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FOR EMPLOYMENT LAW FIRMS
Two markets in one practice.
Plaintiff and defense employment are two different businesses sharing a practice area. One runs consumer acquisition with class-action TV; the other runs B2B relationships on LinkedIn and at SHRM. More than $23B combined, and almost nothing in common. The bench brings the channel experience; you bring the numbers. Your first hour is free.
THE MARKET
Plaintiff and defense share the practice.
Not the economics.
Employment is the only major legal vertical where plaintiff and defense firms both operate at volume, and their marketing looks nothing alike. Plaintiff-side firms run consumer acquisition; defense-side firms run B2B relationships with HR leaders and general counsel.
Add wage-and-hour class actions at scale and individual discrimination cases driven by precedent, and you have four sub-markets with entirely different buyer psychology inside one bar card.
- Two clients
- Plaintiff firms represent workers. Defense firms represent companies. Different audiences, channels, and economics.
- Class actions change the math
- A wage-and-hour class can be worth millions: Duane Morris counted the ten largest wage-and-hour settlements of 2024 at about $615 million combined. Marketing a small case or a large class costs about the same; the payoff differs by orders of magnitude.
- A real B2B play
- Defense-side marketing runs on LinkedIn, SHRM, and HR-professional channels. Few legal verticals have one.
- Fee shifting
- Several major employment laws, including the federal wage law, make the employer pay a winning worker’s attorney fees. Plaintiff firms get paid differently than PI, and case selection follows.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES
Two businesses,
two spend profiles.
Plaintiff-side employment firms buy consumer acquisition channels. Defense-side firms market through relationships, LinkedIn and trade channels.
- National plaintiff platformLargestNational class-action plaintiff firms spending on TV and digital to source plaintiffs for mass wage-and-hour and discrimination actions.
- Regional plaintiffMid-sizePlaintiff firms serving a metro or state, mixing paid search and content with selective class-action marketing.
- Defense-sideB2B-ledDefense firms market through LinkedIn, HR trade press, sponsored webinars, and SHRM. A completely different spend profile.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau 2022 Economic Census (revenue at law offices with employees, so a floor); Duane Morris Class Action Review 2025 (settlements). No public source breaks out marketing spend by practice area or by side. Tier descriptions are Firmatics estimates.
WHAT EMPLOYMENT FIRMS FACE
The problems specific
to employment marketing.
One practice, two businesses, and advice that usually fits only one of them. This is what employment firms bring to the bench.
Generic legal marketing advice misses the split.
An agency that “does employment” often understands neither defense-side buyers nor LinkedIn thought-leadership economics. You end up paying for the wrong playbook.
Class-action intake is its own discipline.
Sourcing hundreds of plaintiffs for a wage-and-hour class is nothing like handling individual intakes. Firms lose a large share of qualified class members to intake friction.
Fee-shifting warps the math.
Statutory fees mean a case that settles small can generate large attorney fees. Case selection, marketing, and intake all need different math than contingency-only models.
Defense-side wins are relationship wins.
Defense firms compete for corporate accounts one general counsel at a time. Knowing who advises whom, and being in the room when it changes, is the deal.
LinkedIn is a black box.
Defense-side audiences are HR directors, GCs, and CHROs. LinkedIn is the primary channel, and few firms can benchmark cost, creative, or targeting against anyone.
Wage-and-hour TV lives and dies on certification.
An active case against a major employer can support national TV for a year or more. When certification fails, spend collapses overnight. Portfolio discipline is critical.
AN HOUR WITH AN OPERATOR
The questions Employment 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 Employment conversations that happen there.
- CLASS ACTIONS
How do we source plaintiffs without burning the budget?
An operator who has run legal TV and paid search at scale on channel mix, creative, and intake for class-action sourcing, per case, per state.
- INTAKE
Why do qualified class members fall out?
An intake operator walks the screening flow, follow-up cadence, and documentation asks, and where friction is losing people who already raised their hand.
- LINKEDIN
What does good defense-side marketing look like on LinkedIn?
Audience, creative, cadence, and the difference between thought leadership that wins accounts and posts that win likes.
- POSITIONING
Can one firm market plaintiff and defense at once?
How firms running both sides separate the brands, the sites, and the budgets so the motions stop fighting each other.
- ATTRIBUTION
Which spend produced the cases we actually took?
A data scientist who has built legal attribution on fee-shifting economics: connecting spend to accepted cases, not inquiries.
- GEOGRAPHY
Where should we expand next?
Sizing plaintiff activity by state and metro before you commit, from an operator who has opened new markets for a law firm.
Any operator on the bench, any of these questions.
EMPLOYMENT BY FIRM SIZE
Different stages.
Different playbooks.
Employment marketing changes with size, from a niche plaintiff specialty to national class actions and a full defense arm.
- Under $2M in revenueSolo & boutiqueA niche plaintiff specialty with high-value individual cases.→
- $2M–$10M in revenueGrowing firmsA regional practice, early class-action work, multi-channel intake.→
- $10M–$50M in revenueScaling firmsNational class actions and real B2B marketing infrastructure.→
- $50M+ in revenueEnterprise & PEA full-service practice with plaintiff and defense arms.→
COMMON QUESTIONS
Straight answers for Employment firms.
Have your operators run employment marketing?
The bench ran marketing at some of the largest consumer law firms in the country, deepest in personal injury, in the channels employment firms also buy: TV, paid search, social, content, intake, and attribution. Employment’s economics are different on both sides. The operator works from your numbers, not a PI template. Anything that needs legal judgment stays with your lawyers.
Do you work with defense-side firms?
Yes. The B2B questions, LinkedIn, thought leadership, and account-based relationships, are ones operators on the bench have run for large organizations, and the hour is yours to point at them.
Is Firmatics an agency?
No. We never run your media and we do not sell leads. Coaching backs up your agency and your in-house team with a second opinion, a plan, and a read on the numbers. Good agencies like having an operator on the client side.
What does Coaching cost, and how do we start?
$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: create an account, pick an operator, bring your numbers.
When does the State of Employment Law publish?
It is being written now and will publish fully on the site, free, when it is ready. The Monday Brief carries every report the week it lands.
YOUR FIRST HOUR IS FREE
Ready before the next certification ruling.
Your first hour with an operator is free. Bring the intake numbers and the LinkedIn account.
Meet the operators first- Free account to book
- First hour free
- Cancel anytime