Get the Brief, free Log in
Before dawn, a solo lawyer walks to her car with her phone to her ear, past the one bus-shelter ad with her face on it

SOLO & BOUTIQUE · UNDER $2M IN REVENUE

You are the marketing team.

That is not a problem to solve. It is the design constraint. One zip code, a handful of channels, a referral calendar, and the discipline to say no. Coaching, the tools, and the Brief for solo and boutique firms start from that fact, and your first hour with an operator is free.

Book your first hour free Read the playbook
Share of US law firms~70%are 1–5 lawyers, almost none with a full-time marketer
Marketing budget$24K–$180Ka year. $2K–$15K a month, every dollar visible
Case to cash~184 daysfrom signing a case to the first fee dollar, in contingency work

HOW WE SIZE A FIRM

Size is the business,
not the letterhead.

A six-lawyer firm signing 500 cases a month and a trial firm taking five big cases a month have both outgrown their headcount. Go by whichever number is biggest for you.

Revenue
Under $2M a year
Signed cases
Under 25 a month
Lawyers
Usually 1–5

THE REALITY

The partner runs the firm.
The partner is also the ad agency.

At this size, the person writing the ad copy is the same person taking the depositions, drafting the demand letters, and pulling into the courthouse lot at 8:47 for a 9 o’clock. There is no marketing director. The marketing director is you.

The failure mode at this size is not too little activity. It is doing too much of the wrong thing: agency retainers built for 50-lawyer firms, martech pitched at the conference booth, $40K websites, six-figure TV experiments. The fastest path to trouble is buying a bigger firm’s playbook.

What works is unglamorous: one zip code, a handful of channels, a referral calendar, and the discipline to say no to the other nine things on the table every month. The leverage is focus, not spend.

One zip code
Own the map pack, the reviews, and the referral relationships within a few miles before spending a dollar further out.
Six channels, not seven
Referrals, Google Business, LSA, the website, reviews, and the community you already know. The lever is being better at these, not adding another.
Every dollar visible
At $2K–$15K a month, one bad retainer is the whole budget. Vendors calibrated for 50 lawyers are the biggest risk you face.
The first hire is a career bet
A $75K coordinator is a bigger decision than the first office lease. Right, and the ceiling lifts. Wrong, and a year is gone.

WHERE THE MONEY GOES

$2K to $15K a month.
Here is what it has to buy.

At this size there is no mystery about where cases come from: a referral network you can name, a Google Business Profile you half-maintain, an LSA budget you squint at once a month, and a website somebody built in 2019. The honest allocation looks like this.

$5,000 a month

Want it by signed case? The Channel Mix Calculator turns a budget into a plan by channel and a cost per signed case.

Open the free calculator
  1. Local search and reviews$1,700

    Google Business Profile, LSA, review velocity, and the map pack in your zip code. The highest-return dollars a firm this size spends.

  2. The referral calendar$850

    Lunches, CLEs, the clinic, the body shop, and the lawyers who send you what they do not take. Cheap, slow, and still the biggest source of signed cases.

  3. Website and content$900

    A site that loads, ranks locally, and gets the phone answered. Not a $60K rebuild.

  4. One paid channel, measured honestly$1,550

Ranges are Firmatics industry estimates for solo and boutique consumer firms, not audited spend.

THE CASH-FLOW PROBLEM

Most firms do not fail.
They run out of cash before the case settles.

In contingency practice the gap from signing a case to the first dollar of fee runs roughly 184 days. At this size that gap is funded from personal capital, and one delayed settlement or one slow month of intake puts the firm in survival mode.

  1. Day 0Sign the caseCash goes out. Acquisition cost at $1,500–$5,000. Case costs advanced. Staff time spent.
  2. Day 30–90Treatment and buildThe client treats. Records come in. Still no revenue from the case while new acquisition spend continues.
  3. Day 120–150Demand and negotiateDemand sent, counteroffers traded. Pressure peaks on personal cash-flow tolerance.
  4. Day 184First dollar inSettlement funds. The fee is recognized six months after you spent to acquire the case.

WHAT ACTUALLY GOES WRONG

Four problems every
solo and boutique firm has this year.

Not hypotheticals. The four things a firm this size brings to its first hour with an operator.

  1. The cost-per-case math is hostile.

    PI keywords run $150–$300 a click. LSA leads cost $300–$500 in competitive metros. Cost per signed case lands between $2,000 and $5,000 depending on the practice, and at this budget every case has to earn its keep.

  2. Vendors pitch you enterprise tools.

    $2K-a-month CRMs. $8K-a-month SEO retainers. Website rebuilds quoted at $60K. Every conference booth sells a tool calibrated for a 50-lawyer firm and priced like it.

  3. The first marketing hire is a career bet.

    A $75K coordinator is a bigger decision than the first office lease. Get it right and the firm’s ceiling lifts inside a year. Get the role or the person wrong and a year is gone.

  4. You are flying blind on everyone else.

    The firm down the street has a bigger LSA slot, 220 more Google reviews, and a radio spot. You learned all three facts at different times, by accident. Nobody hands a firm this size a market read.

THE PLAYBOOK

The playbook
for solo and boutique firms.

The order matters. Each step funds the next.

  1. Own the zip code.

    Google Business Profile complete and active, reviews asked for after every good outcome, the LSA budget watched weekly. The map pack is the cheapest case you will ever sign.

    Free Do it withLSA Migration GuideRead the guide

  2. Run the referral calendar.

    Write down every source that sent a case in the last two years. Put a touch on the calendar for each, monthly. Referrals are the highest-margin channel you have and the easiest to neglect.

    Talk it throughBring this to an operatorFirst hour free

  3. Fix intake before spend.

    Answer rate, speed to lead, and what happens after hours. A missed call at this size is a missed case, and no amount of marketing fixes the phone.

    Free Do it withSpeed-to-Lead AuditUse it free

  4. Buy small, measure honestly.

    One paid channel at a time, a monthly cost per signed case you can defend, and a rule to stop anything that misses it two months running.

    Free Do it withChannel Mix CalculatorUse it free

  5. Make the first hire on purpose.

    Decide what the role owns before you post it. A coordinator who executes and a director who decides are different bets. Bring the job description to an operator before you publish it.

    Talk it throughBring this to an operatorFirst hour free

AN HOUR WITH AN OPERATOR

The questions solo and boutique firms
bring to the bench.

Coaching is 4 private hours a month with any operator on the bench, and your first hour is free. Bring your team or your agency. These are the conversations that happen at your size.

  1. THE PHONE

    Is it the marketing or the intake?

    Bring last month’s calls and forms. An intake operator reads answer rate, speed to lead, and after-hours coverage, and usually finds the leak before touching a single ad.

  2. LSA & MAP PACK

    Why does the firm down the street outrank us?

    An operator who has run local search for PI firms walks your profile, reviews, and LSA settings against the firm winning your zip code.

  3. VENDORS

    Is this $8K retainer a good deal?

    Bring the proposal. An operator who has bought and fired agencies reads the scope, the fee, and the reporting like a head of marketing would, with no conflict.

  4. BUDGET

    What should $5K a month actually buy?

    The honest allocation for your practice and your market, and the one or two things to stop paying for.

  5. THE FIRST HIRE

    Coordinator, director, or agency?

    What each bet costs, what it needs from you, and which one fits a firm your size right now. Bring the job description before you post it.

  6. CASH

    How do we grow without running out of cash?

    Pacing acquisition against the case-to-cash gap, so growth does not become the thing that puts the firm in survival mode.

Dan JimmersonBlair WarnerErik KullenbergPaco BlancoAmanda JudgeDavid RyanMatt PrinceHayden HaskinsIvan Rodrigues

Any operator on the bench, any of these questions.

Book your first hour free How Coaching works

COMMON QUESTIONS

Straight answers for solo and boutique firms.

Is Coaching worth it for a firm with no marketing team?

It is built for one. The operator becomes the marketing director you do not have, an hour at a time: what to do, what to stop, and what the numbers say. Your first hour is free, so the cost of finding out is zero.

Do we need to hire someone before this is useful?

No. The hour works with whoever runs marketing today, usually a partner and a paralegal. Deciding whether and whom to hire is one of the most common things firms this size bring.

Is Firmatics an agency?

No. We never run your media and we do not sell leads. Coaching backs up whatever you have, an agency, a freelancer, an in-house team, or you, with a second opinion, a plan, and a read on the numbers.

What does Coaching cost?

$2,000 per firm per month for four private one-hour credits with any operator on the bench, month to month. Your first hour is free.

What is free?

The Monday Brief, the tool library (channel mix, UTM builder and more), and every State-of report. No card, no gate.

YOUR FIRST HOUR IS FREE

Ready when you are, at your size.

Your first hour with an operator is free. Bring the call log, the reviews, and the retainer you are not sure about.

Book your free hour with an operator
Meet the operators first
  • Free account to book
  • First hour free
  • Cancel anytime