TLOMA Today

Choosing the right digital marketing partner can make or break your online growth. The right team will help you attract qualified leads, build visibility, and track results that truly matter. The wrong one? They’ll show you surface-level metrics that look great on paper but do little for your bottom line.

Whether you’re evaluating a new partner or auditing your current one, here are five key questions every law firm (or company) should ask their Digital Ads and SEO provider to ensure your marketing dollars are driving real results.

1. How are you measuring success—and can I see the metrics that actually matter?

It’s easy for agencies to show big numbers like impressions or clicks. But those metrics don’t always translate into new clients.

Ask your provider which KPIs they’re focusing on and how those tie back to real business outcomes. For law firms,

• Qualified leads
• Cost-per-lead
• Call tracking and form submissions
• Local search rankings
• Retained cases tied to marketing sources

Pro tip: Ask for a monthly performance dashboard that connects marketing data directly to inquiries and signed cases. Because let’s face it—traffic is great, but clients are better.

2. What’s our ROI or cost-per-lead compared to industry benchmarks?

This question keeps your agency accountable for both spend efficiency and tracking accuracy.

Legal marketing is competitive—and expensive. With some of the highest cost-per-click (CPC) rates in digital advertising, it’s critical to know how your campaigns stack up.

Ask your provider to show how your cost-per-lead and ROI compares to other firms in similar practice areas. For example, personal injury firms will have very different benchmarks than family or immigration law practices.

If you’re spending thousands a month but can’t see how that compares to what’s typical in your space, something’s missing. The right partner will not only have that data—they’ll show how they’re improving it over time.

Ask for a monthly or quarterly report that includes benchmark comparisons and shows improvement over time.

3. What’s the breakdown between branded and non-branded search traffic?

Here’s an insider secret: many agencies pad their SEO and Ads results with branded traffic (people already searching your business by name).

That’s not growth—that’s maintenance.

Ask your provider for the split between branded (people who already know you) and non-branded (new potential customers discovering you). Growth happens in that non-branded zone, where new people find you through search terms like “personal injury lawyer near me” instead of “Smith & Partners Law.”

If they can’t give you that breakdown, they might be taking too much credit for traffic you already earned.

4. Can you show me what competitors are doing—and what we’re testing next?

A good agency should always be curious. A great one should be experimenting.

Ask to see competitor insights: which keywords others are ranking for, what ad copy is working for them, and where your brand has an opportunity to stand out.

Even more importantly, ask what you’re testing next. That could mean:

• A/B testing ad creative
• Trying new landing page layouts
• Experimenting with fresh SEO content

If there’s no clear testing roadmap, you might be stuck in “set it and forget it” territory—and your competitors will thank you for it.

5. How are you improving conversion rates—not just traffic volume?

Getting visitors to your website is only half the battle. Converting them into clients is where the real ROI (return-on-investment) happens.

Your provider should be actively running conversion rate optimization (CRO) efforts, such as:

• Adjusting landing page layouts and messaging
• Adding or refining call tracking and live chat integrations
• Simplifying intake forms
• Testing different contact options or calls-to-action

Ask for real examples of how their CRO work has reduced your cost per case or increased booked consultations.

The Bottom Line

The best law firm marketing partners don’t just deliver clicks—they deliver clients.

By asking these five questions, you’ll gain clarity on what’s driving results, hold your agency accountable, and ensure your marketing investment is tied to measurable business outcomes.

At Jelly, we love these kinds of conversations. We believe transparency builds trust—and that great marketing should always connect back to real business growth.

Want to know where your law firm stands?

Get a free Digital Ads and SEO Audit from Jelly Marketing and see exactly how your campaigns are performing, where competitors are winning, and what opportunities you’re missing. Or, feel free to download the checklist below with a comprehensive list of questions you should be asking your marketing team.

2025 forced hiring managers to adjust how they think about legal support recruitment. At Forge Recruitment, we found that candidate salary expectations remained elevated, yet most firms held firm on compensation and raised their expectations around candidate experience and capability. At the same time, remote work flexibility continued to tighten, with four days in office becoming standard across many mid sized and large firms. All of this unfolded against a backdrop of economic uncertainty.

From a compensation standpoint, the general market ranges that we saw were relatively consistent with previous years. However, what was unique in 2025 was that we found firms were rarely willing to exceed the top end of their salary ranges to secure talent. The upper end was more guarded than in previous years.

As a result, many offers presented to candidates amounted to lateral compensation or only a modest increase. In these situations, we often found that candidates chose to remain with their current employer and, in some cases, accepted counteroffers, as the salary uplift was not compelling enough to justify a move. This was especially true with candidates gainfully employed (passive candidates) who were not actively looking and did not have a pressing need to change roles.

Economic caution also shaped candidate behaviour. We found that many experienced legal assistants and law clerks who were well compensated and stable in their current roles chose not to explore new opportunities. The risk of being last in and first out if the economy tightened created hesitation.

As a result, firms often competed over a smaller pool of active job seekers. The strongest candidates were not moving unless presented with a compelling reason.

This leads us directly into what must change for firms to hire effectively in 2026.  If salary and remote work flexibility are not the levers that win talent, firms must compete on what candidates increasingly value: career progression, learning opportunity, and skill expansion. Legal support professionals want exposure to files, varied workflow, responsibility growth, and a path forward. They want to know what the role can become, not only what it is today.

We saw this clearly in our recruitment practice throughout the year. For example, we conducted a number of searches for employment law firms that considered candidates from personal injury, estates litigation, commercial litigation, or general civil litigation.  For these searches we ultimately attracted more interest from candidates and filled vacancies faster. Similarly, commercial litigation searches progressed well when firms were open to law clerks and legal assistants coming from adjacent litigation backgrounds.

In both cases, compensation and work-from-home arrangements were fairly lateral, but candidates were motivated by the opportunity to learn a new area and build their capabilities. Growth, not dollars, drove candidate decisions.  While I appreciate that this is not feasible in all searches, where it can be applied, candidate pools become larger and time-to-fill timelines shorten. 

To combat the economic uncertainty, we found that firms that can show they are busy, growing, and consistently bringing in work have an additional advantage. In an uncertain economy, passive candidates want to know that they are joining a secure and stable environment. Demonstrating workflow volume, new matters, or team expansion reduces the perceived risk that keeps strong candidates from moving. For example, we conducted a search for a boutique firm this past year in which we were encouraged to highlight to prospective candidates that the firm was bringing on 2 new lawyers in the coming weeks, which is reason for the legal assistant vacancy. 

Despite all of this, your hiring process also matters. In my opinion, a single interview does not give candidates enough understanding or connection to confidently accept a lateral offer. A two-stage interview process creates space to meet more of the team, gain clarity around expectations, hear the firm’s vision, and understand how the role evolves. It allows the candidate to picture themselves there and see long term value.  You cannot reasonably expect a passive candidate to leave their current employer after a single 45-minute meeting, especially if they are relatively happy. 

For hiring in 2026, success will depend less on what firms pay and more on what they can offer in experience and trajectory. Going forward, firms that secure the best talent will be those that present a compelling opportunity. Hiring managers who communicate growth pathways, learning opportunities, workflow strength, and the firm’s direction will stand out. Legal assistants and law clerks are choosing roles that feel meaningful, stable, and progressive. Given recent trends, it is unrealistic to expect salary and hybrid flexibility alone to secure a candidate. The firms that win talent in 2026 will be those who communicate growth, show stability, and give candidates a path worth moving for.

The headline change in 2025: marketing is now a systems discipline

In 2025, legal marketing moved further away from “campaigns” and deeper into systems: systems that capture demand, build trust, prove credibility, and convert interest into consultations (and consultations into retained files). The firms that performed best weren’t necessarily the loudest; they were the most operationally consistent: tighter intake, clearer positioning, better content standards, and smarter measurement.

That shift was accelerated by two forces:

1. AI becoming normal inside firms, and
2. search behaviour changing outside firms.

Both are reshaping what “effective” legal marketing looks like.

1) AI stopped being a novelty and became infrastructure

By 2025, AI use inside legal teams was no longer fringe. Clio’s reporting shows AI adoption remains high among legal professionals (their published figures include 79% usage). At the same time, Thomson Reuters’ survey findings frequently cited across the industry show 63% of lawyers have used AI, but only 12% use it regularly: a gap that matters because “trying AI” and “operationalizing AI” are not the same thing. Reuters

What changed in legal marketing because of AI?

In 2025, marketing teams increasingly used AI for:

• Content acceleration (outlines, first drafts, repurposing, content ops)

• SEO workflows (topic clustering, FAQ mapping, internal linking plans)

• Pitch + proposal support (first-pass drafts, competitor snapshots, case study structuring)

• Client experience (faster response templates, better follow-up sequences, intake scripting)

However, the real change wasn’t speed, it was standards. The firms that benefited most put guardrails in place: voice, claims, review processes, and a clear “human in the loop” policy.

What to watch for in 2026?

Expect more pressure for AI governance: documented review practices, citation discipline, and clear internal rules about what AI can and can’t draft (especially in regulated practice areas and sensitive matters). AI will remain a productivity lever, but credibility will be the differentiator.

2) SEO shifted from “rankings” to “visibility without clicks”

In 2025, SEO became more important, precisely because of AI.

Search behaviour is no longer limited to “ten blue links.” Prospective clients are now asking legal questions directly inside Google’s AI experiences, tools like Gemini, and conversational platforms such as ChatGPT. These systems don’t simply list websites; they summarize, synthesize, and recommend information based on what they understand to be credible, authoritative, and consistently visible across the web.

This marks a fundamental shift:
SEO is no longer just about ranking for keywords: it’s about training the internet to recognize your firm as a trusted source.

Why AI has made SEO more critical, not less?

AI-driven search tools rely on signals that SEO has always influenced, but now at a deeper level:

• Clear topical authority

• Consistent explanations of legal concepts

• Demonstrated experience and credibility

• Repetition of expertise across multiple trusted surfaces (your site, media, profiles, citations)

In other words, AI systems need structured, reliable content to pull from and that content still comes from well-optimized websites.

Google now publishes guidance for how sites may appear in AI-generated experiences (including AI Overviews and AI Mode), reinforcing that traditional SEO best practices still matter, but must be executed with clarity and depth rather than keyword stuffing.

Industry data shows just how fluid this environment remains. Semrush reported that AI Overviews appeared for 6.49% of keywords in January 2025, surged to nearly 25% by July, and then declined to 15.69% by November: a sign that AI-driven search is evolving rapidly, not disappearing.

At the same time, click behaviour is changing. A Seer Interactive study summarized by Search Engine Land found that for informational queries featuring AI Overviews, organic click-through rates dropped by 61% since mid-2024 (with paid clicks down 68%). This doesn’t mean SEO is weaker, it means its role has changed.

What changed in SEO for law firms in 2025?

Successful law firm SEO in 2025 focused less on traffic volume and more on authoritative presence:

• Owning the answer
  Structuring content so AI systems (and humans) can clearly understand legal explanations through FAQs, headings, summaries, and plain-language clarity.

• Demonstrating real E-E-A-T
  Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness became non-negotiable. This showed up through detailed lawyer bios, practice-specific experience, authorship, and editorial standards—not generic blog content.

• Local and practice relevance
  Google Business Profiles, reviews, consistent NAP data, and strong practice-area alignment mattered more than ever in AI-assisted local search.

• Conversion resilience
  With fewer clicks reaching websites, firms had to convert better when visitors did arrive—clear calls to action, strong intake processes, and fast follow-up became part of the SEO equation.

What to watch in 2026?

SEO in 2026 will be measured less by rankings alone and more by consistent visibility across AI-driven ecosystems.

That includes:

• Being referenced or summarized in AI answers

• Appearing repeatedly across trusted sources

• Driving branded searches rather than just generic keywords

• Influencing decisions before a prospect ever clicks your site

The firms that win will stop asking, “What keyword do we rank for?” and start asking, “When someone asks an AI tool about this legal issue, are we the firm it trusts?”

SEO is no longer about winning Google, it’s about being consistently understood, cited, and trusted online, wherever legal questions are being asked.

3) PR, thought leadership, and social converged into one credibility engine

In 2025, PR stopped being an “extra” and became a performance channel because it supports trust, recruiting, referrals, and even search visibility.

This isn’t unique to legal. PR professionals broadly have adopted AI fast: a Muck Rack survey reported 75% of PR pros use generative AI, up sharply from 2023, and many use it for brainstorming, drafting, editing, and research. That matters for law firms because earned media and thought leadership are now being produced (and competed for) at higher volume, with higher expectations.

On the B2B side, Edelman and LinkedIn’s 2025 Thought Leadership research (nearly 2,000 professionals) reinforces that thought leadership is a trust and preference driver particularly with “hidden buyers” who influence decisions but don’t interact much with sales.

What changed in 2025 for law firms?

The firms that grew strongest:

• Built repeatable lawyer-led content (not one-off articles)

• Used PR to create proof points (quotes, features, speaking, awards selectively)

• Treated LinkedIn as a relationship channel, not a broadcast channel

• Repurposed: one insight → article → post → webinar → email → intake follow-up

What to watch in 2026?

PR and content will become more measurable and more integrated with pipeline. Expect more firms to track: share of voice, qualified referral sources, branded search growth, and “relationship velocity” (how quickly conversations turn into meetings).

4) Marketing budgets rose, but scrutiny rose faster

Marketing leaders are reporting budget increases, but also greater pressure to show ROI. In the LMA/Breaking Media 2025 CMO Survey, 74% of respondents at firms with 51–100 lawyers said their budgets had increased (adjusted for inflation). Legal Marketing Association

The implication is simple: leadership is willing to invest, but not blindly. Firms want tighter answers to:

• Where are leads coming from?

• Are we converting them?

• Which matters are we actually retaining?

• What is our cost per retained file?

What to watch in 2026?

Expect a continued move toward full-funnel reporting: marketing → intake → consult → retained → revenue. Firms that align marketing, intake, and practice leadership will outpace those treating them as separate silos.

5) The 2026 playbook: fewer “tactics,” more fundamentals

If 2025 taught legal marketers anything, it’s that the landscape can change quickly and the only hedge is fundamentals.

What to prioritize heading into 2026?

1) Credibility assets
Author bios that prove experience, clear practice pages, case outcomes (where permitted), and visible expertise.

2) Search resilience
Write for humans, structure for machines, and measure visibility even when clicks decline.

3) Thought leadership with a point of view
Not summaries, insight. Not volume, consistency. Use it to reach the “hidden buyer,” not just the active shopper.

4) Intake as a marketing function
Fast response times, strong follow-up, clear qualification, and a nurturing system for leads that aren’t ready today.

5) AI with guardrails
AI will be assumed. Your standards will be judged.

Closing: the firms that win in 2026 will feel “easy to choose”

In 2026, prospective clients will keep researching online often getting answers without clicking, comparing credibility faster, and expecting clarity immediately. The firms that stand out won’t rely on one channel. They’ll look cohesive: consistent voice, visible expertise, strong proof, and a frictionless path from interest to retained client.

That’s legal marketing now: not louder—cleaner, clearer, and built to convert.

During my career when I was imbedded inside large Canadian law firms, security was always described in terms of firewalls, threat monitoring and penetration testing. These tools mattered, but they were not the whole story. As time went by and I spent more time close to the data, the clearer it became: the biggest risk was not what was coming in from the outside—it was what we were holding inside.

Most firms are sitting on decades of material that no one has looked at in years. Email archives, matter files, network drives, shared spaces, deal rooms, legacy systems and shadow IT repositories. Every file we keep becomes part of our risk landscape. Every redundant document is another potential breach exposure, every duplicate email increasing risk and cost.

That’s why data discipline—not just defense—is the real driver of risk reduction.

A clear eyed understanding of what you hold is the strongest security strategy. You can’t protect data you can’t see. You can’t apply retention rules to material scattered across unmanaged folders. And you can’t reduce risk if you continue to store old, unnecessary material because dealing with it feels inconvenient. Just because you can’t find something doesn’t mean someone else won’t.

The shift begins with visibility. Before any transformation project—whether cloud migration, DMS upgrade or AI initiative—firms need a clear picture of their data. That includes what’s active, what’s important, what’s risky and what’s simply outdated. In my CIO days, we found that once teams saw their data laid out in a structured way, decisions that felt impossible suddenly became straightforward. People stopped thinking in terms of “What if we need this someday?” and started asking, “Why have we kept this for 12 years when retention says five?”

Data discipline also requires lifecycle management. Classifying material at creation, reviewing it during the matter lifecycle and applying consistent retention at closure prevents data from piling up. It keeps systems cleaner and keeps security tighter. Firms often assume that cloud adoption solves this issue but moving data to the cloud without reviewing it first is like packing your entire basement into a moving truck—you’re only relocating the mess, and given increasing cloud storage costs, this mess can mean money.

Another overlooked benefit of disciplined data management is cost reduction. Storage costs, especially for unstructured collections, climb quickly. Legacy systems remain online simply to preserve historic documents no one wants to analyze. eDiscovery collections grow larger and more complex because no one has removed outdated files. All of this adds up.

When firms adopt a mindset of reducing unnecessary data, they reduce both direct costs and indirect security obligations. Less data means fewer decision points during breaches. Less data means faster eDiscovery turnaround. Less data means a smaller surface for attackers to exploit.

With the acceleration of AI adoption, this all becomes even more important. AI tools need clean, structured, compliant data. Messy repositories lead to poor results and increased risk, especially when sensitive information is mixed with unrelated material. Effective AI starts with disciplined data.

The firms that succeed over the next decade won’t be the ones with the most expensive security stack. They’ll be the ones that understand the real risk lies in unmanaged information and act accordingly. Defensive tools are necessary, but they’re only as strong as the data environment they protect.

Reducing what you hold, understanding what remains and managing it throughout its lifecycle is the foundation. Everything else builds on top.

There can be no initiative if one has fears, and fear compels us to cling to tradition. – Bruce Lee.

Lawyers can feel fear; law firms, even to the extent they are close to being organisms, cannot.

Lawyers can feel fear; the legal industry cannot.

But a firm's culture can be influenced by fear because a large contributor to firm culture is lawyers' mindsets, which fear can and often does permeate.

Cultures that are governed by fear stem from a number of factors/influences being felt by the lawyers, including:

• Mental Health and Burnout
• Technological Disruption
• Ethical Dilemmas  (sharper practices)
• Generational Differences (maybe more impactful on the future of the practice of law than AI)
• Client Pressures
• Diversity and Inclusion Roller Coaster

But it is not just the existence of these influences that has raised fear levels to the point of real disruption, but rather a number of influencers, driven by a variety of reasons – not all of which are unselfish. Please do not misinterpret this comment. Everybody has a right to earn a living based on their insights, views, and experiences.

And there is nothing wrong with pointing out an issue and providing a solution. My problem is with the "chicken littles" who only focus on the sky falling, which raises everyone's fear level.

I have not written anything in a while, out of fear that I might slip into this category of negative influencer. But having not seen any overall improvement in the positivity, I thought it was time to re-enter the arena.

Perhaps, to a greater degree today, all of the above sources of fear have been around for some time, and we need to stop focusing on the problem and put our collective heads together to develop viable and practical solutions.

There are many solutions that, given the brilliance of industry influencers, could be developed and shared with the industry, which would create a more positive atmosphere, if not for senior lawyers, at least for the younger members of the profession.

These suggested solutions, which are expandable to fit any firm's culture (and none of which are rocket science), are not exhaustive. Many firms are already embracing them:

• Foster a supportive environment that encourages open communication, collaboration, and respect.
• Offer access to mental health services, including counseling and stress management programs. Consider providing workshops or seminars focused on mental well-being and resilience.
• Implement policies that promote work-life balance, such as flexible work hours, remote work options, or mental health days. Respecting personal time can reduce burnout and alleviate stress.
• Clearly communicate performance expectations and guide how to meet them. Setting realistic goals can reduce anxiety about meeting client demands and performance metrics, including what it takes to progress in the firm.
• Create mentorship and sponsorship opportunities where junior lawyers can seek guidance and support from more experienced colleagues.
• Managers and partners should regularly check in with their teams to discuss workload, challenges, and feelings. Follow-up shows staff and lawyers that their well-being is a priority and encourages open communication.
• Provide practical compulsory training on both old and new technologies that assist lawyers in the practice of law.
• Establish anonymous feedback channels where employees/lawyers can voice concerns without fear of retaliation. Acting on feedback can demonstrate that leadership listens and cares.
• Create a culture of inclusion where everyone feels valued and safe. Ensure that underrepresented voices are heard and provide training on addressing bias and promoting equity.
• Create opportunities for the various generations to share philosophies and understandings of their approach to the practice of law.
• Provide formal training in ethics that reflects the current practice of law, not historical or theoretical.
• Celebrating successes can reduce feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure.

As Marie Curie is attributed as saying, "nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less."

In today’s world, trust feels harder to come by. With blurred lines between authentic and fake, how can you confidently choose vendors and partners who safeguard your firm’s reputation and data?

For law firms, this question is critical. As operations become increasingly digital, the need to trust those we ‘let into our house’ has never been more vital. In our physical home or office, we lock the doors and keep valuables secure. Then, we exercise careful judgment when handing out the keys. When it comes to your law firm: Who has the digital keys?

Why Trust Matters More Than Ever

For modern law firms, partnering with reliable technology providers is essential for productivity, flexibility, and client service. There is an array of companies offering digital and cybersecurity solutions, and new SaaS products are constantly appearing. It’s easy to be influenced by polished marketing or a sleek website. However, behind every organization are the individuals delivering those services. The critical question remains: Are these professionals operating with the integrity and expertise they claim?

Your firm may rely on the support and advice of a Managed Service Provider. But in an industry where anyone can claim to be an “IT provider,” how do you separate genuine expertise from clever marketing?

Unlike law or medicine, IT Providers aren’t externally regulated. However, trustworthy organizations can voluntarily pursue certifications that validate their commitment to security and compliance. The following is an explanation of two main certifications.

SOC2: Independent Assurance for Data Security

SOC (Systems and Organizations Controls) is an independent audit that evaluates a service organization’s ability to protect sensitive client data and maintain system reliability. It focuses on five principles: security, availability, confidentiality, processing integrity, and privacy. For Canadian law firms, SOC2 certification signals that your IT partner has robust, tested controls to safeguard information and meet industry expectations.

ISO 27001: Global Standards for Information Security

ISO 27001 is an internationally recognized certification that proves that an organization has a comprehensive information security management system. ISO 27001 focuses on a structured, ongoing approach to managing risks and safeguarding information. This is particularly valuable for law firms with international clients, as it signals adherence to world-class security standards and a commitment to continuous improvement.

SOC2 vs. ISO 27001: What’s the Difference?

Both frameworks prove a provider takes data security seriously, but they have different approaches.

To illustrate, suppose that you would like to ensure that the building you live in is truly secure. A SOC audit is like inviting a trusted third party to check: Are the locks secure? The windows sealed? Is the alarm system functioning? Are the keys and access methods limited to reliable people? In contrast, an ISO approach is more like hiring an expert to design a detailed blueprint for securing your home. After you implement the design, an ISO representative returns to verify the implementation and give their official approval.

Though the focus and methods are different, there is significant overlap between these certifications. Both verify security controls and risk management, access control and incident response, and third-party vendor security. Both require ongoing maintenance and periodic audits to ensure standards remain intact.

Turn Uncertainty into Assurance with Certification Checks

In a digital-first legal environment, trust isn’t optional—it’s foundational. Certifications like SOC2 and ISO 27001 offer peace of mind that your technology partners prioritize security as much as you do. Before entering 2026, ask yourself: Are your vendors and IT providers certified to protect what matters most?