Do marketing companies understand the differences between legal practice areas? Many do not — practice areas differ on urgency, research time, device, case value and seasonality, and those five dimensions determine channel, content, budget and even what the first screen should say.
Criminal defence and estate planning are not the same business with different vocabulary. They need opposite programmes.
- 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.
The Five Dimensions
- Urgency. Hours, days, weeks or months between the problem appearing and a lawyer being hired. Determines whether speed of visibility or depth of content wins.
- Research period. How long the buyer spends comparing before contacting anyone. Decides how much content does the selling.
- Device and time of day. A phone at midnight or a desktop on a Tuesday afternoon. Decides layout priorities and ad scheduling.
- Case value. Sets the defensible acquisition cost, and therefore the entire budget.
- Seasonality. Real and specific by area. Governs whether a quiet month is a problem or a pattern.
Urgent Practice Areas
Criminal defence, DUI, domestic violence, emergency family orders, deportation matters.
The decision window is hours to a few days. The search happens on a phone, frequently at night or very early morning, often by a family member rather than the person affected. There is no research period in any meaningful sense — the first firm that answers has an enormous advantage.
What follows programmatically: the Map Pack and paid search carry the channel, because they are visible immediately. Content matters far less than in other areas. The phone number must be tappable and above the fold — non-negotiable. Ad scheduling should cover nights and weekends, which is when the arrests happen. And after-hours answering is the single highest-return investment available, outperforming anything that could be done to the website.
An agency that proposes a twelve-month content programme as the primary channel for a criminal defence practice has misread the first dimension entirely.
Considered Practice Areas
Estate planning, business formation, trusts, employment advice, immigration petitions.
The decision window is weeks to months. The buyer researches, frequently reads several articles, often on a desktop during working hours, and arrives at the call already partly educated. Nobody is in crisis.
What follows: content does the selling, and the depth of it matters because the reader will compare. Organic search is the primary channel, with the Map Pack supporting. Paid search works but converts slowly, because people are gathering information rather than ready to retain. The first screen should answer a question rather than create urgency — manufactured urgency reads as pushy to someone who has three months.
And the acquisition economics are tighter: a $3,000 average fee supports roughly $300 to $750 per signed matter, which is why these practices usually cannot compete on expensive clicks and must win on content and local presence instead.
High-Value Contingency Work
Personal injury, medical malpractice, mass tort, wrongful death.
A different economy altogether. Case values support acquisition costs of thousands per signed matter, which means competitors bid accordingly — single clicks above $50 are normal in contested metros and higher in the most competitive ones.
What follows: media budget dominates the programme, and a fee-only comparison of agencies is close to meaningless here. Local Services Ads and the Map Pack matter disproportionately. Speed to contact is decisive because the same claimant is being contacted by several firms. And expected value rather than headline value must drive the budget — the average across every signed case including the ones that resolve for nothing.
Seasonality is also real and specific: driving patterns, holidays and weather move volume in ways that make month-over-month comparisons misleading.
Testing Whether an Agency Knows
- “Which channel would you lead with for my practice area, and why?” The answer should differ sharply by area. An agency that proposes the same mix regardless has one programme with different keywords.
- “What time of day and day of week do my clients search?” A real answer names the pattern. For criminal defence it is nights and weekends; for business formation it is working hours.
- “What is the seasonality in my area?” Tests whether they will misread a quiet month as a failure.
- “What should my first screen say?” Urgency and a phone number for urgent areas; an answer to a question for considered ones. Getting this backwards is the most common practice-area error.
- “What acquisition cost should I accept?” Should be derived from your average fee, not quoted as an industry figure.
At Attorney Pro Marketing the programme is built per practice area rather than per keyword list, by Alon Darvish — 17 years running a bankruptcy practice, over 5,000 cases filed, who marketed that firm himself to 40–50 new cases a month and learned these dimensions by being on the wrong side of them. Law firms only, which is what keeps the practice-area patterns distinguishable rather than averaged.
At the Dominate tier that extends to a dedicated landing page per practice area, which is where the differences above actually get expressed. Published pricing at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, month to month with 30 days' notice, with rankings recorded on day 0 against up to 30 keywords of your own choosing and the movement reported on day 14 before you are billed for that period.
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
On five dimensions: urgency of the decision, length of the research period, device and time of day, case value, and seasonality. Those determine whether the programme should lean on the Map Pack and paid search or on content, how much media budget is defensible, and what the first screen should say.
Nearly the opposite. Criminal defence decisions happen within hours on a phone, often at night, so the Map Pack, paid search with night and weekend scheduling, and after-hours answering carry the channel. Estate planning buyers research for weeks on a desktop, so content does the selling and manufactured urgency reads as pushy.
Because case values support acquisition costs of thousands per signed matter, so competitors bid accordingly — single clicks above $50 are normal in contested metros. Media budget dominates the programme, which makes a fee-only comparison of agencies close to meaningless in this area.
Five questions: which channel they would lead with and why, what time of day and day of week your clients search, what the seasonality is in your area, what your first screen should say, and what acquisition cost you should accept. An agency proposing the same mix for every area has one programme with different keywords.