The short answer
There's no single number: the few public figures run from a $1,000 round-number illustration to $4,046 per signed case for personal injury in one agency's client data.[2][1] An earlier version of that study gave $468, and that figure is still quoted elsewhere.[6] Your own number is your ad spend divided by the cases you signed from it in the same period. The calculator below works it out from five numbers.
Cost per signed case tells you whether your ads pay for themselves, and it's the number to build a law firm marketing budget on. Cost per lead only tells you what a contact costs, and plenty of contacts never hire you. If your cases come from referrals and you don't run ads, it won't tell you much.
What counts as cost per signed case
Law Firm Velocity is a law firm accounting and CFO firm. Its definition: "Cost per signed case equals total marketing spend divided by new cases signed in the same period."[2] Two other numbers often get mixed up with it.
- Cost per lead is spend divided by every inquiry, including wrong case types and people who never pick up.
- Cost per qualified lead counts only inquiries that meet your case criteria, meaning the cases you'd actually take.
- Cost per signed case counts only people who signed your fee agreement.
Then decide what goes into "spend". Some firms count ad spend only. Law Firm Velocity's worked example counts media plus agency fees and the marketing share of payroll.[2] The second way gives a higher number, so pick one definition and keep it every month.
In the calculator on this page, spend means ad spend only. Agency fees, staff time and software sit on top of it.
Public figures and who measured them
Cost per lead is the figure you'll see most often, at $131.63 on LocaliQ's 2026 search benchmarks.[3] Cost per signed case is thinly documented. What exists is either vendor-reported or a worked illustration.
| Figure | Source and date | What kind of number |
|---|---|---|
| $272 per lead, personal injury[1] | Pareto Legal, a law firm PPC agency, checked November 3, 2026 | Its own clients' 2025 data |
| $4,046 per signed case, personal injury, at a 6.7% lead-to-case rate[1] | Pareto Legal, checked November 3, 2026 | Its own clients' 2025 data, from fewer firms than its cost per lead |
| $468 per signed case, personal injury, at a 7% lead-to-case rate[6] | Rankings.io, a personal injury marketing agency, May 18, 2026 | An earlier version of the Pareto Legal figures. Doesn't match its own cost per lead |
| $131.63 per lead, attorneys and legal services[3] | LocaliQ, a marketing services company, last updated June 1, 2026 | Marketing company benchmark. The page doesn't state its data period |
| $66.69 per lead, all industries[3] | LocaliQ, as above | Marketing company benchmark. The page doesn't state its data period |
| $150 to $400 per qualified lead, personal injury[4] | Big Dog ICT, quoted by Valley Marketing Group, an agency, June 10, 2026 | Vendor-reported |
| $40 to $100 per lead, immigration[4] | Big Dog ICT, quoted by Valley Marketing Group, June 10, 2026 | Vendor-reported |
| $1,000 per signed case[2] | Law Firm Velocity, a law firm accounting and CFO firm, July 15, 2026 | Round-number illustration, not client data |
What each source counted, and its limit:
- Pareto Legal's figures come from 12 plaintiff-side law firms it managed in 2025, with about $6.1 million in Google Ads and Local Services Ads spend.[1] It counts signed cases as cases recorded in each firm's CRM, and its cost per signed case comes from fewer firms than its cost per lead.[1] That's a real sample, but a small one, and every firm in it is the agency's own client.
- Rankings.io, a personal injury marketing agency, still quotes the earlier figures, $284 per lead and $468 per signed case, without naming the study.[6]
- Law Firm Velocity says plainly that its $1,000 example uses round numbers, not client data.[2]
- LocaliQ's page gives $131.63 as the average cost per lead for attorneys and legal services, and $66.69 across all industries.[3] It doesn't say what period the data covers, so we can't say how current either figure is.
One agency's average isn't your market, either. Valley Marketing Group says a broad, poorly targeted campaign in Los Angeles sits at the top of its ranges.[4] Your city, practice area and season can put you well above or below anything in this table.
Why published figures disagree
They count different things. Every figure in the table above also comes from a company that sells marketing or finance services. Read them as sales material with numbers in it. Four differences explain most of the gap:
- What's in the spend: ad spend alone, or ad spend plus agency fees, staff and software.
- What counts as a lead: any call or form, or only people who fit your case criteria.
- The signing rate behind it. Pareto Legal's personal injury figure uses a 6.7% lead-to-case rate.[1] Law Firm Velocity's example has 40% of leads booking a consultation and 33% of those signing.[2]
- Which channels: Google search ads, Local Services Ads and Meta ads price leads differently, and some figures blend them.
A study can change after you quote it
The earlier version of Pareto Legal's study gave $284 per lead and $468 per signed case at a 7% lead-to-case rate.[6] Those didn't line up: $284 divided by 0.07 is about $4,057.[6] Pareto Legal has since revised the study, and its figures now agree with each other:
- Personal injury: $272 per lead, 6.7% signed, $4,046 per signed case.[1]
- Criminal defense: $163 per lead, 6.4% signed, $2,524 per signed case.[1]
- Bankruptcy: $195 per lead, 11.7% signed, $1,693 per signed case. The study says this reflects one firm's results, not a benchmark.[1]
So check the date on any figure before you rely on it, and prefer your own numbers. For what lead generation costs overall, see lawyer lead generation cost.
Cost per signed case also looks different in each practice area. Our pages for personal injury practices, criminal defense firms and family law firms show how to track it for that kind of case.
How to work out your own cost per signed case
Divide what you spent on ads in a month by the cases you signed from those ads in the same month. If you can't trace signed cases back to an ad, fix that first.
You need four numbers, and each one lives somewhere different:
- Ad spend, from the billing page of each ad account: Google Ads, Local Services Ads, Meta.
- Leads, from your call tracking and form inbox, counted once per person.
- Qualified leads, from intake notes or a status field in your CRM.
- Signed cases, from your CRM, with the lead source filled in on every record.
Three habits keep the number honest:
- Use the same period for spend and signings. If you sign only a few cases a month from ads, use the last three months instead. One case more or less swings a monthly number a lot.
- Count signed cases, not form fills. A lead who books a consultation and then hires another firm cost you money and earned nothing.
- Fill in the source field. If intake doesn't record where each inquiry came from, you can't tell which ads produce cases. Any CRM can hold that field. Our legal intake software guide compares the main tools, and our intake and CRM page covers how we wire it up.
Here's a worked example. The numbers are invented and round. It's an example, not a benchmark.
Example numbers, invented and round
- Ad spend: $10,000 a month
- 50 leadsCost per lead: $200
- 30 qualified (60%)Cost per qualified lead: $333
- 6 signed (20% of qualified)Cost per signed case: $1,667
Average fee $9,000, so fees of $54,000
Break-even: about 1.1 signed cases a month (covers the ad spend only, not staff or overhead)
Cost per signed case calculator
Change the five numbers to your own. It starts with the worked example above.
How the calculator works. It runs in your browser, and nothing you type is sent or stored. With JavaScript turned off, it shows the worked example.
Average fee means the fees you actually collect per signed case. It doesn't model contingency timing. Law Firm Velocity notes that in personal injury, "the ad dollar goes out today and the fee arrives 18 to 36 months later".[2] So read break-even as a simple view, not a cash forecast.
How much should a law firm spend on marketing?
Published rules of thumb put most firms at 2% to 10% of gross revenue, and competitive personal injury firms at 10% to 20% or more.[2] Law Firm Velocity says to treat percentage of revenue "as a sanity check, not a budget".[2] Build the real budget from your cost per signed case:
- Decide how many signed cases you want a month.
- Multiply by your cost per signed case.
- Test the total against two limits: how many new clients intake can handle, and how much cash you can tie up before fees arrive.
- Write the result into a one-page law firm marketing plan with your channels and intake targets.
Keep ad spend and agency fees as separate lines. Ad spend goes to Google or Meta. Agency fees, staff and software sit on top of it, and they raise your true cost per case.
Is there a minimum?
Valley Marketing Group, an agency, cites DM Law Partners for a personal injury starting range of $5,000 to $20,000 a month in a mid-size market.[4] That's one vendor's view, not a rule. A more useful floor is whatever spend signs at least one case a month at your own rates.
Break-even means the fees from the cases your ads sign cover what you spent on those ads. In the worked example, the firm needs just over one signed case a month and signs six. Everything past break-even pays for staff, overhead and profit.
If the ads work but cases don't sign
Check intake before you change the ads. In Hennessey Digital's 2025 test of 1,333 US law firms, 26% hadn't replied to a web form within seven days.[5] Hennessey is a law firm marketing agency, so read it as a vendor study.
The calculator shows what intake is worth. Raise the signed percentage by ten points and watch cost per signed case fall. The ad spend didn't change. Only intake did.
The usual fixes are plain: answer every call, reply to forms within minutes, and follow up more than once. Our speed-to-lead guide walks through the workflow step by step. For calls after hours, see our guide to AI receptionists for law firms. If you'd rather have it built, see intake and CRM.
Which channels to put the money in first
Start with the channel where you can measure signed cases. That's usually Google search ads or Local Services Ads. Add Meta ads once your tracking works. To weigh every option, including TV and lead vendors, see personal injury advertising channels compared.
- Search ads reach people who are looking for a lawyer right now, and each click and call can be traced.
- Local Services Ads: Google says you pay when a potential client gets in touch, not per click.[7]
- Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram) reach people who aren't searching yet. That makes their leads harder to judge on cost per lead alone, so measure them on signed cases from the first month.
For immigration firms, Valley Marketing Group's source puts Google Ads leads at $40 to $100 each, well below its personal injury range.[4] Our page on immigration lawyer marketing covers that practice in more detail. Our guide to Facebook ads for law firms covers Meta lead forms, landing pages and Meta's rules.
Our lead generation service covers all three channels. It isn't the right first step if intake is already full or slow, because more leads won't fix that. Buying leads instead of running your own ads? See bought leads vs your own ads. For the slower channel, the SEO cost guide shows what agencies quote.
Questions firm owners ask
What is a reasonable marketing budget for a law firm?
Law Firm Velocity, a law firm accounting and CFO firm, says most budgets run 2% to 10% of gross revenue.[2] Use that as a check, not a target. Build the real budget from the signed cases you want each month times your cost per signed case.
How much do lawyers spend on advertising?
It depends on the practice area. Law Firm Velocity puts referral-driven practices at about 2% to 5% of revenue, and family, criminal defense and immigration practices at 5% to 10%.[2] Personal injury firms in competitive markets spend 10% to 20% or more.[2]
What is a good cost per signed case?
One that sits well below the fees a case brings in, with room left for staff and overhead. Work out your break-even with the calculator on this page, then set your own target below it. Another firm's average won't tell you whether your ads pay.
What is the minimum budget for Google Ads for a law firm?
Google doesn't set a minimum for law firms that we could find. Valley Marketing Group, an agency, cites DM Law Partners for a personal injury starting range of $5,000 to $20,000 a month in a mid-size market.[4] That's one vendor's view, so check it against your own break-even.
Why do my leads not sign?
Often the problem is intake, not the ads. Check how fast a person calls back and how many tries they make before you cut the ad budget.
What's the difference between cost per lead and cost per signed case?
Cost per lead counts every inquiry. Cost per signed case counts only the people who hired you. A cheap lead that rarely signs can cost more per case than an expensive lead that often does.
Try this today
Pull last month's ad spend and count the signed cases that came from those ads. Then divide.
- Add up last month's spend across every ad account.
- Count the cases signed last month whose source was an ad. If you can't tell, that's your first fix.
- Divide spend by signed cases, then put your own numbers into the calculator above.
Sources
- Pareto Legal, "Law Firm PPC Statistics 2026", published April 17, 2026, pareto.legal/law-firm-ppc-statistics-2026. Checked November 3, 2026, after the study was revised. Vendor study (Pareto Legal is a law firm PPC agency). Data from 12 of its own plaintiff-side clients in 2025.
- Law Firm Velocity (author Paul W Carlson, CPA), "Law Firm Marketing Budget: Benchmarks by Practice Area", published July 15, 2026, lawfirmvelocity.com/post/law-firm-marketing-budget. Checked October 8, 2026. Vendor page (Law Firm Velocity sells accounting and CFO services to law firms).
- LocaliQ, "Search Advertising Benchmarks", last updated June 1, 2026, localiq.com/blog/search-advertising-benchmarks. Checked October 17, 2026. Vendor benchmark (LocaliQ sells marketing services). The page doesn't state its data period.
- The Valley Marketing Group, "Law Firm Google Ads: What a Lead Should Actually Cost in 2026", published June 10, 2026, thevalleymarketinggroup.com/blog/law-firm-google-ads-cost-per-lead-2026. Checked October 8, 2026. Vendor page (a marketing agency), citing Big Dog ICT and DM Law Partners.
- Hennessey Digital, "2025 Lead Form Response Time Study", published June 24, 2025, key findings and methodology, hennessey.com/2025-lead-form-response-time-study. Checked October 8, 2026. Vendor study (Hennessey Digital is a law firm marketing agency).
- Rankings.io, "How Much Do Personal Injury Leads Cost? Are They Worth It?", published May 18, 2026, rankings.io/blog/personal-injury-lead-costs. Checked October 8, 2026. Vendor page (Rankings.io is a personal injury marketing agency). Quotes an earlier version of the Pareto Legal figures in [1].
- Google, "Reach Local Customers with Local Service Ads", business.google.com/us/ad-solutions/local-service-ads. Checked October 8, 2026. Google's own product page.