Can I hire a law firm marketing agency without signing a long-term contract? Yes — month-to-month arrangements exist, and the twelve-month standard is about recovering the agency's sales cost, not about how long the work takes.
Agencies will tell you SEO needs twelve months. SEO does need time. A twelve-month lock does not create that time; it just removes your option to leave.
- Published pricing — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, on the site.
- Month to month. No contract is holding you anywhere.
- A former attorney of 17 years who filed 5,000+ cases works your account.
- You see your rankings move for 14 days before you are billed a dollar.
- Law firms only — no other industries, ever.
| Attorney Pro Marketing | Scorpion | FindLaw | Typical legal agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing published on the website | Yes — $2,500 / $3,500 / $4,500 per month | Not published | Not published | Rarely published |
| Contract term | Month to month, 30 days’ notice | Not published | Not published | Commonly 12 months |
| Who works on your account | A former attorney of 17 years, in every account | Assigned account team | Assigned account team | Account manager, often across industries |
| Your website is built on | Standard, portable code | Proprietary platform | FirmSite platform | Varies — ask before signing |
| See results before you are billed | Yes — 14 days, then you decide | No | No | No |
| Ad spend billed by Google directly to you | Yes, no markup | Ask | Ask | Often passes through the agency |
“Not published” means the figure does not appear on that company’s own website as of October 2026 — check for yourself before you sign anything, with them or with us.
Why Twelve Months Became the Default
It is worth understanding the economics, because once you do, the term stops looking like a technical requirement and starts looking like what it is.
Acquiring a law firm client is expensive for an agency. There is advertising, a salesperson's time across several calls, a proposal, sometimes a commission. That cost has to be recovered out of the monthly fee, and a twelve-month term guarantees the recovery. A client who leaves in month three leaves the agency underwater.
That is a legitimate business problem. It is simply the agency's problem, and the twelve-month term transfers it to you.
The Honest Argument in Its Favour
There is one, and it deserves stating plainly rather than dismissed.
Organic search genuinely takes months. New pages need to be indexed and gather signals; local rankings move gradually; content compounds rather than switching on. An agency that invests heavily in months one through three and loses the client in month four has done real work with no return, and the client who leaves at month four usually leaves just before the results would have arrived.
But notice what that argument actually supports. It supports a notice period, so neither side can disappear overnight. It does not support a twelve-month lock, because a lock does not make the work faster — it only removes your ability to leave an engagement that is not working. Those are different protections, and the industry routinely conflates them.
What to Ask Instead of Accepting the Term
- “Will you do this month to month with 30 days' notice?” Ask directly. A surprising number of agencies will, particularly if the alternative is losing the engagement.
- “What happens at month thirteen?” Automatic renewal for another twelve months is common, and the notice window to escape it is often 60 or 90 days before the anniversary — a deadline most firms miss.
- “What is the cost of leaving early?” Get the figure. Some agreements require the remaining balance in full, which is not a term so much as a prepayment.
- “What do I keep?” A short term is worth little if the website, the content and the Google Ads account stay with the agency. Ask about each asset separately.
- “What happens in the first 30 days?” If an agency is confident in its first month, a short term costs it nothing. Reluctance here is informative.
Three Clauses That Quietly Undo a Short Term
- Automatic renewal with a long notice window. A month-to-month arrangement that renews annually unless cancelled 90 days out is an annual contract with extra steps.
- Agency ownership of the ad account. You can leave freely and still lose every piece of conversion history the campaigns have accumulated, which sets the next agency back months.
- Platform-hosted websites. If the site is built on the agency's proprietary system, the short term is real and the website is not portable. You leave with the domain and nothing on it.
Attorney Pro Marketing is month to month, with 30 days' notice and no termination fee. Your domain, website files, content, Google Ads account and Google Business Profile are all in your firm's name, so the short term is not undone by what happens to the assets. And the first 14 days are shown to you before you are billed anything — we record your rankings on day 0 and report the movement on day 14.
If you want the reasoning behind that structure, our page on legal marketing without long-term contracts sets it out.
See it before you pay for it.
We snapshot your rankings on day 0, build and launch your site within three days, and show you the movement on day 14. If it has not moved enough to be worth continuing, you owe nothing for that period and you keep the Google Business Profile work.
Related Questions
No. Month-to-month arrangements exist, and many agencies that advertise a twelve-month term will shorten it if asked, particularly if the alternative is losing the engagement. The default exists largely to recover the agency's cost of acquiring you, not because the work requires that long to begin producing.
Because organic search genuinely compounds over months rather than switching on. That argument supports a notice period so neither side can disappear overnight. It does not support a lock-in, since a twelve-month term does not make the work faster — it only removes your ability to leave an engagement that is not working.
Whether they will work month to month with 30 days' notice; what happens at month thirteen, since automatic annual renewal with a 60 or 90-day notice window is common; the exact cost of leaving early; what you keep, asked asset by asset; and what will happen in the first 30 days.
Yes, through three clauses. Automatic annual renewal with a long notice window turns month-to-month into an annual contract. Agency ownership of the Google Ads account costs you the conversion history on departure. And a website on the agency's proprietary platform is not portable, so you leave with the domain and nothing on it.