In short
In criminal defense, the call that counts often comes after an arrest, late at night, from a parent or partner. Naelar sets up the ads and local search (your Google Business Profile, reviews and pages) that get the firm found. We also set up the after-hours intake that puts that call in front of an attorney.
We're a founder-led growth partner, not a law firm, and we don't give legal advice.
What criminal defense lawyer marketing covers
Getting found, getting answered and handing off.
Getting found: profile, pages and ads
Your Google Business Profile, reviews, practice pages and search ads, so the firm shows up when a worried family looks. That's our local SEO and AI search work.
Getting answered: calls, texts and forms
Phone, missed-call text-back (an automatic text to anyone whose call wasn't answered) and web forms, covered at the hours your calls actually arrive. Not only office hours.
Handing off to an attorney
Every contact logged with the same basic facts in your CRM, the system that holds every inquiry and its stage. Then an attorney decides what happens next.
Referrals from other lawyers and past clients matter in private defense work. We don't try to replace them. We make sure the firm is easy to check when someone hears your name and looks you up.
This isn't for public defender offices, or for firms that want lists of people who were just arrested. We don't work that way, and the reasons are further down.
Where criminal defense clients come from
Referrals, local search and search ads, in the order we'd look at them. Judge each one by what a retained client cost, not by the call. Our guide to cost per signed case for law firm ads shows the method.
Cheap leads can hide an expensive case. Pareto Legal, a law firm PPC (pay-per-click ads) agency, reports these numbers for criminal defense:
That's vendor data from the agency's own clients. Read it as a warning about cheap leads, not a target. Then work out your own number.
What defense clicks cost on Google
In the table below, estimated click prices ran from about $53 to $154 in October 2026, and DUI searches cost the most.
| Search | Searches a month | Estimated click price |
|---|---|---|
| dui lawyer | 135,000 | $87.09 |
| dui attorney | 33,100 | $73.02 |
| domestic violence lawyer | 8,100 | $69.41 |
| criminal defense lawyer | 135,000 | $61.33 |
| criminal lawyer near me | 90,500 | $52.82 |
| criminal defense lawyer los angeles | 4,400 | $56.49 |
| dui lawyer los angeles | 480 | $153.81 |
Read them with the Pareto numbers above: a cheap lead or an expensive click only matters once you know how many sign. What a daily budget buys at these prices is in Google Ads and PPC for law firms.
Channels, in the order we'd look at them
- Referrals and reviews. Make the firm easy to check when someone hears your name.
- Google Business Profile and local SEO. It takes months, and it keeps working when ads stop. Our guide to SEO for criminal defense lawyers covers charge pages and reviews.
- Google search ads for people looking for a lawyer near them right now. That's our lead generation work.
- Google Local Services Ads (ads where you pay per lead, not per click).[6] Google lists criminal and DUI lawyer services as categories.[5] Check they're open in your city.
- A DUI landing page (the page a DUI ad opens), if DUI is a real share of your cases.
Start with search and local listings, not Facebook or Instagram lead ads. Meta's own ad review decides what can run in your account.
Your website and reviews
Families often call from a phone, so each charge page needs the number, the hours and what happens on the first call above the fold. A short form that asks only the basics helps those who would rather type. Our website design work builds these pages on your own domain.
Reviews help someone who has heard your name and looks you up. Whether and how to ask a criminal client for one is for your attorneys to decide. The guide to Google reviews for lawyers covers the mechanics.
DUI cases
DUI intake is the same as any arrest call: soon after, often from someone else. Your site usually needs its own DUI page as well, because "dui lawyer" alone gets about 135,000 searches a month. Our criminal defense SEO guide explains which charge pages to build. For the DUI searches themselves, see SEO for DUI lawyers.
Who calls in the first 48 hours?
Often a parent, partner or friend, not the person who was arrested. They call while booking, a first court appearance and a bail decision happen, so the window to hire a lawyer is short.
In California, the clock is in Penal Code section 825.[1] It says the defendant shall be taken before the magistrate "within 48 hours after his or her arrest, excluding Sundays and holidays."[1]
Other states set their own clocks. The map starts with California. Adapt it to your state with your attorneys.
- ArrestWho calls: a parent, partner or friend, at any hour.Capture: caller's name, relationship and callback number.
- BookingWho calls: family, or the person once they can phone out.Capture: full name of the person held, and where.
- First court appearanceCalifornia: within 48 hours, excluding Sundays and holidays (PC 825).[1]Who calls: family asking if someone can be at court.Capture: court and date if known, flagged urgent.
- Bail decisionWho calls: family asking about release.Capture: their questions. Intake gives no bail advice.
Every call: logged in your CRM, handed to the on-call attorney
The person answering doesn't need to know the law. They need to know which stage the caller is describing, what to write down, and when to wake an attorney.
Intake doesn't advise on bail, charges or what to say to the police. Those questions go to the attorney, marked urgent. We don't put bail amounts or county rules on this page either.
How fast to reply, and how to test your own firm, is in our guide Speed to lead for personal injury firms.
Who answers when a call comes late at night?
Someone answers, takes down the basics and hands the case to an attorney through your CRM. That holds at whatever hours your firm chooses to cover.
A family member calling late at night wants two things: a person on the line and a clear next step. A voicemail gives them neither. So they call the next firm on the list.
What we set up
- A line that reaches a live person out of hours, on the schedule your firm picks.
- Missed-call text-back, so a caller who hangs up gets a text right away.
- Web forms and texts answered in the same queue as calls.
- A CRM record for every contact, tagged with its source and passed to the on-call attorney. That's our intake and CRM work.
Who answers
Your own staff, an answering service you already use, or remote intake staff through Naelar. See offshore staffing. To compare an answering company, an AI and your own staff, read legal answering services compared. In our Los Angeles count, most criminal law attorneys we could match to a firm work in a one-lawyer firm, so no second person is there to pick up.
When the caller isn't the client
Write the script for the person calling, not only the person held. Record the caller's name, relationship and number, plus the full name of the person in custody.
Who the firm can discuss the case with, and who signs and pays, is for your attorneys to decide. Put their answer in the script so night staff aren't guessing.
Call recording and texts come with consent rules. Check the scripts, recording and text wording with your ethics counsel before they go live.
Who builds it
Built by someone who has done intake
Before Naelar, Rishabh Goria worked inside law firms for four years. He ran their intake, their marketing and the systems that joined the two.
That's where the habit of mapping every call and every handoff comes from. He works on your setup himself, and no script reaches a caller until your attorneys approve it.
One line holds in everything we build for a defense firm: nothing we build calls or texts a person who hasn't contacted the firm first. Names from arrest lists get no outreach from us. We plan for the calls that come in, which are often late at night.
The work for a defense firm, part by part
Nothing is built, published or sent before your firm signs it off. The work usually covers five parts, starting with a call check.
Call check of your firm
We call the firm, after hours too, and fill in its forms the way a new client or a worried family member would, then write down what happens.
Business Profile and charge pages
The Business Profile, a page per charge you take, and on each page the number, hours and charges a caller sees before scrolling.
Search ads for chosen charges
Search ads for the charges you want more of, and Local Services Ads where Google opens your category.
After-hours line and handoff
Who answers, what they ask, and how the case reaches the on-call attorney through your CRM.
Tracking to signed cases
Every call and form tagged with its source, so you can see which channel signed each case.
What Naelar won't do for defense firms
The California rules behind this list are below.
Work we do for defense firms
- Ads, local search and landing pages, signed off by your attorneys before they run
- Phone, text and form coverage with a handoff into your CRM
- Tracking from first call to signed case
Work we won't do
- No contact with people in custody
- No arrest, booking or jail lists
Who does the work: About Naelar and its founder.
California has rules on this, and we'd rather point to them than paraphrase them.
- Business and Professions Code section 6152 covers soliciting business for attorneys "in and about the state prisons, county jails, city jails, city prisons," and elsewhere.[2]
- Rule 7.3 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct bars soliciting by "in-person, live telephone or real-time electronic contact" for gain, and sets limits on written solicitation too.[3]
Read the rules themselves, and ask your ethics counsel how they apply to your firm.
Working with Naelar: leads and prices
Every lead stays with the firm.
Ad accounts, the CRM and pages are set up in your firm's name, and your firm owns them.
We don't publish prices. The cost depends on which channels you want and how many hours of call cover you need. We never charge per signed case or take a share of your fees.
If you'd rather write first, use the contact page.
If your firm also takes family law or immigration matters, see how we approach family lawyer marketing and immigration lawyer marketing.
Before anything goes live, check the ads, any call recording and the text wording with your ethics counsel. Naelar isn't a law firm, and your firm stays responsible for its own rules.
Questions criminal defense firms ask
Do we need an answering service?
Only if nobody at the firm can answer at night. Decide who answers, what they write down and how the case reaches an attorney, then pick the service, staff or software that fits. Legal answering services compared sets out the options and what each costs.
How soon do ads and SEO bring calls?
Ads can bring calls once they run and pass Google's review. SEO takes months. Our guide to SEO for defense firms covers how long it takes.
Sources
- California Penal Code section 825, reproduced by California Public Law, california.public.law/codes/penal_code_section_825. Checked October 17, 2026. Official text: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
- California Business and Professions Code section 6152, reproduced by California Public Law, california.public.law/codes/business_and_professions_code_section_6152. Checked October 17, 2026. Official text: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
- State Bar of California, Rules of Professional Conduct, Chapter 7 (Rule 7.3), calbar.ca.gov. Checked October 17, 2026.
- Pareto Legal, a law firm PPC agency, "Law Firm PPC Statistics 2026", April 17, 2026, vendor data, pareto.legal/law-firm-ppc-statistics-2026. Checked November 3, 2026.
- Google Help, "Getting started with Local Services Ads - United States", list of service categories, page undated, support.google.com/localservices/answer/6224841. Checked October 17, 2026.
- Google Ads Help, "Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals", page undated, support.google.com/google-ads/answer/17213585. Checked October 17, 2026.
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