Google Ads for Lawyers: What It Really Costs and When It's Worth It

78% of law firms run Google Ads. 82% don't think the ROI is worth it. That gap between spending and returns is exactly what this page is about.

I've spent 15+ years in legal marketing. I've reviewed hundreds of Google Ads accounts for law firms - from solo practitioners spending $1,500 a month to personal injury firms pushing $50,000 a month into paid search. The single most consistent pattern I see is this: firms are paying for clicks without anyone tracking whether those clicks become signed cases. Agencies report on impressions, clicks, and cost per lead. The firm never sees a number that connects ad spend to actual case revenue.

That's the problem with google ads for lawyers in practice. Not that the channel doesn't work. It works very well under specific conditions. The issue is that most law firms run it under the wrong conditions, with the wrong oversight, and without the right metrics to know either way.

This page gives you the real cost data, a decision framework for when PPC makes sense and when it doesn't, and a checklist for evaluating whether your current agency is doing the job you're paying them for.

What Google Ads Actually Costs for Law Firms - The Numbers They Don't Show You

The legal industry average CPC is approximately $8.58 per click. Agencies love to cite this number. It sounds manageable. Here's why it's misleading.

That $8.58 is a blended average that includes every legal keyword in Google's dataset - including "legal definition of consideration," "how to write a will yourself," and "paralegal certification online." For the practice area keywords that actually generate cases, the real numbers are brutal.

Here's what law firm google ads actually cost by practice area:

Criminal defense keywords average 40-60% less than personal injury. Family law is significantly more manageable. If you're a PI firm bidding on "car accident lawyer" in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Miami, you are paying $200+ per click before your landing page conversion rate enters the equation.

Monthly spend reality for law firm google ads:

• $500 - $2,000/month: You'll collect data. You won't generate meaningful case volume.
• $2,000 - $5,000/month: Minimum to generate any real volume of leads.
• $5,000 - $10,000/month: Sustainable case volume if the rest of the campaign is set up correctly.
• $15,000 - $30,000+/month: Scale. This is where PI firms build case pipelines from paid search.
• $500,000 - $2M+/month: Large PI networks and mass tort firms. Yes, this number is real.

The agencies quoting you the blended average CPC are not being dishonest in the technical sense. They're just not being forthcoming about which numbers actually apply to your firm. Now you have the real numbers. Run your own math before you sign anything.

When Google Ads Makes Sense for a Law Firm (And When It Doesn't)

I'll say what no agency selling lawyer PPC will say directly: Google Ads is the wrong choice for many law firms. Here's the framework.

When PPC works for law firms:

Google Ads makes sense when your average case value is high enough to justify the cost per signed case. Personal injury, truck accidents, and medical malpractice meet this threshold in most markets. One signed PI case worth $50,000 more than covers months of Google Ads spend for most firms. Criminal defense works in many markets because the CPCs are manageable. Family law often works in mid-size markets where CPCs haven't hit PI-level territory.

It also works when you have fast intake. 88% of traffic for some PI firms comes from mobile devices. Someone injured searches on their phone, clicks your ad, and calls. If nobody answers that call within 5 minutes, the lead is gone. Most PI firms that run paid search and miss calls are throwing away $150-$300 per unanswered call.

When PPC is the wrong call:

Here's the math that most law firms never run.

At $200 per click with a 5% conversion rate - which is the legal search ads average - your cost per lead is $4,000. At a 25% lead-to-client conversion rate (which is optimistic for many intake processes), you're paying $16,000 per signed case.

Is your average case value north of $16,000 in net revenue to the firm? If yes, run Google Ads. If no, the math doesn't work.

The situations where attorney PPC consistently fails:

• Firms without a system to answer calls within 5 minutes during business hours
• Firms with weak intake conversion (paying for leads they can't close is worse than not buying the leads at all)
• Firms in markets so competitive that even $10,000/month of spend can't achieve sufficient impression share to generate volume
• Firms where 3-year SEO ROI would be approximately 526% - and they're spending the entire budget on paid search that produces zero compounding return

The honest alternative: PPC is an accelerant. It buys visibility while your organic program builds. It fills capacity gaps. It is not a substitute for a content and SEO program that compounds over years. The firms that run Google Ads as their only channel are renting traffic at rates that will only increase.

See Facebook ads for lawyers for how Google Ads fits into a broader paid media plan.

How to Set Up Google Ads for Your Law Firm - The Essentials

If you've decided Google Ads makes sense for your practice area and budget, here's what a properly structured campaign looks like.

1. Choose the right campaign type

Search campaigns are your primary vehicle. Display campaigns are rarely worth it for legal - you're paying to show banner ads to people who may or may not be in a legal situation. Performance Max requires careful monitoring and often sends spend to channels you wouldn't consciously choose.

2. Build keyword strategy around match types

Use exact match for your high-value commercial terms: "car accident lawyer [city]," "DUI attorney [city]." These control spend and deliver the highest-intent traffic. Phrase match captures question-based searches: "how much does a car accident lawyer cost." Avoid broad match until you have enough conversion data to trust Google's automation.

Negative keywords are just as important as the keywords you're bidding on. Build a negative list before you launch: "pro bono," "legal aid," "free attorney," "law school," "paralegal jobs," "law firm software." Without aggressive negative keyword management, attorney PPC accounts burn budget on irrelevant searches within the first week.

3. Write ad copy that leads with outcomes

"We've recovered $X for clients like you" outperforms "Award-Winning Personal Injury Firm" consistently. Lead with the outcome the potential client wants - compensation, a dismissed charge, a fair settlement - not your firm's credentials. Credentials matter, but they belong lower in the copy hierarchy.

4. Build dedicated landing pages

Legal search ads average approximately 5% conversion rate. Well-optimized, dedicated landing pages hit 15-20%+. Sending paid traffic to your homepage drops conversion to 2-5%. A dedicated personal injury landing page with a single call to action, social proof, and a clear form will outperform your homepage by 3-4x. This is not a minor optimization - it's the difference between a campaign that works and one that burns budget.

5. Set up call tracking before you spend a dollar

62% of law firms plan to adopt call-tracking technology. If you're spending real money on lawyer adwords and you can't trace which keywords generated actual calls, you cannot optimize the campaign. You cannot measure ROAS. You're flying blind. CallRail or a similar platform assigns unique numbers to each traffic source. Setup takes a day. There is no excuse for running law firm PPC management without it.

6. Use extensions aggressively

Call extensions, sitelink extensions to specific practice areas, location extensions, and callout extensions all improve your CTR. Google's legal industry average CTR is 6.4%. Extensions move that number up. More clicks per impression means lower effective CPC.

7. Schedule your ads

Legal searches peak Tuesday through Thursday, 9am to 5pm. Personal injury searches spike Friday afternoons - weekend accidents, people dealing with paperwork from a Monday-through-Friday week. Schedule spend toward windows where your intake team is present and response times are fastest. Paying for 2am clicks when nobody answers the phone is waste.

For help overseeing a PPC agency or building proper measurement: a fractional CMO can oversee your PPC agency without running the campaigns directly.

Google Ads vs. Google Local Service Ads - Which One Should Your Firm Use?

Many law firms treat these as the same product. They're not. The distinction matters for budget allocation.

LSA appears above standard Google Ads in the search results. The "Google Screened" badge signals verified legal credentials to potential clients. The average cost per lead for personal injury through LSA is approximately $240 - far lower than what you'd pay per lead through standard PPC in most competitive markets.

LSA works best for local service queries: "personal injury lawyer near me," "DUI attorney in [city]." Firms with strong Google review profiles win more LSA placements - reviews are a direct ranking factor. If your firm has fewer than 20 Google reviews, fix that before investing in LSA.

Standard Google Ads works better for branded campaigns, specific practice area terms without strong local intent, and national or multi-state firms without a strong local geographic presence.

The honest answer: most law firms should run both. LSA captures high-intent local queries at a lower CPL. Standard search ads capture everything else. Manage them separately with separate budgets and separate conversion tracking.

For more on managing paid campaigns as part of a broader strategy: law firm marketing strategy covers the full paid media picture.

7 Red Flags Your PPC Agency Is Wasting Your Money

78% of law firms use paid search. 82% don't think the ROI is worth it. That gap didn't happen because Google Ads doesn't work. It happened because most law firms are paying for lawyer PPC management that isn't actually managing toward the right outcomes.

I've reviewed hundreds of law firm PPC accounts. Here are the seven problems I see repeatedly.

1. They report cost per lead, not cost per signed case.

Cost per lead is a vanity metric for law firms. A personal injury firm with 40 leads a month and a 5% intake conversion rate has 2 signed cases - and those 2 cases need to justify the entire month's ad spend. The only number that matters is cost per signed case. If your agency can't show you this number, they're not managing toward it.

2. They report on clicks and impressions instead of cases.

78% of law firms use paid search and 82% don't think the ROI is worth it. The reason: agencies present campaign performance in marketing language (CTR, impressions, CPCs trending down) without connecting spend to the thing the firm actually cares about - signed cases. This is not an analytics problem. It's an accountability problem.

3. Your landing pages are their templates.

Generic agency templates convert at 2-5%. Custom, practice-area-specific landing pages convert at 15-20%+. If your attorney PPC is sending paid traffic to a landing page that six other clients also use with different logos dropped in, the conversion gap is costing you 3-4x on every campaign.

4. They're not using negative keywords aggressively.

If you're a PI firm and your ads are showing for "lawyer jokes," "law school near me," "legal aid services," or "become a paralegal," that's your ad budget funding irrelevant clicks. A properly managed negative keyword list is maintained weekly, not set once at campaign launch. Ask your agency to show you their negative keyword list for the last 30 days.

5. They don't call-track by keyword.

If your agency can track that a call came from Google Ads but can't tell you which specific keyword generated that call, you don't know what's working. You might be paying $50/click for a keyword that generates case inquiries and $300/click for a keyword that generates "can you handle my $200 traffic ticket" calls. Without keyword-level call tracking, you cannot make that distinction.

6. Their fee is a flat percentage of spend.

Standard law firm ppc management fees run 10-20% of ad spend. At $30,000/month in spend, that's $3,000-$6,000/month in management fees. Here's the structural problem: the agency earns more when you spend more. There is a built-in incentive to increase your budget even when the incremental spend doesn't produce incremental cases. Fee structures that scale with results, not spend, align incentives better.

7. They can't explain your Quality Score.

Quality Score is Google's 1-10 rating of your ads and landing pages. A QS of 7+ versus a QS of 4 can mean paying 30-50% less per click for the same ad position. Your Quality Score is determined by expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. If your agency can't explain your current QS and what they're doing to improve it, they're leaving money on the table every single day.

If you recognized your current situation in that list, the next step is to audit your current Google Ads spend before committing another dollar. Get a marketing audit that covers exactly this.

Frequently Asked Questions About Google Ads for Lawyers

How much should a law firm spend on Google Ads?

The minimum to generate any meaningful volume is $2,000/month. Under that, you're mostly collecting data points, not cases. To generate sustainable case volume, budget $5,000-$10,000/month. To scale a case pipeline, $15,000-$30,000+ per month. The right number depends entirely on your practice area, market competitiveness, and average case value. A family law firm in a mid-size market can do well at $3,000/month. A PI firm in Los Angeles needs $15,000+ to compete.

Are Google Ads worth it for small law firms?

It depends on practice area and case value. For PI and criminal defense in competitive metro markets, often no. The CPCs are too high relative to case margins for a firm spending $2,000-$3,000/month. For family law and estate planning in medium-sized markets, often yes. The decision should be driven by the math: calculate your expected cost per signed case at your practice area's CPC, your conversion rate, and your intake close rate. If the resulting number is less than your average case net revenue, Google Ads can work.

How do law firms measure Google Ads ROI?

The only metric that matters is cost per signed case. Not cost per click. Not cost per lead. Cost per signed case. To get there: set up call tracking that assigns unique numbers to your Google Ads traffic, tie those tracked numbers into your intake system, track which calls become consultations, and track which consultations become signed clients. Then divide total monthly ad spend by signed cases that month. That's your ROAS metric. The industry average is approximately 4:1 - meaning $1 of ad spend returns $4 in case revenue - but this varies widely based on practice area, case value, and campaign quality.

What's the difference between Google Ads and Google Adwords for lawyers?

Google Ads is the current name. Google AdWords was the previous name - rebranded in 2018. Google adwords for attorneys and google adwords for lawyers are terms people still search because the old name stuck. The product is the same: paid text ads that appear in Google's search results, charged on a cost-per-click basis.

What's the difference between Google Ads and Google LSA for lawyers?

Google LSA (Local Service Ads) are pay-per-lead ads that appear above standard Google Ads. They require "Google Screened" verification and show a badge that signals credibility. Standard Google Ads are pay-per-click with more control over keywords, landing pages, and targeting. Most law firms should run both - LSA for local intent queries, standard ads for everything else. See the comparison table above for the full breakdown.

Ready to Find Out If Your Google Ads Are Actually Working?

If you've read through the red flags list and recognized your own campaign, that feeling you have right now is the right response. It means the data isn't connecting to cases the way it should.

A marketing audit answers the question directly: what is your current Google Ads spend actually generating in signed case revenue, and what would need to change to improve it? Not impressions. Not CPCs. Cases.

Not sure if your Google Ads are working? That's exactly what a marketing audit answers. Get a free PPC audit.

Or if you want to talk through your specific situation first: schedule a call with Casey to discuss your practice area, your market, and whether paid search makes sense for where your firm is right now.

I don't sell PPC management. I give you an honest assessment of what's working and what isn't - including whether Google Ads belongs in your marketing mix at all.