Burgess Williams Featured in Advocate Magazine on the Federal Truck-Safety Overhaul

Some news we’re proud to share:

Our co-founder, attorney Burgess Williams, was published in the July 2026 issue of Advocate Magazine, one of the most respected publications for trial lawyers in the country. His article breaks down a coming overhaul to the federal system that tracks how safe, or how dangerous, trucking companies really are. You can read his full article in Advocate Magazine.

It’s written for other attorneys, so it’s dense. Here’s the plain-English version, and why it should matter to you.

What’s actually changing?

The federal government keeps a kind of report card on every trucking company. It’s run by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the FMCSA, and it’s called the Safety Measurement System, or SMS. Every month it logs a carrier’s violations: bad brakes, drivers who’ve been behind the wheel too long, failed drug tests, crashes. When a company racks up enough red flags, the system raises an alert.

In November 2024, the FMCSA approved the biggest changes to that system since 2010. Burgess’s article walks through what’s coming, including new categories, simpler scoring, and a sharper focus on recent violations, and what all of it means for holding dangerous carriers accountable in court.

That last part is the whole point.

Why a “report card” matters after a crash

Here’s a hard truth most people never hear: when an 18-wheeler hurts someone, the trucking company usually knew it had a problem long before the crash. A driver with a history of blown hours-of-service limits. A truck kept running with worn-out brakes. A safety record sitting in federal data that nobody acted on.

That’s where this data comes in. Those violation records can show a company knew, or should have known, that its driver or its truck was a danger, and put them on the road anyway. Lawyers call that negligent hiring, negligent retention, and negligent entrustment. In plain terms: they gambled with your safety to save money, and the paper trail proves it.

Burgess’s article is essentially a roadmap for pulling that paper trail out of a company that would rather bury it, right down to the electronic logging devices that record a driver’s hours. We call those the “digital snitches,” because the raw data on them often tells a very different story than the tidy summary a company hands over.

“We get to represent people who oftentimes don’t have the ability to advocate for themselves against the ‘big bad wolf,’  and there isn’t a day that starts where I’m not looking forward to helping those people fight back.”

Joe Caputo

Founding Attorney

Why we care enough to write about it

This is the kind of work that doesn’t fit on a billboard. It’s careful, technical, and it’s how truck cases are actually won: by knowing the federal rules cold and turning a company’s own records against it.

It’s also why our founders handle these cases themselves instead of passing them down the hall. When you hire us for a truck accident claim, the lawyer digging through FMCSA data and subpoenaing black-box records is the same person who just published on the subject. Williams Caputo has earned seven-figure results in trucking cases, including a $1.1 million recovery for a client who suffered a traumatic brain injury. Past results don’t guarantee what happens in your case, but they show we know this terrain.

And every one of those cases does something bigger than a settlement. When a dangerous carrier is held accountable, it doesn’t just help one family. It makes the road safer for the next one.

Hurt in a truck crash? Do these things now.

1. Get medical care, even if you feel fine. Some serious injuries hide for days.
2. Don’t give the trucking company’s insurer a recorded statement. Their job is to pay you as little as possible.
3. Write down what you remember: the road, the weather, the truck’s markings and DOT number if you saw them.
4. Save everything: photos, medical bills, the police report.
5. Talk to a lawyer fast. Trucking companies send a rapid-response team to the scene within hours, and evidence like those logs can disappear. In Texas, you generally have two years from the date of the injury to file, and the clock is already running.

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3 months ago

These guys are consummate professionals. As a transactional attorney who frequently receives requests from clients and prospects for injury lawyers, I always trust Joe Caputo—he is my go-to referral and consistently delivers for his clients. And as effective as they are as counsel, Caputo and Williams are even better people. Compassionate and trustworthy… You want these two advocating on your behalf when it counts.

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We’re here when you’re ready

You shouldn’t have to out-argue a billion-dollar trucking company while you’re trying to heal. That’s our fight now, and as Burgess’s article shows, we know exactly where to look.

Talk to a real lawyer, free, any time, day or night. No fee unless we win your case. Call 512.351.7000.

Read Burgess Williams’s full article, “FMCSA’s Forthcoming Safety Measurement System Overhaul,” in Advocate Magazine.