How do I know which law firm marketing company is better? Score both on seven weighted criteria before either of them talks to you — because the meeting is run by whoever is best at meetings, which is why it predicts so little.
The agency you liked best is usually the one with the best communicator. That is a real skill and it is not the one you are buying.
- 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 Your Impression of the Meeting Misleads You
The sales meeting is the single part of the process the agency fully controls. It is conducted by whoever at the company is best at conducting meetings, in a setting they designed, answering questions they have heard a hundred times.
Presentation skill is real and it correlates weakly with campaign management skill. The person who will actually run your account is frequently not in the room, and the qualities that make someone good at paid search — patience with detail, willingness to kill a losing campaign — are not the qualities that make someone good in a pitch.
The defence is a written rubric, scored before the meeting and revisited afterwards. It converts a feeling into a comparison.
The Seven-Point Rubric
- 1. Who does the work. 3 = a named senior person with legal experience and a disclosed account load. 0 = unspecified.
- 2. Total cost, split. 3 = fee and media separate, media billed by Google direct. 0 = one bundled number.
- 3. Contract and exit. 3 = month to month. 0 = twelve months with a termination fee.
- 4. What you keep. 3 = domain, content, ad account and profile all in your name, in writing. 0 = unclear or proprietary platform.
- 5. Baseline and measurement. 3 = baseline recorded before work, reporting ends in cases. 0 = no baseline.
- 6. Legal specialisation. 3 = law firms only, can name a bar rule that changed their copy. 0 = multi-industry, generic answers.
- 7. Stated failure condition. 3 = a specific result by a specific date. 0 = no answer.
Twenty-one points available. Five of the seven can be scored from the agency's website and proposal, before anyone speaks to you.
How to Weight It for Your Firm
The rubric is not uniform in importance, and the weighting depends on your situation.
If you have been burned before, weight items 3, 4 and 7 double. Those are the clauses that determine the cost of being wrong again.
If you are an established firm with rankings to protect, weight 5 double. A baseline and a redirect plan are what stand between you and a quarter of lost traffic.
If you are a solo or small firm, weight 1 double. At small-firm budgets, who actually works the account is the whole product.
If you are in a regulated-heavy state or an aggressive practice area, weight 6 double. The firm carries the compliance risk, not the agency.
After the Meeting
Re-score the rubric and look specifically for movement. If an agency scored 11 on paper and 19 after the meeting, ask what new facts you learned versus what you simply enjoyed. Sometimes the meeting genuinely reveals things — a named person with real legal depth, a willingness to state a failure condition. Sometimes the score moved because the conversation was pleasant.
Then ask the one question that is hardest to answer well: “What would make you tell me, in month three, that this is not working?” An agency that has an answer is thinking about your outcome. An agency that reaches for reassurance is thinking about the signature.
For what it is worth, five of the seven items are answerable about us without contacting anyone: published pricing at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, month to month with 30 days' notice, your domain and accounts in your firm's name, law firms only, and a day 0 baseline with a day 14 report before you are billed anything.
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 seven criteria: who does the work, total cost with fee and media split, contract term and exit, what you keep on departure, baseline and measurement, legal specialisation, and a stated failure condition. Score each 0 to 3. Five of the seven can be answered from the agency's own website before any meeting.
Because the meeting is the one part of the process the agency fully controls, conducted by whoever is best at conducting meetings, and presentation skill correlates weakly with campaign management skill. The person who will run your account is frequently not in the room.
If you have been burned before, double-weight contract terms, what you keep, and the failure condition. If you are established with rankings to protect, double-weight baseline and measurement. If you are a solo, double-weight who actually does the work. In a compliance-heavy state, double-weight legal specialisation.
“What would make you tell me, in month three, that this is not working?” An agency with an answer is thinking about your outcome; one that reaches for reassurance is thinking about the signature. It is also the question most likely to be absent from any written proposal.