What are the warning signs of a bad legal marketing agency? Three tiers — signs visible before signing, signs in the first 90 days, and signs that only surface when you try to leave. The last tier is the expensive one, and it is decided by the first.
Almost every expensive discovery firms make at month eighteen was visible in the agreement at month zero.
- 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.
Tier One: Visible Before You Sign
All of these are free to check and most are checkable in a browser before anyone calls you back.
- No published pricing. Not disqualifying on its own, since most agencies withhold it. It does mean you cannot compare anything until you have sat through a sales process.
- A twelve-month term with automatic renewal. Particularly with a 60 or 90-day notice window, which is a deadline most firms miss.
- Guarantees of rankings or clients. Nobody controls Google's results or your intake, and most state bars restrict outcome-related claims in legal advertising — where the exposure becomes yours, not theirs.
- A proprietary website platform. Means the site is not portable, and that is a property of the platform rather than of the relationship.
- No named individual. “A dedicated team” with no name attached means you cannot ask the question that matters: who, and are they still here next year.
- Pressure and expiring offers. A discount that lapses at the end of the month is a sales technique, not a price.
Tier Two: The First 90 Days
No baseline was recorded. The most consequential early sign. Without a dated starting line, nothing afterwards can be assessed in either direction, and you will spend the engagement arguing from impressions.
Reports describe observation rather than work. “We monitored performance and optimised visibility” is not a deliverable. Ask for pages created or edited with URLs and dates, and ad account change history. An agency that cannot produce that list in a day has not been producing much.
No call tracking. Without per-channel numbers, nobody can say which channel produced anything, which means the entire engagement will be judged on feel.
Account access withheld. Ask once, in writing, for admin access to the Google Ads account, Google Business Profile and analytics, each by name. A straightforward yes resolves it; anything else is the finding.
Content that reads like it was written for anyone. If your practice-area pages could have your city swapped out and be used by a firm two states away, they probably will be.
The person who sold you has disappeared. Normal at agency scale, and worth knowing early, because it tells you which company you actually hired.
Tier Three: Only Visible on the Way Out
These are the expensive tier, and the reason tier one matters so much: by the time you see them, your leverage is gone.
- The site goes dark. Built on the agency's platform, it stops working when billing stops. You keep a domain pointing at nothing, and your rankings go with the pages.
- Content was licensed, not assigned. The pages you paid to have written come down when you leave.
- The ad account stays behind. You lose years of conversion history, and the next agency starts from zero.
- The Google Business Profile is owned by their Google account. Recovery is a process measured in weeks.
- Exit fees. Migration, export, or data charges that appear exactly when you have least leverage.
Four Things That Are Not Warning Signs
Being precise here protects you from leaving a competent agency for the wrong reason.
Slow organic results. Three to six months is normal, and longer on competitive terms or a new domain. Judging organic work at 30 days will cost you something that was working.
A small agency. Small means fewer clients per person, which frequently means more attention. Size is not a quality measure in either direction.
Declining to guarantee outcomes. This is the correct answer. An agency that will not guarantee rankings is telling you it understands the system it works in.
Saying no to a request. An agency that tells you a channel is wrong for your practice area, or that more marketing is not your problem, is being useful rather than difficult.
Against tier one, Attorney Pro Marketing's position is checkable before you contact anyone: pricing published at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month; month to month, 30 days' notice, no cancellation fee, no setup fee; no guarantees of rankings or clients, deliberately; standard portable code rather than a proprietary platform; and a named individual — Alon Darvish, a former attorney of 17 years who filed over 5,000 cases — doing the work.
Against tier two: rankings recorded on day 0, the movement reported on day 14 before you are billed for that period, up to 30 keywords of your choosing tracked on every tier, and call tracking with recordings from the Growth tier. Against tier three: your domain, site files, content, ad account and Google Business Profile in your firm's name from the first day, so there is nothing to recover later.
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
Before signing: no published pricing, a twelve-month term with automatic renewal and a long notice window, guarantees of rankings or clients, a proprietary website platform, no named individual doing the work, and expiring discount pressure. These are all checkable before anyone calls you back.
No dated baseline recorded; reports that describe monitoring rather than listing work done; no call tracking, so no channel can be credited; account access withheld when you ask in writing for admin rights by name; templated content that could be reused by a firm two states away; and the salesperson disappearing after signing.
Five: a site built on their platform that goes dark when billing stops, content licensed rather than assigned so the pages come down, an ad account that stays behind with years of conversion history, a Google Business Profile owned by their Google account, and exit fees for migration or data export.
Slow organic results, since three to six months is normal and longer on competitive terms. Being a small agency, which often means more attention per client. Declining to guarantee outcomes, which is the correct answer. And saying no to a request — an agency telling you a channel is wrong for your practice area is being useful.