In the city, in 2025.
Richmond Personal Injury Lawyer
If you were hurt in Richmond, you are managing medical appointments, a missed paycheck and an adjuster who calls constantly. A Richmond personal injury lawyer can tell you two things early: which of three courthouses will hear your case, and whether a six-month notice deadline is already running because the city is involved. Richmond is the firm’s home city, and the first conversation costs nothing.
Recognized. Reviewed. Trusted.
Gray Broughton Injury Law investigates who is responsible for an injury, identifies every source of recovery and prepares the claim for negotiation or for trial in the 13th Judicial Circuit. The office is on Rolling Hills Drive, a Richmond mailing address that sits just past the city line in Henrico County, so these files are worked from the same side of town. Tell us what happened and someone can say which deadlines apply to you and which records to ask for now.
Crashes in Richmond, by the numbers
4,590 crashes
24 people killed
A death rate of 0.15 per 1,000 licensed drivers.
3,255 people injured
Same city, same year.
194 alcohol-related crashes
They caused 10 deaths and 162 injuries.
660 speed-related crashes
They caused 5 deaths and 429 injuries.
3.96 percent of Virginia's crashes
On about 2.6 percent of its licensed drivers.
Every figure above is from the Virginia DMV Highway Safety Office’s Virginia Traffic Crash Facts, data year 2025, city of Richmond.
Where people are getting hurt in Richmond
Serious injury here is concentrated, not scattered. The city’s Vision Zero Action Plan reports that its High Injury Street Network covers 7 percent of Richmond’s road mileage and carries 62 percent of all fatal and serious injury crashes, using VDOT data for 2017 through 2019.
The same plan, using Virginia Department of Health data for 2017 through 2019, counts 126 fatalities and serious injuries a year in areas with a very low Health Opportunity Index, against 27 in low areas and 4 in very high ones. Where a crash happened is a fact about the road, not about the person in it.
Why choose Gray Broughton Injury Law?
01
A stacked docket rewards a file already built
Richmond Circuit Court can put more than one trial on a date. The firm builds the record early, so a continuance costs months, not the case.
02
Veteran led, and used to reading a government file
Gray Broughton is veteran owned, and most of its trial lawyers came out of the military judge advocate general’s corps. Sharif Gray prosecuted for the Commonwealth before he tried cases against insurers. Other law firms send their traumatic brain injury trials to us.
03
A caseload small enough to answer the phone
The firm takes fewer cases than it could, so you can reach the person handling your file.
GET YOUR FREE CASE REVIEW
Tell us what happened and what you have so far: the crash report number, the name of the other driver’s insurer, where you were treated. Someone reads every one of these. You will hear back with a plain answer about whether a deadline is already running, and the review does not commit you to anything.
It's Easy to Get Started
The Richmond personal injury law firm insurance companies don’t want to see
Trial lawyers, not settlement lawyers
The firm builds a file from the first medical record as though a jury will see it. That is what gives a settlement conversation any weight, and insurers price a case differently when the preparation is already done.
Veteran owned, and it shows in the preparation
Gray Broughton is veteran owned and its trial lawyers include former military JAG officers. What carries over is not a slogan. It is documentation, and the assumption that the other side will test every piece of it.
A caseload small enough to work
We take fewer cases than we could. A client should be able to reach the person handling the file and get a straight answer about what happens next and why it matters.
Other lawyers send their cases here
Virginia firms refer cases to Gray Broughton and bring the firm in as co-counsel on catastrophic files. A referral from someone who does this for a living is the hardest recommendation to manufacture.
Visit the Richmond office
Tell us what happened. Someone will listen, ask what the adjuster has already asked you, and say whether a six-month notice or a records request needs to go out this week.
Common personal injury claims we handle in Richmond, Virginia
Car and truck crashes in Richmond
Richmond recorded 4,590 crashes in 2025, and most claims here start with one of them. The first question is usually whether a personal auto policy or a commercial policy behind the vehicle is on the other side.
Company vehicles and fleet claims
A company vehicle brings a corporate defendant, a driver file and a maintenance history. It also moves the venue question, because under Va. Code § 8.01-262 a defendant’s principal place of business is a permissible forum.
Drunk driving injuries in Richmond
Ten of the city’s 24 traffic deaths in 2025 were alcohol related, per Virginia DMV, and Va. Code § 8.01-44.5 makes punitive damages available in specific, provable circumstances, capped at $350,000.
Pedestrian and bicycle injuries at Richmond intersections
Half of Richmond’s pedestrian fatalities happen at intersections, per the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan, which is why the signal timing, the crosswalk markings and the sight lines are evidence.
Catastrophic injury and wrongful death
These are valued over a lifetime rather than a treatment period, a different kind of proof. In a claim brought by the personal representative after a death, two years run from the death.
Premises liability and negligent security
The question is what the property owner knew before the injury and what the records show. The same question runs through a claim for an assault on a Richmond property.
Not sure which of those describes what happened to you?
That is a normal place to start. Tell us the street, the date and who else was involved.
Virginia doesn’t divide fault between the parties
The fault record in a Richmond claim gets built in the first 48 hours. An adjuster calls early and asks for a recorded statement: how fast were you going, was your phone in your hand, did you see the other car.
Virginia runs no percentages. The rule, from Litchford v. Hancock, is that negligence of the parties may not be compared, and any negligence of a plaintiff which is a proximate cause of the accident will bar a recovery. Virginia’s model jury instruction says the same thing to the jury deciding your case.
Which court hears a Richmond injury case
Three courthouses can hear a Richmond injury claim, and the amount claimed and the defendant’s identity decide which. Under Va. Code § 8.01-262, venue is permissible where the cause of action arose and where the defendant’s principal place of business sits. Per the Greater Richmond Partnership’s November 2025 employer list, Capital One sits in Goochland and HCA Virginia in Chesterfield, while Estes Express Lines is inside the city.
- Richmond City General District Court, 13th Judicial District. Exclusive original jurisdiction to $4,500, then concurrent jurisdiction with circuit court up to $50,000, a ceiling that replaced $25,000 in 2025. No jury.
- Richmond Circuit Court, 13th Judicial Circuit. Anything above that ceiling, and the court where a jury is available. Seven judges, at the John Marshall Courts Building, 400 North Ninth Street.
- U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division. Its territory reaches Chesterfield, Hanover, Henrico and Goochland, so a crash past the city line can still land here.
A Richmond trial date is not always a trial date
A trial date in Richmond Circuit Court is not the same as a trial. The court says so in its own civil practices: “The Court may schedule more than one trial on a particular date. If your trial is ‘stacked’ and more than one trial is going forward on that date, it is possible that your case may be continued if there is no feasible accommodation for all stacked trials to proceed.”
Three things follow. Nothing gets docketed until service is complete and 21 days have passed, the response window in Rule 3:8(a). Service within twelve months of filing is timely on its face, and service after that is timely only if the court finds the plaintiff exercised due diligence, so delay in getting a defendant served is delay in being heard. And the court supplies no courtroom technology, which matters when a case turns on video.
A case that sits can also be struck: Va. Code § 8.01-335 lets a court strike one after two years without an order, and after three years with no notice at all.
The two-year deadline
Most Richmond claims run on Virginia’s two-year filing deadline, which is tolled while an injured person is a minor or incapacitated. A wrongful death action runs on its own clock, two years from the date of death rather than the injury.
The city’s clock is much shorter, and it gets its own section below.
If the City of Richmond is involved, you have six months
If the city is the defendant, two years is not the deadline that matters. Va. Code § 15.2-209(A) forever bars a negligence claim against a city unless a written statement of the claim, with the time and place of the injury, is filed within six months of accrual. It survives only if the city attorney, chief executive, mayor or a covering insurer had actual knowledge inside those six months, or if § 8.01-229 tolling applies.
01
Have your attorney write the letter
Address it to Laura K. Drewry, City Attorney, 900 East Broad Street, Suite 400, Richmond, VA 23219, and give the date, the time, the exact location, what happened and the nature of the injury.
02
Don’t send it by email
The city states in writing that “An email, or an email with a letter attached does not comply with state law.” Use hand delivery, USPS or commercial delivery, the methods § 15.2-209(C) names.
03
Keep proof of delivery
Under § 15.2-209(D) you carry the burden of proving receipt, and a signed return receipt is prima facie evidence of filing.
A claim number from Risk Management at (804) 646-0107 is not a preserved claim.
Two Level I trauma centers, and the bills that follow
Richmond is one of the better places in Virginia to survive a serious injury, and one of the more complicated places to resolve the bill. On the Virginia Department of Health’s designated trauma center list, last updated March 12, 2026, VCU Medical Center is Level I and also a Burn Center and a Pediatric Trauma Center, and HCA Chippenham is Level I and a Burn Center. Virginia has six Level I centers and three burn centers statewide.
That care generates large charges fast, and Virginia gives the providers a claim on the recovery. Under Va. Code § 8.01-66.2 a hospital has a lien of up to $2,500, each physician, nurse, therapist or pharmacy up to $750, and each emergency medical services provider up to $200. Those liens and health insurance subrogation get resolved inside the case, so a settlement figure means little until they are.
Evidence in a Richmond case that will not exist in six months
Four Richmond records are worth asking for early.
The crash report
Richmond Police release reports in person at Window 4, 200 W. Grace St.
Toll records, which changed in 2026
The Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority converted the Powhite Parkway, the Downtown Expressway and the Boulevard Bridge to all-electronic tolling on Feb. 28, 2026, so every passage is now an E-ZPass or Pay-By-Plate transaction with a timestamp and a location.
School-zone camera footage
Cameras run at 13 Richmond school-zone locations, 7:15 to 9:15 a.m. and 2:15 to 4:15 p.m. on school days, including a new one on Cary Street Road.
The ambulance record, from a separate agency
Transport here is run by the Richmond Ambulance Authority, a public authority created in 1991, not a fire department EMS division. Its run report is a separate request.
If one of those records is about to age out, or a notice deadline may already be running, that is a reason to call this week rather than next month. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Usually not. Richmond Circuit Court schedules more than one trial on a date and continues the ones that cannot go forward. Civil terms begin the fourth Mondays of January, April, July and October, so a continuance often costs a quarter.
The civil division sits at the John Marshall Courts Building, 400 North Ninth Street, Room 203. A second courthouse is at the Marsh Manchester Courts Building, 920 Hull Street. The clerk’s office assigns the case, so call before driving to either one.
No. The City Attorney’s office states in writing that an email, or an email with a letter attached, does not comply with state law. Send the notice by hand, by any form of USPS service or by commercial delivery, inside six months, and keep the proof of delivery.
In person at Window 4 in the police headquarters lobby, 200 W. Grace St., weekdays 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for $5 in cash or a money order payable to the City of Richmond. No cards, no personal checks. Virginia DMV sells one for $8 on form CRD 93.
Probably. The Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority went all electronic on Feb. 28, 2026, so each passage on the Powhite Parkway, the Downtown Expressway or the Boulevard Bridge is an E-ZPass or Pay-By-Plate transaction carrying a timestamp and a gantry location. Ask for those records early.
In Richmond, probably not. Ambulance transport in the city is run by the Richmond Ambulance Authority, a separate public authority rather than a fire department EMS division. Its run report is a separate records request from the fire department’s and from the hospital’s.