Google Ads for Law Firms

Personal injury (auto accident): $800-$4,000 per signed case. Family law: $200-$800 per retained client. Criminal defense (DUI): $150-$600. Corporate/commercial: $500-$3,000. Mass torts (mesothelioma, drug defect): $2,000-$15,000+. The right benchmark is cost-as-percent-of-case-value, not cost-per-case in absolute terms.

Yes, where eligible. LSA Legal gives top-SERP placement with pay-per-lead pricing, and Google vets law firms before activation (increasing trust). Works best for consumer practice areas (PI, family, criminal, immigration). Stack LSAs with Google Ads below, together they outperform either alone.

State bar rules vary but commonly prohibit guarantees, specific outcome claims, comparative statements, and unapproved testimonials. New York, Florida, and California have particularly strict rules. Ad copy needs review by someone familiar with your state's rules, generic PPC agencies routinely produce copy that violates them.

Install CallRail with call-intake scoring. Score calls on case qualification (practice area match, jurisdiction, case strength) and feed the score back to Google Ads as the conversion. Smart Bidding then optimizes toward calls that become signed cases, not every call that rings.

$3,000-$5,000/month for single-practice-area local firms. $10,000-$50,000/month is common for mid-size firms covering multiple practice areas. Personal injury firms with statewide coverage often run $50,000-$500,000/month. CPCs are so high that below $3,000/month, you cannot accumulate signed-case data fast enough to optimize.

Yes, with discipline. Solo practitioners should focus on 1-2 practice areas in a narrow geography, use LSAs (which favor smaller firms in rankings), and use aggressive negative keywords to avoid broad waste. Solo PI is particularly difficult given CPC levels; solo family law or criminal defense is more accessible at $2,000-$5,000/month.