Law Firm Marketing Consultant — What to Look For, What to Pay, and What You'll Actually Get

Most law firms don't have a marketing problem. They have an accountability problem. They're spending money - on SEO agencies, Google Ads, website vendors, maybe a content writer - but nobody owns the outcome. Nobody is connecting those activities to a revenue number and asking hard questions when that number doesn't move.

That's what a law firm marketing consultant is for.

A law firm marketing consultant is not another vendor selling you another service. A consultant diagnoses what's working and what isn't, tells you where your money is going to waste, and builds a strategic roadmap for how to fix it. 74% of lawyers believe their firm has wasted money on campaigns with poor ROI. In my experience, that number is low. The waste is there - in most firms I work with, it's visible within the first two hours of looking at the data.

This page covers what a marketing consultant for law firms actually does, how to tell a real one from a generic business coach who added "law firm" to their website, what the engagement looks like from start to finish, and what you should expect to pay.

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What Does a Law Firm Marketing Consultant Actually Do?

Before you hire anyone, understand the difference between three very different things being sold under similar-sounding names. The table below is the fastest way to see it:

A law firm marketing consultant diagnoses and advises. They assess what's currently working in your marketing program, identify where budget is being wasted, analyze your competitive position, and build a strategic roadmap that tells you exactly what to do next and in what order.

This is different from an agency. An agency is built to produce deliverables - they write content, run ads, build links. That's what you're paying for: execution. What most agencies don't do - and structurally can't do without a conflict of interest - is evaluate whether you're executing the right things in the first place.

This is also different from a fractional CMO. A fractional CMO has ongoing decision-making authority and works with the firm for 6-12+ months, owning the marketing program. A consultant is typically project-based. You get a strategic plan and the expertise to build it - then you own the implementation. If ongoing leadership is what you need, fractional CMO for law firms is the right model.

The Difference Between a Law Firm Marketing Consultant and a Marketing Agency

Agencies are production machines. They have teams built to produce volume: articles, ad campaigns, landing pages, reports. That production is valuable. But production without a correct strategy behind it produces impressive-looking reports with poor business results.

The failure mode I've watched play out at law firms over and over: the firm hires an agency hoping the agency will also provide strategic direction. The agency executes enthusiastically on whatever the firm's previous marketing looked like, maybe with some improvements. Traffic goes up. The agency reports positively. Cases don't follow. Nobody asks the hard questions because asking the hard questions might end the contract.

A consultant's job is to ask the hard questions. If your SEO is producing traffic that doesn't match your case types, a consultant identifies that. If your Google Ads are generating leads your intake team can't convert, a consultant finds the leak. If your entire marketing program is optimized for volume when it should be optimized for case quality, that's what the strategy document says.

Most law firms actually need both: a consultant to set the direction, an agency to execute it. The problem is when the agency is also making the strategic decisions - that's where the misalignment happens.

When a Consultant Makes More Sense Than Upgrading to a Fractional CMO

A consulting engagement makes more sense than a fractional CMO when:

• You have a project-based need - you need a clear marketing strategy, not an ongoing program manager
• Your marketing spend is in the $5K-$15K/month range and you need clarity more than you need additional leadership overhead
• You're at a decision point: evaluating whether to fire your agency, bring marketing in-house, or completely restructure your program
• You want to understand what good looks like before committing to any ongoing engagement

If the consulting engagement reveals that you need ongoing strategic leadership - someone managing vendors, owning the calendar, accountable to revenue month over month - then moving to a fractional CMO engagement is the natural next step. But starting with consulting is the lower-risk, lower-cost way to evaluate whether the fit is right.

What to Look for in a Law Firm Marketing Consultant

The SERP for "law firm marketing consultant" is full of agencies, generalists, and people who have positioned themselves as legal marketing experts because they once ran ads for a personal injury firm. Here's how to separate the real thing from the dressed-up alternative.

Questions to Ask Before You Hire Anyone

Before you engage any law firm marketing consultant, ask these specific questions:

"What practice areas have you worked in?" - Not "have you worked with law firms" - that bar is too low. Ask specifically about your practice area. Criminal defense marketing is different from personal injury, which is different from family law, which is different from mass tort. The strategy, the channels, the cost-per-lead benchmarks, the intake conversion expectations - they're all different.

"What does your audit cover specifically?" - Make them describe it in detail. If they can't tell you what they look at in your Google Analytics setup, your call tracking configuration, your intake conversion rate, and your attribution model, they're running a surface-level review.

"Give me a specific outcome you produced for a law firm." - Not "we improved rankings" or "we increased traffic." What was the cost per signed case when they started? What was it when they finished? If they can't answer in those terms, they don't think in those terms - which means they're not measuring the thing that matters.

"What would you tell me NOT to spend money on?" - A real advisor will answer this question directly. A vendor disguised as a consultant will hedge, because telling you not to buy something isn't good for their business.

Green Flags

• Specific experience in your practice area, not just "legal marketing" generally
• Transparent about their own process and what a deliverable looks like
• Will reference specific cases and outcomes, not just client logos
• Uses cost per signed case as the primary KPI framework
• Tells you clearly when a consulting engagement is not what you need
• Has operated at enough scale to have seen the same problems repeat across multiple firms in the same practice area

Red Flags

• Primarily upsells execution services - they're an agency in consulting clothing
• Cannot tell you what their audit covers without a pitch deck
• Credentials are mostly certifications and conference appearances, not actual client results
• Has never run a legal marketing program that involved real budget decisions under pressure
• Uses "results-driven" or "data-driven" as a primary selling point - that's a description of basic competence, not a differentiator

The green flag I'll add from my own perspective: look for someone who will tell you that your current agency is doing a good job - if they are. A consultant who recommends replacing every vendor they evaluate has a different business model than the one you think you're buying.

Also worth noting: 41% of lawyers have no access to marketing analytics, and another 21% don't know if they do. If you're in that category, a real consultant will start by establishing your data access and tracking infrastructure before making strategic recommendations. A consultant who gives you a strategy without looking at your actual numbers is giving you a template, not a diagnosis.

What a Law Firm Marketing Consultant Should Cover

A comprehensive consulting engagement covers at least eight distinct areas. Each one matters. Missing any of them leaves blind spots in the strategy.

1. Website and conversion analysis. 74% of lawyers believe their firm has wasted money on campaigns with poor ROI. The most common place that waste shows up is a website that doesn't convert the traffic it receives. The average law firm website converts at just 2.07% - meaning 98 out of 100 visitors leave without contacting the firm. A consultant should assess page load speed, mobile performance, CTA placement, trust signals, and form functionality. The output is a prioritized list of changes ranked by conversion impact, not a generic checklist.

2. Channel performance review. SEO, Google Ads, Facebook/Meta, local SEO, referral networks - each channel should be evaluated against a single question: what is the cost per signed case? Not cost per click. Not cost per lead. Cost per signed case. 65% of firms say their website delivers the highest ROI, but most are measuring "leads" rather than signed clients. The channel analysis produces a clear picture of which channels are actually working.

3. Marketing spend benchmarking. Law firms typically spend 2%-10% of gross revenue on marketing - with new or growing firms at the higher end and established firms at the lower end. Where does your firm fall? Is that appropriate for your growth goals? A consultant should tell you whether your current spend level is under-investment, reasonable, or over-investment for the results you're producing.

4. Intake audit. 26% of law firms do not track their leads at all. A marketing consultant who doesn't look at your intake process is evaluating only half the funnel. The intake audit covers response time to new leads, intake script quality, missed call rates, follow-up cadence, and conversion from lead to signed client. This is often where the biggest improvement opportunity sits - not in generating more leads, but in converting the ones already coming in.

5. Attribution analysis. Only 18% of law firms use multi-touch attribution - yet marketing programs can only be managed correctly when you understand what's actually influencing the decision to hire. Last-click attribution - the default setting most firms use - systematically undervalues SEO and overvalues PPC. A consultant should identify the attribution model in use and whether it's giving you an accurate picture of channel performance.

6. Competitive positioning. How does your firm's digital presence compare to the top three competitors in your core markets? This covers keyword coverage, local pack visibility, review volume and velocity, backlink strength, and Google Business Profile completeness. The output is a clear picture of the specific gaps and what closing them would require.

7. Budget allocation recommendations. Given your goals, current channels, and performance data, how should your marketing budget be distributed? This is the strategic output most firms are missing - they add budget when a vendor makes a compelling pitch, not because the allocation makes strategic sense.

8. Vendor performance review. Are your current agencies hitting their KPIs? Are those KPIs the right ones? A consultant should evaluate each vendor relationship against the metrics that actually matter: cost per signed case, lead quality by channel, and whether the work they're producing is connected to the firm's revenue goals.

How Much Does a Law Firm Marketing Consultant Cost?

Here's the range you should expect, broken down by engagement type:

What drives the cost difference within each tier: firm size, number of practice areas, number of offices, complexity of the existing marketing program, depth of data available for analysis, and how much research and competitive analysis the engagement requires.

What you're paying for at any level is senior expertise applied directly to your firm's specific situation. Not templates. Not off-the-shelf recommendations. Not the same audit report with your firm's name inserted.

The cost context that matters most for personal injury firms: a single additional signed PI case is worth an average of $55,056 in case value (Brown & Crouppen data across 5,861 cases from 2021-2024). A $10,000 consulting engagement that identifies one additional signed case per month returns more than 6x its cost in the first year. 65% of law firms say their website delivers the highest ROI - but only 37% have systems to actually track it. A consultant fixes that blind spot as a baseline requirement.

For ongoing leadership rather than project-based consulting, see how much a fractional CMO costs - it's a different service with a different scope.

Ready to see what your marketing is actually producing? The most direct entry point is a law firm marketing audit - scoped, time-limited, and no ongoing commitment required.

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Casey Meraz - Law Firm Marketing Consultant

I founded Juris Digital and grew it to serve over 100 law firm clients. I've worked with personal injury firms, criminal defense practices, family law firms, mass tort operations, estate planning practices, and immigration lawyers. I've seen every major mistake law firms make with their marketing - from the agency side and from the client side.

That dual perspective is unusual. Most consultants either ran an agency or worked in-house at a law firm. I've done both. I know exactly how agencies construct their reports to look better than the underlying results are. I know which metrics agencies emphasize because they look good, and which ones they avoid because they're unflattering. I know the difference between a vendor relationship and an advisor relationship.

Here's what I'll tell you directly: I'm not going to pitch you on services you don't need. If the audit shows that your current agency is doing solid work and the real problem is your intake conversion rate, I'll tell you that. If the data shows your Google Ads account is producing cases at a reasonable cost and you should double the budget, I'll say that too - even though it means recommending you spend more money with a competitor agency.

I've written about legal marketing for Moz, Clio, and Attorney at Work. I've spoken at State of Search and SMX. I've contributed to the Clio Legal Trends Report. My positions on what works in legal marketing are public and verifiable - you can read them before you call.

My approach is diagnostic first, strategy second, execution guidance third. I don't walk into an engagement with a predetermined recommendation. I look at your specific data, your specific market, your specific competitive position, and build a strategy that reflects what's actually true for your firm - not a template.

One concrete example of what that looks like in practice: I've worked with firms that came to me convinced they needed to spend more on Google Ads. After reviewing their data, the actual problem was a 40% missed call rate and a two-day average response time to new web leads. Adding more ad spend would have generated more wasted leads. The real fix was intake, not traffic. That's a conclusion an agency has no incentive to reach. I do.

I work with law firms doing $1M-$50M+ in revenue across personal injury, criminal defense, and family law primarily - though I've worked across nearly every practice area. If the fit isn't right, I'll tell you that too. The goal is a productive engagement, not a signed contract.

Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring a Law Firm Marketing Consultant

How long does a law firm marketing consulting engagement typically last?

Project-based engagements - a marketing audit and strategic roadmap - run 4-8 weeks from kickoff to final deliverable. That timeline covers initial data access, the full diagnostic review, strategy development, and the final report and presentation. Some firms with multiple offices, multiple practice areas, and a complex set of active vendors run closer to 8 weeks. Firms with a single location and a straightforward marketing setup can often move faster.

Ongoing advisory retainers typically start with an initial 3-month commitment, which gives enough time to see whether the strategic recommendations are producing movement. After that initial period, they run month-to-month.

If you need ongoing decision-making authority and embedded program management rather than advisory guidance, that's a fractional CMO engagement - which typically runs 6-12 months. The difference is scope and accountability: a consultant advises, a fractional CMO leads.

Do I need a marketing consultant or a marketing agency?

If you don't have a clear strategy, you need a consultant before you need an agency. Hiring an agency without strategic direction is like hiring a construction crew before you have blueprints. The crew will build whatever you tell them to build - efficiently, maybe even excellently - but if the blueprints are wrong, the result is wrong.

Most law firms that are frustrated with their agency results actually have a strategy problem, not an agency problem. The agency is executing fine. They're executing the wrong things. A consultant identifies that and builds a corrected direction. Then the agency executes better.

What practice areas do you specialize in?

Primary depth in personal injury, criminal defense, and family law - the highest-competition, highest-spend practice areas where the cost of getting marketing wrong is most expensive. I also have significant experience in mass tort, estate planning, and immigration.

The practice area matters because benchmarks are different, channels are different, and what "good" looks like is different. Personal injury law firm marketing operates at fundamentally different economics than family law. The strategy should reflect those differences.

Will you tell me to fire my current agency?

Only if the data says to. The audit looks at actual performance metrics - cost per signed case by channel, lead quality, conversion rates, attribution accuracy. If your current agency is producing cases at a reasonable cost with measurable accountability, there's no reason to change. I'll tell you that directly.

If they're not producing results at a justifiable cost, that will be visible in the numbers. I'll present the data, explain the analysis, and tell you what I'd recommend - but the decision is yours.

What's the fastest way to get started?

The fastest entry point with the lowest commitment is a law firm marketing audit. It's a defined-scope project: I review your marketing program across six to eight areas, deliver a written report and live presentation, and you own the deliverable whether or not you continue working with me. Most engagements start here. It's the clearest way to see what a real consulting deliverable looks like before making any ongoing decision.

If you want to talk through whether a consulting engagement is the right fit before committing to anything, book a free 30-minute call first.

The Difference Between Good Consulting and a Consulting-Shaped Sales Pitch

One last thing worth saying directly.

A lot of what gets sold as "law firm marketing consulting" is an agency upsell dressed up as an independent review. The consultant runs a surface-level audit, identifies problems that only their agency can solve, and hands you a proposal. The "consulting" was a sales tool.

Real consulting produces a deliverable you can take anywhere. The recommendations are specific and actionable regardless of who executes them. You should be able to hand a real consulting deliverable to your current agency - or to a different agency, or to your internal team - and have it produce better results.

That's the standard I hold myself to. If the deliverable I produce doesn't tell you something true and useful that you can act on independently, it wasn't worth your money. That's the standard you should hold any law firm marketing consultant to before you write a check.

The law firm marketing consulting industry has a credibility problem. Too many people are selling advice they couldn't actually execute. Too many audits are automated scans dressed up in a PDF. Too many "strategies" are repurposed templates. The right test is simple: ask them to walk you through what they'd look at in your specific situation and what questions they'd be trying to answer. If they can't do that before you've hired them, they definitely can't do it after.

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Or start with the numbers: request a law firm marketing audit and see exactly what's working, what's wasted, and what to do first.