Fast Growth for Family Law Firms Case Study

Introduction

We see it all too often, “5x your leads,” “10 guaranteed new cases a month,” and such marketing claims to attorneys that a marketing agency or business is the solution to attorney’s problems. What these marketers fail to realize is that leads, consults, and clients are only one part of the equation. They don’t take into consideration client and case management, operational process, staffing, and so much more.

At Cardinal Concepts, we understand the holistic needs of a law firm due to the fact we run them ourselves with over 25 attorneys and 70 employees. This case study tells the story how one of our firms handled a 67% year over year growth in both paid consultations and clients.

The Pandemic Push

Colorado Legal Group is a divorce and family law practice that was launched September 2018. After over-coming many of the challenges that go along with starting a law firm from scratch, 2019 saw a lot of growth including the addition of another attorney to the team. 2020 was poised to be a breakout year for the firm with January recording their highest volume of paid consultations the team had done to date and another attorney joining the team in February. In March, the world changed. Luckily, Colorado Legal Group was well positioned with advanced leadership and the necessary infrastructure for remote work. While many law firms struggled, Colorado Legal Group excelled throughout the initial pandemic period.

With a shared hunger for continued growth, their team inquired with Cardinal Concepts on what they could do to not only sustain their positive trajectory but amplify it.

Marketing Strategy

Partnering with the firm’s leadership, growth objectives were clearly laid out for 2021 with the desire to add two more attorneys to the team. Knowing this, Cardinal Concepts was able to accurately inform the team what was necessary from a lead generation perspective to support the additional attorneys and what marketing objectives would achieve this.

Google Ads

While the Google Ads account was good, we knew it could be great. We focused on small changes for major impacts. Through changes in the account structure and bidding strategies, with only a 7% increase in budget we generated 84% more conversions by focusing on our most valuable campaigns.

Facebook Ads

The firm had a robust social media advertising program but with the enhancements in the Google Ads account, it was time to be ruthless. We killed half of the social campaigns to only focus on the most profitable and reallocate that budget into Google Ads where we had decreased the cost per conversion by $46.54.

SEO

Still having a relatively young website, ColoradoLegalGroup.com made meaningful strides against their competition driving 125% more Organic Search traffic in 2021. We prioritize highly focused keyword clusters creating supporting content resulting them to rank #1 in their most desireable search terms.

Operational Efficiencies Through Technology

In 2020, Colorado Legal Group was using Keap (FKA Infusionsoft) as their marketing CRM platform. For case management, ProLaw. While both platforms are powerful in their own right, they siloed information with the inability to integrate into each other creating time-consuming manual data input on the team. It was in 2020 that numerous CRM and client management softwares were vetted before purchasing what we believe to be the most powerful technology stack for small to medium size law firms possible and launched in 2021.

Clio

Clio Manage is the cloud-based legal practice management software that is the hub of our technology stack. It's ability to integrate with other platforms while managing cases, documents, and billing is best in class. This creates a firm-wide source of truth that all facets of the business can rely on.

Lawmatics

When evaluating marketing CRM and automation options, Clio Grows functionality wasn't sophisticated enough for our needs. We discovered Lawmatics which integrates with Clio Manage and provides a much more robust solution for both marketing and intake automations.

LawPay

What's the point of a fancy tech stack and all the hard billable work being done by the team if you can't make it easy for clients to pay. For more than a decade, LawPay’s online payment technology has been trusted to help law firms get paid easier, more securely, and 39% faster. It also ensures compliance with ABA and IOLTA guidelines.

2021 By the Numbers

Colorado Legal Group blew past its goals and achieved incredible results in 2021 thanks to an integrated marketing and operations plan providing the best internal and external experience for employees and clients alike.

375

Clients in 2021, that's more than 1 a day, every day, for a FULL year.

$86k

Increase in consultation revenue year over year. See how we can help you grow.

67%

Increase in both consultations and clients year-over-year. Consults are key to success.

39

Five-star Google reviews left by clients.

4

New billable legal support staff members joined the team.

2

New associate attorneys joined the team.

Growing a law firm has inherent challenges. As a divorce and family law attorney, I’m constantly handling tense and emotionally charged issues. Knowing that Cardinal Concepts is taking care of our client acquisition while constantly working to improve the client and team experience allows me to simply focus on obtaining the best outcomes for my clients.

– Lauren Shepherd, Esq.

Let Our Law Firms Help Grow Yours

There’s an overwhelming number of things to master in a successful law firm and that’s ok with us! We do the hard work so you don’t have to.

We will partner with you to create a customized growth plan addressing your individual needs leveraging our existing campaigns and best practices that can be rolled out in days, not months.