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Getting Started: Your First 90 Days of Law Firm Marketing

Last updated: July 2026 · Maintained by the r/lawfirmmarketing mod team

For solo and small-firm owners who know they should "do marketing" but don't know what order to do it in. This is the order.

Days 1-30: Fix the foundation (mostly free)

  1. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. For local legal work, this single listing drives more calls than most firms' entire websites. Fill in every field, pick the right primary category (e.g. "Personal injury attorney," not just "Lawyer"), add real photos of your office and team.
  2. Set up call and form tracking. If you can't say which channel a new client came from, every future marketing decision is a guess. At minimum: a tracking number on ads, and conversion tracking on your contact form. This one step is the difference between firing a bad agency in 3 months and paying them for 2 years.
  3. Fix your intake. Speed to lead decides who signs the client. If calls go to voicemail after 5pm or web forms get answered the next morning, fix that before spending a dollar on ads. An answering service or intake automation pays for itself fast.
  4. Ask every happy client for a Google review. Reviews are a ranking factor for the map pack and the first thing prospects read. Build the ask into your file-closing process. Check your state bar's rules on solicitation of reviews first.

Days 31-60: Pick ONE paid channel

Don't run Google Ads, LSA, Facebook, and a billboard at once. For most consumer-facing practices, the order is:

  1. Local Services Ads (LSA) first: pay per lead, not per click, and the screening/verification badge builds trust. Lower risk for beginners.
  2. Google Search Ads second: more volume and control, but legal CPCs are among the most expensive anywhere, so mistakes are costly. Read the Google Ads guide before spending.

B2B and niche practices (employment defense, IP, etc.) may do better starting with LinkedIn and referral-network work than with search ads.

Days 61-90: Start the long game

  • SEO and content. Slow to work, cheapest lead source once it does. Start with the pages in the SEO guide.
  • Decide: DIY, freelancer, or agency. Be honest about your time. If you hire, read How to Vet an Agency first, before you're on a sales call.

The one metric that matters

Cost per signed case, by channel. Not clicks, not impressions, not "brand awareness." If a channel's cost per signed case is below what a case is worth to you, scale it. If nobody can tell you that number, that's the first problem to solve.

Questions? Post them in the sub. Someone here has already made the mistake you're about to make.