Industries / Legal
Online marketing for law firms.
Search, Maps, reviews, and intake, run as one system so the case gets signed by your firm.
Online marketing for a law firm is the work of being present and credible at the moment someone decides they need a lawyer, and then making sure that call gets answered. In practice it is five things running together: high intent paid search and Local Services Ads for the practice areas you want, a Google Business Profile that ranks in the map pack for your city, practice area pages that rank on their own and read like they were written by the firm, a steady flow of recent reviews, and call tracking that connects every consultation back to the query that produced it. CurrentAds runs all of that as one program, including paid media, SEO, AI search visibility, local and Maps, reviews, landing pages, and the measurement underneath, and your firm owns every account we touch.
The discovery path
How customers actually find you in this industry
01
One high intent search, usually on a phone
Legal demand is event driven. Someone has a crash, a charge, a divorce, or a deadline, and they search once with strong intent. They are not browsing, they are choosing. The result set they see in that first minute is most of your market.
02
Local Services Ads and the map pack sit above everything
For many legal queries the first screen is a Local Services Ads unit and three map results. Organic listings often start below the fold on mobile. If your profile and your Google Screened status are not in order, you are competing for what is left.
03
Reviews decide who gets the call
People rarely call the first name they see. They open two or three, read recent reviews, and skim the attorney bio and the practice area page. Volume, recency, and how the firm responds to criticism carry more weight here than in almost any other category.
04
Assistants now summarize the shortlist
A growing share of people ask an assistant what to do first and who handles this kind of case in their area. Getting named there depends on clear, factual, well structured pages and consistent information about the firm across the web, not on ad spend.
05
The call is the conversion
Legal marketing ends at a live human. Whoever answers, qualifies, and books the consultation while the person is still motivated usually signs the case. Voicemail during business hours is the single most expensive failure in this industry.
Priority order
The pillars that matter most here
We run the same ten services for every client. What changes by industry is the order they are built in and where the budget goes. For legal, this is the sequence we argue for.
01
Paid Media
Paid search is where legal intent is most concentrated and most expensive. Exact and phrase match discipline, heavy negative keyword work, one landing page per practice area, and separate budgets per case type keep high cost clicks from turning into unqualified calls.
02
Local and Maps
Local Services Ads, the Google Business Profile, and map pack ranking for your city and practice areas. This is the surface most firms neglect and the one that sits highest on a phone screen.
03
Reputation
Review volume and recency, a compliant request process that never offers anything of value in exchange, and professional responses. Reviews are the deciding factor between two firms that both rank.
04
Analytics and Tracking
Call tracking, form tracking, and a connection to your intake system so you can see cost per booked consultation by practice area instead of cost per click.
05
SEO
Practice area pages, city pages that are genuinely distinct, attorney bios with real credentials, and the technical work that lets them rank. Organic keeps producing after the ad budget pauses.
06
AI Search
Entity and schema work so assistants describe your firm accurately, plus factual content that answers the questions people ask before they are ready to call.
07
CRO and Landing Pages
Practice area landing pages that load fast, state the process, and make calling easier than reading. Small intake friction is expensive when the click cost is this high.
See all ten services and how they compound, or what it costs.
Why that order, in full
Almost everything above depends on two surfaces that behave nothing alike. The three local slots are earned rather than bought, and what genuinely moves them is set out in what actually moves the three map slots. Local Services Ads sit above them, charge per lead, and are ranked on responsiveness and complaint history instead of bids, which is the whole subject of the Local Services Ads playbook. Both are run inside local and Maps work.
The failure mode that costs firms the most is not ranking, it is a signed matter that traces back to nothing, and the nine places attribution breaks are walked through in why leads arrive with no source. What we commit to putting in front of you instead is described on how we report and how you verify it, and the terms you would start under are in the trial and money-back terms.
What we report
The metrics that actually matter
Live in your portal, not a monthly PDF. These are the numbers we commit to reporting for legal, whether they moved in the right direction or not.
- Cost per booked consultation, by practice area, not cost per click
- Cost per signed matter where your intake system exposes the outcome
- Consultation show rate, which separates a lead problem from an intake problem
- Call answer rate and time to answer during and outside business hours
- Share of calls judged qualified by your intake team, reviewed on recordings
- Map pack position for your priority practice area and city combinations
- Local Services Ads lead volume, dispute rate, and cost per unrejected lead
- Organic visibility and non branded traffic to practice area pages
Where it goes wrong
Three ways this gets broken
01
Broad match on four figure case types
Broad match plus automated bidding on personal injury or criminal defense terms will find you people searching for free legal aid, job listings, and their own past case. The account looks busy and the intake calendar stays empty.
02
One generic page for every practice area
A single contact page for injury, family, and estate work makes every ad worse and every organic ranking weaker. The visitor has to translate the page into their situation, and most of them will not bother.
03
Nobody answers, and nobody measures it
Missed calls during lunch, after five, and on weekends are invisible without call tracking. Firms often discover they were paying for calls that rang out for months, which no bid adjustment can fix.
Compliance and practical notes
What we work around in legal
Bar advertising rules vary by state
State bar advertising rules differ, and some states impose specific requirements on disclaimers, prior results language, specialization claims, and record keeping. Your firm remains responsible for compliance. We draft ads and pages to the rules you tell us apply, and nothing goes live without your written approval.
Call recording consent
Recording consent law differs by state, and some states require all parties to consent. If we set up call recording, we configure the announcement your firm approves and you decide which lines are recorded.
Text messaging consent
If your intake process sends text messages, prior express consent, clear identification, and a working opt out are required under the rules that govern marketing texts. We build the consent language into the forms rather than bolting it on later.
Google screening for legal categories
Local Services Ads in legal categories require license and background verification before the Google Screened badge appears. That process takes time, so we start it in week one rather than after the campaign is built.
General information, not legal advice. Rules change and vary by state. Your business stays responsible for the legality of its own offers, claims, and disclosures, and nothing goes live without your approval.
FAQ
Legal questions
Can you guarantee signed cases?
No, and no honest agency can. Our guarantee is a delivery guarantee: within 30 days you get the written plan, verified tracking, campaigns live, and reported baselines. If we do not deliver what the plan says, the month is refunded. We do not promise case volume, cost per case, or ranking positions.
Who is responsible for bar advertising compliance?
Your firm is. Advertising rules vary by state and only your firm can confirm what applies to you. We write ads and landing pages against the rules you give us, flag anything that looks like a claim needing a disclaimer, and publish nothing without your approval.
Is Local Services Ads worth it for legal?
Often yes, because the unit sits at the top of the page and is priced per lead rather than per click, but it depends on your practice areas and market. It also requires license verification and active dispute management for leads outside your area or practice. We run it alongside search rather than as a replacement.
How do you tell a good lead from a bad one?
By listening. Call tracking records and transcribes calls, we tag them by practice area and quality with your intake team, and we push those outcomes back into the ad platforms so bidding optimizes toward the calls you actually want rather than raw call count.
We already rank organically. Do we still need ads?
Ads and organic answer different problems. Paid search buys presence on the queries you are not winning yet and is the only channel that moves in days. Organic and local compound and keep working when spend pauses. Most firms we work with need both, weighted by how contested their market is.
Close to this
Other playbooks worth reading
Professional services
Accountants, advisors, agencies, consultants, and MSPs. Expertise content, AI citations, local trust signals, and tracking to signed engagements.
Healthcare
Practices, clinics, and multi location groups. Local visibility, provider level pages, and tracking built to keep PHI out of ad platforms.
Home services
Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, pest, and cleaning. Built around Local Services Ads, map pack ranking, and answering fast.
Or see every industry we work with.
Get the plan for your market
Thirty minutes, a senior operator, and a written plan you keep either way. Month to month, and you own every account we touch.