I've been doing this for over 20 years. Developing law firm SEO strategies and helping law firms scale through legal digital marketing. I've sat on both sides of the table, as the agency trying to win the business, and as someone who has watched law firms get burned by the wrong marketing partner. 

Choosing the right law firm marketing agency is one of the most consequential decisions you'll make for your practice. Choosing one without depth of expertise or enough resources results in lost cases, stalled growth, and months or even years of ground you'll have to fight to get back. Law firm SEO, PPC for lawyers, AI Search, and content marketing, and your website are expensive channels to get wrong, but deliver noticeable ROI when done right.

Before handing anyone money, here are the nine questions I'd ask. 

1. Give me two clients I can reach out to whom you currently work with.

If they're good, most agencies will happily hand over their happiest clients. When you make those calls, go beyond "are you happy?” Ask specifically about communication, transparency, and whether the agency's results actually moved the needle on leads, signed cases, website traffic, and online visibility.

2. Now give me two clients who used to work with you but don't anymore, and that you'd feel comfortable with me contacting.

This is what separates the confident agencies from the rest. You want to hear both ends of the experience –  what worked, what didn't, and what they learned from it. An agency that can produce a former client worth talking to has built the kind of long-term relationships that matter in this industry. I believe in failing forward, and the best legal marketing companies are transparent enough to know that even an imperfect exit can reflect well on how they handled it.

3. Can I meet the account manager I'd actually be working with, or interview a few of them?

The person who closes you in the sales meeting is rarely the one running your account day-to-day. This is one of the most common complaints I hear from law firms. They fell in love with the pitch and then got handed off to someone junior or who barely knew their practice area. Meet the person who'll actually be doing the work before you commit, whether that’s your account manager, SEO strategist, or law firm's PPC strategist. Get a feel for the chemistry and ask them about their background in account management and, specifically, legal digital marketing.

4. In your mind, what does success look like?

You want to hear how they define a win, and whether it lines up with what you actually care about. Website traffic and domain authority are important, but the right law firm marketing agency should be talking about qualified leads, cost per acquisition, and signed cases. If their version of success stops at rankings, keep looking.

5. Tell me about your strategy, including how you'd approach ad coverage.

Get them talking about the actual game plan. A strong answer will cover key elements of law firm marketing, including technical SEO, performance design for your website, content strategy, GEO and AI Search, local search optimization, Google Business Profile management, Local Service Ads (LSAs), and  how paid search integrates with organic. If they give you a generic overview that could apply to any industry, that’s often a red flag. Law firm digital marketing is hyper-competitive, and cookie-cutter strategies don't move the needle in major markets. Push them to get specific about your practice area and geography.

6. Do you have experience working specifically in my niche, or are you a general agency that works with everyone?

This one matters a lot. Legal marketing is not the same as e-commerce or local plumbing. Attorney advertising is governed by state-level laws and strict bar association rules. The wrong language or image on a landing page or a testimonial can create compliance issues. Specialization also means an agency has already climbed the learning curve on your most competitive keywords, knows which content performs for your practice areas, and understands what converts a personal injury or family law prospect into a consultation.

7. Tell me about your AI strategy, your approach to GEO and AI search.

The landscape is shifting fast, and you want to know they're thinking ahead instead of running the same playbook from five years ago. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the acronym for being cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and other AI-powered search tools, is no longer optional for law firms that want to stay competitive. Having a legal marketing partner who understands dynamics such as how Google and LLMs like ChatGPT judge your law firm’s reputation, which I cover in this webinar, is critical. If an agency is still only measuring traditional organic rankings without any strategy for AI discoverability, they're behind, and you will be, too.

8. No agency is perfect, so give me a couple of examples of how you really screwed up for a client and what you learned from it.

How they answer this tells you everything. The honest ones will have a story and a solid lesson. The ones who claim they've never made a mistake are the ones to worry about. Every agency has run a campaign that underperformed. Maybe they misjudged the content strategy, or they missed a technical issue that hurt rankings. What separates great agencies from average ones isn't a perfect record; it’s transparency, accountability, and the ability to course-correct quickly. 

9. What can I do as a client to make this relationship more successful?

A good agency will already have a clear answer to this, because they've lived it. They'll tell you things like “respond to content review requests promptly,” “make sure your intake team answers the phone,” or “let’s ID a system to track which cases are converting and from what source.” Attorneys who drop budget into their legal marketing agency and disappear tend to get worse results than attorneys who stay engaged. 

The best results come from a two-way street. A good agency will already have a clear answer to this. If you’re not sure how to get started, The National Law Review’s list of the best law firm marketing companies highlights 20 law firm digital marketing agencies frequently recognized by clients and third-party evaluations for their expertise in delivering consistent results for lawyers.

Ask these questions, and pay close attention to how comfortable they are answering them. The right agency will welcome every single one.