How to Hire Marketing Help for Your Law Firm

I’ve been working in corporate marketing for nearly a decade. Before that, I was doing marketing in the music industry for six years. In that time, I’ve done marketing for just about every kind of business and industry you can think of. I’ve ghostwritten thought leadership articles about WiFi infrastructure that were published by Forbes the same week I was building the brand strategy for a women’s jewelry line. I’ve built websites, launched newsletters, directed commercials, and run paid ads for consumer products, software, live events, professional services, and more. I’ve done this as an in-house employee, as a freelance contractor, and for agencies. 

Not surprisingly, I often hear from friends and family looking for marketing help with their business. This often takes the form of consulting where they ask me for DIY pointers or to look over a pitch deck sent by a marketing agency to give my two-cents on whether the agency is worth hiring. With my brother being an estate planning attorney, I’ve done this specifically in the legal space.

Here’s what I tell friends and family, just the way I tell it to them. 

For starters, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, marketing largely migrated online over the past few decades and the digital space is always evolving. But the core principles really are the same. If you have something valuable to sell, you need to show up where people are likely to look for that thing, and you need to show up in a way that leads them to pick your thing over the competitor’s thing. All the acronyms and “best practices” are just shorthand for how to accomplish that within the present mix of marketing channels available. If the marketer knows the principles, not just the best practices, they can adapt to whatever new changes are coming pretty easily. And so can you.

Before You Hire Anyone, Decide What You’re Actually Buying

What kills most marketing relationships is actually pretty simple: the attorney and the agency have different definitions of success.

Marketing is not one thing. It’s not “more visibility,” “a better website,” or “paid ads.” It’s best to approach this in terms of a specific outcome: more qualified phone calls, a higher Google ranking for estate planning in your zip code, a website that converts browsers into intake forms, a Google Business Profile and review system that generates 10 new reviews a month?

Before you talk to a single vendor, write down the specific business outcome you’re trying to move: leads, calls, intake appointments, signed cases. Then work backward from there to figure your cost per acquisition. If you close 1 out of every 5 qualified consultations at an average of $4,000, then a qualified lead is worth $800 to you. That’s the most you can afford to pay per new client. So if an agency is charging you $8,000 a month, they need to deliver 10 qualified leads, or 2 signed cases, every month just to break even for you. If you know that math before you walk in, then you have a real reference point for whatever they plan to charge you.

Another tip: use the “what don’t you do?” filter to prevent you from being upsold. An agency that specializes in personal injury might also offer to build your practice management system or handle your recruiting. That’s not diversification, that’s an upsell. You want someone who says: “We do digital marketing for estate planning attorneys. We don’t do other things.”

Things Solo Firms Should Usually Do In-House First

If you’re a solo or small firm, there are a lot of things you can and should do yourself. Hire a marketing partner after you’ve laid the foundation. It takes a little time, which for attorneys is especially valuable, but because it’s foundational it will compound over time. It’s worth it, in other words.

Claim, verify, and complete your Google Business Profile. This might take up to two hours. It’s not optional though, and it’s not something to delegate to your first hire. You need to own this from day one. Agencies will often volunteer to “manage” this, but if the account isn’t in your name, you lose it when the relationship ends. Google has a Google Business Profile help center with helpful explanations but I’d recommend using Claude or ChatGPT to speed this up. Try this prompt:

Act as an expert on Google Business Profile, specifically one who has helped attorneys set up their profiles and gain visibility in local search results. Review Google’s own documentation (https://support.google.com/business#topic=4596754) to ensure you’re up to date, then walk me through claiming my profile, verifying it, and completing the profile so that it’s optimized. Let’s take this step by step.

If you ever get lost, just take a screenshot and feed it to your AI chatbot and tell it you’re lost.

Set up Google Search Console and Analytics in your own name. This will probably take about as much time as setting up your Google Business Profile. The good news is that these tools are free. You should own them from day one. A marketing partner can augment these, but they should not be the only person with access. If you don’t know what they are, try this AI prompt:

Act as an SEO/AIO/GEO expert with deep knowledge of Google Search Console, specifically one who has helped attorneys set up their accounts and gain visibility in local search results. First, give me a succinct summary of what these tools are and why they should matter to a solo attorney. Once I’ve confirmed I understand the basics, walk me through setting up Google Search Console and a simple analytics dashboard in Google Data Studio. Let’s take this step by step.

Not a big fan of AI? Spend 30 minutes reading the Google Search Central SEO Starter Guide. 

Write the first version of your own About page and Practice Areas pages. Don’t worry about making this a polished, “final” version. Just getting something raw down on the page that captures your voice: how you talk about estate planning, what you actually do, what problems you solve. An agency (or AI tool) can help you refine it later. But if someone/something else writes it from scratch, you’ll likely spend more time editing their generic copy back into something that sounds like you.

Ask your first 10–20 clients for a Google review. Make sure to specifically ask for Google reviews, because those show up in the local search results people see when they search “estate planning attorney near me.” This takes a week and costs nothing. An agency can build a system to automate this later (or AI tools if you’re up for automating workflows that way), but your first reviews should come from the relationships you already have.

Here’s a sample:

Subject: A quick favor, if you’re willing

Hi [First Name],

I hope you and your family are doing well.

I’m working on building my online presence so other families in [City] can find the help they need with estate planning. If you had a good experience working with me, I’d be grateful if you’d leave a quick Google review. Even just a sentence or two makes a real difference.

[Leave a Google Review → direct link]

No obligation at all, and thank you either way for trusting me with something this important.

Warm regards, [Attorney name]

A few tips on asking for reviews:

• Get the direct link right. Go to your Google Business Profile, click “Ask for reviews,” and copy the short link Google generates. It takes your client directly to the review box .
• Send it individually, not as a mass email. A personal send from your actual email address converts far better than a blast.
• Timing matters. Ideally, send within a week or two of completing their plan. If you’re playing catch-up, better to send late than not at all.
• Don’t ask more than once. One email. Attorneys who over-ask for reviews tend to get lower-quality ones.

If you hire an agency before you’ve done these things, you’re paying them to guess at your voice, your process, and your market. That’s expensive and usually shows.

The Eight Questions to Ask Every Marketing Vendor

When you’re ready to talk to an agency, freelancer, or in-house hire, ask these eight questions. Write the answers down. Ask for them in writing afterward.

1. Who specifically will do the work, and what’s their experience with estate planning attorneys?

This is where you catch the bait-and-switch: the agency principal gives the pitch, and a junior person who’s never heard of a trust does the work. Ask for a specific person’s name, their estate planning background, and ideally, a case study they personally delivered. If the agency can’t name a specific person or hedges on their experience, that’s a flag.

2. Which assets will I own at the end of our engagement?

The answer needs to be: domain, hosting, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Business Profile, ad accounts, ad creative, blog content — all of it. If an agency keeps your domain in their name, your ad account in their name, or your GSC access locked to their email, you don’t own your marketing. You’re renting it, and when the relationship ends (and it will, eventually) recovery is painful or impossible. Best to get this in writing.

3. What’s the contract length, and what’s the cancellation process?

If you’re going to hire help, give them at least a few months (more on the red flag of “immediate results” below). So a 90-day initial engagement is healthy, then month-to-month renewal with 30 days notice. Avoid annual contracts with auto-renewal, especially if the renewal date is buried in the terms. Annual lock-ins exist to protect the agency from market risk, not to protect you. If they’re confident in their work, they won’t need to lock you in.

4. How do you measure success, and how often will you show me?

The words you want to hear in response to this question are: leads, calls, intake completions, signed cases, cost per acquisition. Metrics like impressions, rankings, followers, and website traffic are worth tracking because they can indicate something about the results you’re getting, but they’re not results themselves. A good partner will show you monthly reporting tied to your actual business outcomes.

5. What’s your familiarity with bar rules in my state and ethical advertising standards?

If the agency goes quiet or offers generic assurances, I’d suggest going elsewhere. Legal practices have rules that other businesses don’t. If you’re an attorney, you know this better than I do. You might even ask them specifically: “Can you walk me through Rule 7.3 in my state and how it affects our ads?” Don’t expect them to respond with the legal acumen you have, but their response will let you know whether or not they’re qualified to work with a law firm.

6. Will leads be exclusive to my firm, or shared with competitors?

Some lead-generation agencies sell the same lead to multiple attorneys in the same market. That’s sometimes disclosed and sometimes not. So ask directly if you’re paying for leads, are they exclusive to your firm, or are they sold to the attorney down the street too? Non-exclusive doesn’t always mean you shouldn’t do it (they are usually much cheaper). But it usually means lower quality and no competitive advantage, so don’t pay a premium for a service like this.

7. Walk me through a client where the engagement didn’t work, what happened and why?

Everyone has failed engagements and the honest ones will tell you. “We tried local PPC, but the cost per lead was higher than we expected, so we pivoted to organic” is a real answer. “We’ve never had that” is a red flag. If the agency claims perfection, they’re not being straight with you.

8. What won’t you do?

The line between marketing and other aspects of a successful business (like sales, PR, ops) can get blurry, and the lines between sub-categories of marketing can get even blurrier (digital, brand, social media, outdoor, PPC, organic, etc.). If someone claims they do it all, that means they’re willing to get paid to try it all. It does not mean they’re good at all of it. Good marketers know their specialties and are honest about them. More on this below.

Red Flags in Pricing and Contracts

Long lock-ins with auto-renewal. Annual contracts with automatic renewal are the easiest red flag to spot. As a marketer, if I’m not delivering results then I don’t feel like I deserve to be paid. And if I am delivering results then month after month renewal is a no-brainer.

Asset ownership clauses that revert to the agency. If the domain is in their name, the ad account is in their name, or the hosting is under their email, you do not own your marketing. When you try to leave, recovery is painful or sometimes impossible. Everything should be in your name from day one, in writing.

“Proprietary” dashboards or reporting platforms. Some agencies use custom dashboards that look cool but lock you in. When you leave, you take nothing with you. Insist on standard reports pulled from your own Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts. Google Data Studio is free and offers dashboard views on par with the fancy/expensive tools out there, if you get it set up correctly.

Vague scope language. “40 hours of marketing services” without specifics. Does that mean 40 hours of strategy? Execution? Meetings? Insist on a detailed scope: X blog posts per month, Y hours of Google Ads management, Z hours of Google Business Profile optimization. In the same way, make sure you know where your dollars are going. If paid ads are part of the scope, how much of your monthly retainer is going directly toward ad spend vs. managing those ads? Vague language is how agencies stay busy without being accountable.

Inflated infrastructure charges. Watch out for things like $500/month for “website hosting” or “platform fees” stacked on top of the retainer. That’s often unnecessary or inflated. If they’re building a simple website, hosting should cost $15–$50 per month. If they’re charging more, ask why, and get the response in writing.

Performance guarantees (especially immediate). “#1 ranking in 90 days” or “30 leads guaranteed.” Goals are fine, benchmarks exist, and estimates are not always way off the mark. But nobody can guarantee you a specific number of leads or a #1 search ranking. If they do, they either don’t know enough to realize that or they’re comfortable lying. Algorithms are a factor in every digital marketing channel out there today and the agency doesn’t control them. Also be wary of a strategy that over-emphasizes paid ads up front. Paid ads get results quicker than organic content but I’ve seen agencies over-index on paid ads during the initial 3-month window so they can deliver some quick wins and this often damages the brand in a way that makes organic results tough to achieve in months 3-9.

Red Flags in How They Talk About Their Work

Vanity-metric reporting. The agency sends you a report celebrating 50,000 impressions and a 2.3% click-through rate. That’s theatrical. How many of those clicks actually filled out an intake form? How many became clients? Impressions and rankings are a means to an end. The end is new clients.

Inability to speak knowledgeably about bar rules. If you ask, “Can you walk me through Rule 7.3 and how it affects our ads?” and the agency fumbles, they’re not qualified.

Generic case studies. If an agency tells you they grew a law firm’s website traffic by 180% but the case study is for a personal injury firm, not an estate planning firm, you’re looking at apples and oranges. The marketing motions are wildly different. Estate planning is relationship-driven and plan-dependent. Personal injury is volume-driven and referral-based. The most concerning tell here is if the agency doesn’t realize there’s a difference.

Cold-spam outreach as their own primary marketing channel. If the agency that’s supposed to help you get clients is itself using email blasts and aggressive cold outreach, that tells you something about their actual results. Agencies that are good at marketing attract inbound. Agencies that are not, cold-call.

Aggressive timeline pressure. “The rate I’m quoting is only good through Friday” or “if you don’t sign by end of month, the package changes.” This is a sales tactic. Real partners can afford to be patient.

“Every law firm needs…” If an agency opens with “every law firm needs SEO” or “every law firm needs a rebrand,” they’re not thinking about your practice, they’re thinking about their offering. You don’t need everything. You need the specific things that move your specific outcomes.

The Single Best Diagnostic: “What Won’t You Do?”

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times because I think it’s a really good litmus test. It separates people who know their craft from people in sales mode.

A craftsperson has limits. They have minimum retainer sizes below which the economics don’t work for anyone. They have service offerings they’ve decided not to touch because they’re not good at them. They have practice areas they work with and ones they don’t. Specificity is the marker of expertise.

When someone can’t name what they won’t do — when they affirm everything, promise everything, position themselves as the agency that does it all — they’re not a specialist. They’re probably not even a generalist. They’re just salespeople.

Listen for answers like these from a good agency:

• “We won’t take retainers under $4,000 a month. Below that, there’s not enough budget to do anything that actually moves the needle.”
• “We won’t work with firms that haven’t claimed their Google Business Profile. We can’t build on a foundation that doesn’t exist.”
• “We don’t run paid ads until there’s solid organic in place. We’ve seen too many attorneys burn through ad budgets on websites that don’t convert.”
• “We work with estate planning and elder law practices. We don’t do personal injury, immigration, or criminal defense.”

That’s what expertise sounds like. The person who says “no” to the wrong client is more trustworthy than the person who says “yes” to everyone.

When the Right Answer Is “Don’t Hire Anyone Yet”

Sometimes the best marketing decision is to wait.

If you’re a solo attorney and you’ve never owned your Google Business Profile, never written an About page that sounds like you, and never asked a single client for a review, you don’t need an agency yet. You need about 10 hours and zero dollars. Hire someone after you’ve done the foundational work and you’ve still got capacity to invest.

If you hire an agency before you’ve established your own voice and basic online presence, the agency is guessing at your positioning, market, and at what makes your practice different from the other three estate planning attorneys in your zip code. They might get close, but you’ll spend weeks editing their version of you back into something that actually sounds like you.

High-leverage work you can do this month, no agency required:

• Claim and fully fill out your Google Business Profile
• Write a rough About page draft in your own voice
• Write a Practice Areas page that describes what you actually do
• Ask 10–20 existing clients for Google reviews
• Set up Google Search Console in your own name

That’s several hours of work. Ninety percent of it is thinking, not execution. When you’ve done it, you’ll know exactly what you need help with, and you’ll walk into an agency conversation as the most prepared person in the room. Being the most prepared person in a discovery call is most of the battle.

The attorneys who hire marketing help successfully are the ones who prepare before the conversation. They know their numbers. They know their limits. They’ve done the foundational work only they could do. And they know which questions separate a partner from a vendor.

When you’ve built that foundation, a good marketing partner can compound it. They can build on your voice instead of inventing one. They can extend your local presence instead of guessing at it. That’s when a real partnership begins.

Once marketing starts driving people to your door, make sure the door is ready. A prospect who calls after finding you through Google doesn’t want to wait three days for an intake form and a follow-up email. That’s where the practice infrastructure matters — the intake process, the responsiveness, the ability to move from “I’m interested” to “here’s my information” without friction. That’s what automated estate planning intake forms are built for: when marketing opens the door, your practice is ready to walk them through it.Meanwhile, deciding between a paralegal, VA, or AI is a separate track worth thinking through at the same time. Because marketing and operations are both scaling decisions.