Should I switch agencies if my law firm's leads have declined? Diagnose before deciding. A decline can come from broken tracking, seasonality, a competitor entering, a budget or algorithm change, or genuine neglect — and only the last one is a reason to switch.
Check whether your tracking is still working before you check anything else. A broken tracking number produces a perfect-looking collapse.
- 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.
Check the Tracking First
This comes first because it is the cause most often missed and the easiest to confirm, and because it produces the most convincing false alarm available.
A tracking number that has stopped forwarding, a call-tracking subscription that lapsed, a conversion tag removed during a site change, an analytics property that stopped recording — any of these produces a chart that looks exactly like a collapse. Meanwhile the phone may be ringing normally and nothing is being counted.
Three tests, ten minutes:
- Place a test call to each tracked number and confirm it rings your line and appears in the call log within the hour.
- Submit a test form and confirm it arrives by email and registers as a conversion.
- Check analytics has data for yesterday. A property that stopped recording is not a lead decline.
Also ask whoever answers the phone whether call volume feels lower. It is unscientific and it is the fastest cross-check available, because the people answering notice before any report does.
Five Causes of an Identical Decline
- 1. Tracking broke. Nothing changed except the counting. Ten minutes to rule out.
- 2. Seasonality. Legal demand is seasonal by practice area — family law moves around the new year, bankruptcy follows economic cycles and tax season, personal injury tracks driving patterns and holidays. Compare the same month last year rather than last month.
- 3. A competitor entered. One well-funded firm entering your auction raises click prices and takes share immediately. Search your terms and look for firms you do not recognise, in ads and in the Map Pack.
- 4. A budget or algorithm change. Did ad spend drop, perhaps because a card declined? Did Google update something, which would show as a dated step change rather than a drift? Both are checkable.
- 5. The agency stopped working. No new pages, no profile activity, no account changes. This is the one that justifies switching, and it is verifiable in ten minutes.
A Diagnostic Order
- Tracking. Test call, test form, analytics check. Ten minutes.
- Year-over-year comparison. This month against the same month last year. Month-over-month comparisons in a seasonal practice are close to meaningless.
- Rankings and Map Pack. Search your main terms in a private window. If position is unchanged and leads fell, the cause is downstream — the page, the phone, or the counting. If position fell, the cause is upstream.
- Competitors. Note who is now above you that was not. New names in ads or the Map Pack explain a great deal.
- Ad spend and account activity. Did the budget actually run? Read the change history for the period.
- Agency output. Pages created or edited with dates, profile posts, account changes. The direct test.
- Your own side. Answered-call rate and response time for the declining months versus the earlier ones. Staff changes and trial schedules move this number without anyone noticing.
When It Is Actually the Agency
Three findings justify switching, and they are all specific rather than impressionistic.
No output across the declining period. No pages, no profile activity, no account changes. The work stopped and the invoices did not.
Rankings fell and nobody noticed or explained it. A decline in position is the agency's core responsibility. Not catching it is the failure; catching it and explaining it is the job.
No diagnosis offered. You raised the decline and received reassurance rather than one of the five causes above with evidence. An agency that cannot diagnose a decline cannot fix one.
If you do move, note what prevents the frightening version of this: the structure that lets you check it yourself. Attorney Pro Marketing puts your Google Ads account, Google Business Profile, Analytics and Search Console in your firm's name, so change history, profile activity and data are permanently yours to read. Call tracking with recordings and lead attribution from the Growth tier means a broken number is visible rather than inferred, and monthly Map Pack heatmap and ranking reporting against up to 30 keywords of your choosing runs on every tier, from a day 0 baseline.
Published pricing at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, month to month with 30 days' notice — so a decline is something you can act on in thirty days rather than raise at a renewal.
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
Five causes look identical: tracking that has broken so calls are not being counted, seasonality in your practice area, a well-funded competitor entering your auction, a budget or algorithm change, or the agency having stopped working. Check tracking first — it takes ten minutes and produces the most convincing false alarm.
Place a test call to each tracked number and confirm it rings your line and appears in the log within the hour, submit a test form and confirm it arrives and registers as a conversion, and check analytics has data for yesterday. Also ask whoever answers the phone whether volume feels lower.
Year-over-year. Legal demand is seasonal by practice area — family law moves around the new year, bankruptcy follows economic cycles and tax season, personal injury tracks driving patterns and holidays — so month-over-month comparisons in a seasonal practice are close to meaningless.
Three findings justify switching: no output across the declining period, meaning no new pages, profile activity or account changes while invoices continued; rankings fell and nobody noticed or explained it, which is the agency's core responsibility; and no diagnosis offered when you raised it, only reassurance.