year period is unchanged as of August 2026. If you read somewhere that Missouri’s deadline changed, it did not.
The exceptions are what catch people. A fatal crash is governed by the wrongful death statute’s three-year limit (RSMo 537.100, which since 2018 also requires serving a late-sued defendant within 180 days of filing), and Missouri law strictly orders who may file. Our wrongful death page walks through both. Claims involving a government vehicle or public property carry their own procedural traps and should be evaluated early. Five years is long enough to heal first — it is not long enough to assume someone else is watching the calendar.
What if the driver who hit you has no insurance — or drove off?
Your own policy is required to answer for this. Every Missouri auto policy must include uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage of at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident (RSMo 379.203, 303.030) — and it applies to hit-and-run and “phantom” drivers even when there was no physical contact with the other vehicle.
Missouri’s minimum liability limits are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage (RSMo 303.030, figures current since the statute’s July 1, 2019 version). A hospital admission can consume the per-person minimum quickly, which is why the coverage work on a serious crash rarely stops at the other driver’s declarations page. We map every layer: their liability policy, your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, medical payments coverage, and any commercial policy standing behind a work vehicle, rideshare, or delivery driver.
Whether UM or UIM applies, and in what amount, depends on the policies actually in force — bring your declarations page to the case review and we will read it with you.
What does a car accident attorney actually do for 33%?
Everything between the crash and the check: the correspondence, the evidence, the coverage map, the liens, the demand — and the lawsuit, if the insurer will not be reasonable.
We take over the correspondence
The adjuster calls us, not you. No recorded statements, no blanket medical authorizations, no early release signed under pressure.
We build the record
Crash report, photographs, witness accounts, medical records and bills, wage documentation — the file that shows what the crash actually cost you.
We build the demand to statute
Missouri law rewards a demand done right: a settlement demand that follows RSMo 537.058 (in force since August 28, 2017) can set up an insurer’s extracontractual exposure, and a properly served demand starts prejudgment interest running 90 days after receipt at the federal funds rate plus five percent (RSMo 408.040.3). A demand that skips the statutory checklist does neither.
We handle liens and the payout
Health insurers, Medicare and Medicaid, and hospitals often claim a slice of the recovery. Those claims get negotiated before anything is distributed to you.
If the injuries are life-altering — a brain injury, a spinal cord injury, an amputation — the case demands a different scale of proof, and our catastrophic injury page explains how that work differs. If the crash happened on someone’s property rather than the road — a parking garage, a private lot — the claim may run through premises liability instead.
When should you call — and what will it cost?
Call before you give any statement or sign anything. The consultation is free, and the fee is a flat 33% of the recovery — no upfront attorney fees or costs, nothing at all if there is no recovery, and the percentage never climbs because the case went to litigation. No silent meter.
No recovery is guaranteed. The fee and how case expenses are handled are confirmed in a written contingency fee agreement before representation begins.
Questions St. Louis drivers ask first.
No. You are not required to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement, and it is rarely in your interest to do so before speaking with an attorney. Adjusters are trained to ask questions that shave value off a claim, and the recording is kept.
$25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage (RSMo 303.030, figures current since the July 1, 2019 version of the statute). Serious injuries routinely exceed those limits, which is why your own underinsured motorist coverage matters.
A flat 33% contingency fee — one third of the recovery, confirmed in writing before representation begins. No upfront attorney fees or costs, and no fee at all unless you recover.
Most Missouri personal injury claims must be filed within five years of the crash (RSMo 516.120). A wrongful death claim must be filed within three years (RSMo 537.100). Claims involving government vehicles or public property carry their own traps, so do not sit on either deadline.
Not before you know what the claim is worth. Early offers usually arrive before the full course of treatment is known, and a release signed now ends the claim permanently — there is no reopening it if surgery turns out to be needed later.