Law firm marketing covers the whole path: a person with a legal problem finds your firm, reaches someone there and signs an engagement letter (the agreement that hires the firm). A small firm can run it through nine channels. Begin with the ones paid for in attorney time rather than money, add paid ones once every call gets answered, and judge each one by signed cases by source.
Quick answer
- In your case management system (where the firm keeps its contacts and matters), make "how did you find the firm" a required intake field with a fixed list of answers.
- From your phone system, pull last month's missed calls, split into office hours and after hours.
- Open Performance in your Google Business Profile and set its call count beside the calls intake logged as Google.
- List who sent you cases last year and call two of them this week.
- Estimate what one signed case leaves the firm once the work is paid for. That figure is the most any channel may cost per case.
Which channels can a firm run, and what does each take?
The website and intake (everything from first contact to a signed engagement letter) are the two that convert the other seven into cases. In the table, "First signal" is the earliest number you can read. Don't mistake it for a result.
| Channel | Cost | First signal | Count it in | Poor fit when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Referral relationships | Attorney time | Next inquiry naming the referrer | Intake record | Nobody you know meets your clients first |
| Business Profile and reviews | Staff time | Next month's Performance page | Business Profile | Clients reach you only through other lawyers |
| Website | Build or monthly fee | Calls and forms reaching intake | Phone system, form inbox | Never |
| Intake that answers | Staff or answering service | Next month's missed calls | Phone system | Never |
| Search ads | Per click, plus any agency fee | One full month of calls and forms | Ads-only number and page | A signed case costs more than it leaves |
| Local Services Ads | Per lead | One full month of leads | Lead list | Google has no category for your practice nearby |
| Articles for client questions | Attorney hours | A few weeks, per Google | Intake record | No attorney can write and check them |
| Legal directories | Listing fee or free | Calls to the listing's own number | Tracking number | A signed case costs more than it leaves |
| Past-client follow-up | Staff time | Referrals and repeat matters | Intake record | The client prefers not to hear from you |
Why do referrals, reviews and the Business Profile come first?
These three cost time instead of ad money, and small firms already find cases there. In Clio's 2025 Legal Trends for Solo and Small Law Firms report, published in May 2025, 59% of those firms reported referrals as their top source of leads (Clio, checked 2026-10-04). Once a quarter, read the referrer field and call anyone who sent cases last year and nothing since.
ABA Model Rule 7.2 bars a lawyer from giving or promising anything of value to someone in return for recommending the lawyer. The rule lists exceptions. One is a reciprocal referral agreement (you refer clients to someone who refers clients to you), provided the agreement is non-exclusive and the client is informed of it. Another is a nominal gift neither intended nor reasonably expected as payment for the recommendation (ABA, checked 2026-10-04). The ABA rules are only a model. The advertising rules that bind you come from your state bar, and attorney advertising rules shows how states differ. Law is not my profession and nothing here is legal advice, so take the question to your state bar.
Your Google Business Profile is the free listing on Search and Maps. The call figure on its Performance page is a count of clicks on the call button; whether anyone picked up is not part of it (Google, checked 2026-10-04). When those clicks run well ahead of the calls intake logged as Google, look at the same weeks for missed calls.
For reviews, use one routine for every client, at the point the matter closes. The link lives in the profile: select Read reviews, then Get more reviews, and copy the link or save the QR code (Google, checked 2026-10-04). Google's policy prohibits incentives for reviews as well as selective requests for positive ones (Google, checked 2026-10-04).
What has to work before you pay for clicks?
The website and intake. The site's job is to turn a visit into a call or a form, with one page per practice area, a phone number that dials when tapped, and a short form asking the matter type and contact details. Count what reaches intake rather than visits.
Next, open the phone system's call log, count last month's missed calls by hour, and line them up against who covers the phone at each hour: you, a receptionist, an answering service, or nobody. When a call rings out at 7 p.m., whatever the ad paid for it is gone. Law firm intake covers every step between the first call and a signed engagement letter.
Search ads or Local Services Ads: which fits your practice area?
With search ads you pay per click, and that price, CPC (cost per click), swings widely from one practice area to the next:
| Search | Average CPC |
|---|---|
| estate planning attorney near me | $6.02 |
| family lawyer near me | $30.12 |
| criminal defense lawyer near me | $52.82 |
| car accident lawyer near me | $218.99 |
| truck accident lawyer | $509.15 |
Each figure is a US-wide estimate from Google's Keyword Planner, dated October 2026, and a national average, so your own clicks will be priced differently. To get cost per signed case from the ads, divide ad spend by the signed cases that arrived through a phone number and landing page used only in the ads. If the result is above what a case leaves the firm, search ads are a poor fit at that price. PPC for lawyers works through the break-even.
Local Services Ads are Google ads on Search and Maps that you pay for per lead. The charge applies to each valid lead, for example an answered call, a message or a booking request (Google, checked 2026-10-04). Google is folding Local Services Ads into Google Ads. There they run as Performance Max campaigns (Google's automated campaign type) with pay-per-lead goals. Select US home and storefront services start moving in August 2026, broader advertiser groups in late 2026, and every category not moved in 2026 goes in 2027. No legal category is named in any phase on Google's page (Google, checked 2026-10-04). Local Services Ads for lawyers covers verification and disputed leads.
If an agency runs the ads, put these to it:
- Which actions are set up as conversions (the results the account reports and bids toward)?
- Do the ads have a phone number and a landing page that nothing else uses?
- Does the monthly report pull signed cases and fees by source out of my case management system?
- Who reviews every ad against my state's advertising rules?
Where do articles, directories and past clients fit?
An article that answers something clients wonder about before calling, such as what a will does that a trust does not, is paid for in attorney hours. According to Google, some changes take effect within a few hours and others take several months, and it suggests giving a change a few weeks before judging it (Google, checked 2026-10-04).
Legal directories list lawyers by practice area and place. The comments to Rule 7.2 say a lawyer may pay for online directory listings, and that a listing by practice area, without more, is not a recommendation (ABA, checked 2026-10-04). Give each paid listing a tracking number (a phone number that rings at your intake line and shows up nowhere else). Renew the listing when last year's cases from it left more than it cost.
Past clients send referrals and come back for the next matter, such as an estate plan that needs updating. A closing letter and a yearly check-in cost staff time. At closing, ask whether the client wants mail from the firm at all.
What goes on the one-page sheet each month?
| Number | Where to pull it | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Inquiries by source | Case management intake records | Monthly |
| Missed calls, office hours and after hours | Phone system call log | Weekly |
| Consultations held, by source | Case management or calendar | Monthly |
| Signed engagement letters, by source | Case management | Monthly |
| Fees collected on those matters, by source | Billing | Quarterly |
| Money spent, by channel | Invoices and ad accounts | Monthly |
| Attorney hours on marketing | Non-billable time entries | Monthly |
Illustrative: the firm here is invented, a three-lawyer estate planning and family law practice, and I made up every figure in its table; no client supplied any of them.
| Source | Inquiries | Consults held | Signed | Money | Attorney hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawyer or other professional | 12 | 9 | 6 | $0 | 6 |
| Past client, friend or family | 8 | 6 | 4 | $0 | 1 |
| Google ad (ads-only number and page) | 30 | 10 | 4 | $2,800 | 0 |
| Google, other (search, Maps, reviews) | 18 | 8 | 4 | $0 | 2 |
| Legal directory | 6 | 2 | 1 | $400 | 0 |
| Article on the site | 4 | 2 | 1 | $0 | 5 |
| Total | 78 | 37 | 20 | $3,200 | 14 |
- Consult rate = consults held ÷ inquiries. Ads: 10 ÷ 30 = 33%. Professional referrals: 9 ÷ 12 = 75%.
- Sign rate = signed ÷ consults held. Ads: 4 ÷ 10 = 40%. Professional referrals: 6 ÷ 9 = 67%.
- Cost per signed case = (money + attorney hours × an hour's value) ÷ signed. At $300 an hour: professional referrals (6 × $300) ÷ 6 = $300; ads $2,800 ÷ 4 = $700; directory $400 ÷ 1 = $400; article (5 × $300) ÷ 1 = $1,500.
Suppose a signed matter leaves this firm $2,000 on average after the cost of the work. Every row clears that. A single case each from the directory and the article is too few to judge, so read those two over three months. The ads bring the most inquiries, yet only one in three reaches a consult. Ask intake who called those people back, and how fast.
How do you ask every new client how they found the firm?
Ask at the first contact, before the conflict check (confirming the firm does not already act for the other side or have another conflict), so that people who never sign still carry a source. The answer goes in a required field with a fixed list, plus one detail: the referrer's name, the directory, the article or what they searched.
- Lawyer or other professional referral
- Past client, or referred by a past client
- Friend or family
- Google search, Maps or reviews
- Google ad (set by the ads-only number or page)
- Local Services Ads (set by the lead)
- Legal directory (which one)
- Article on the firm's site
- Other (say what)
Trust the tracking number over anyone's memory. A call to the ads-only number counts as an ad call even when the caller credits a friend; the friend goes in the detail. Someone who answers Google may have no idea whether it was an ad, a Maps listing or an unpaid result, and that is the reason the ads get a number of their own.
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Frequently asked questions
What is marketing in a law firm?
Everything that brings a person with a legal problem to the firm and on to a signed engagement letter: referral relationships, the Google listing and reviews, the website, an intake desk that picks up, ads, articles, directories and keeping in touch with past clients. Intake is on that list because an unanswered call throws away whatever the other channels spent to produce it. Judge the whole thing by signed cases by source rather than by visits or leads.
How do lawyers get clients?
Most solo and small firms get them through referrals: in Clio's 2025 report on solo and small firms, 59% of those firms reported referrals as their top source of leads. The rest come through Google search and Maps, ads, legal directories and the firm's own articles. You only see which mix works for your firm once intake records the source of every inquiry from a fixed list.
Who is the best law firm marketing company?
No ranking can tell you, because the right one is the one whose work you can check. Pick one that leaves the ad account, Business Profile, domain and tracking numbers in the firm's name, and whose monthly report shows signed cases by source from your case management system instead of clicks and leads. Ask who checks its ads against your state's advertising rules before they run.
How much should a small law firm spend on marketing?
Work back from cases, not from a percentage of revenue. Estimate what one signed case leaves the firm after the cost of doing the work, decide how much of that you will pay to get a case, and multiply by the extra cases the firm can take on in a month. That gives the ceiling for paid channels. Referrals, reviews and intake fixes cost mostly attorney and staff time.
Can I give a referral source a gift to say thank you?
ABA Model Rule 7.2 allows nominal gifts as an expression of appreciation, and its comment describes them as token items such as holiday gifts or ordinary social hospitality. A gift given under a promise or understanding that referrals will follow is prohibited. Your state has its own version of the rule, and that version governs; confirm it with your state bar. I'm not an attorney, and this answer is not legal advice.
How long does law firm marketing take to work?
Each channel runs on its own clock. Intake fixes show in the next month's missed-call count, ads give a first count of calls and forms after one full month, and signed cases from them take as long as your usual time from consultation to engagement letter. For articles on your site, Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months.