Large and midsize law firms invested more in their marketing this year, and budgets at smaller firms held their own, a new Best Law Firms survey of thousands of U.S. law firms shows.
Nonetheless, the survey finds that many firms are struggling to measure their return on marketing investment. And more than two-thirds of firms with fewer than 50 lawyers—i.e., the vast majority of U.S. law firms—are working without a written marketing or business development plan.
Best Law Firms surveys thousands of U.S. firms as a component of its annual research and ranking process. Overall, more than 4,800 firms participated this year, with respondents ranging in size from solo practices to global mega firms. More than 80% of firms answered questions about their marketing efforts.
The survey also queried firms about the types of marketing they use most often and which they view as the most effective. By far, firms said they are relying on word of mouth among clients to attract and win new prospects.
Spending and ROI
Roughly half of the firms surveyed spent 1% to 5% of their annual revenue on marketing efforts during the last year and a little more than a third said they devoted 1% or less of revenue to marketing spend. A small segment of the market—14%—reserved 6% to 10% of revenue for marketing. Nearly all of those firms had fewer than 20 lawyers.
Overall, 35% of firms said their marketing budget increased this year. That includes 63% of firms with 150 or more lawyers and 50% of firms with 50-149 lawyers. At firms in the 20-49 lawyer range, a plurality—44%—said budgets went up. Spending largely held steady at firms with fewer than 20 lawyers and among solo practitioners.
Solos had the highest proportion of firms making budget cuts—24%. Still, most solo practices (56%) said their spending was the same as last year.
Just 37% of firms said they have the systems and technology in place to track the return on investment from their marketing dollars. Roughly a quarter of firms said they don’t measure marketing ROI, but would like to do so. The same number of firms, however, said they are not interested in measuring ROI. And nearly one in five said they aren’t sure what their firms do.
Operating Without a Plan
Most firms are looking for ways to attract new clients, build practice areas, increase their visibility, and do it all for a reasonable price. Having a clear marketing and business development plan and a way to measure results is critical to achieve these goals—especially in an age of increasing competition and rapid technological change.
In spite of this, more than two-thirds—68%— of firms with fewer than 50 lawyers said they did not have a written marketing or business development strategy. For perspective, this encompasses nearly 3,000 law firms and more than 30,000 individual lawyers. Many of those firms realize they are placing themselves at a commercial disadvantage by failing to build a formal marketing plan. Of the firms surveyed, 18% said they were in the process of creating a plan, and another 16% acknowledged that they knew they needed one.
That leaves a full third of firms who say they do not have a plan and don’t anticipate having one. The smaller the firm, the greater the resistance, the survey shows. Some 53% of solo practitioners rejected the need for a documented marketing and business development approach compared to 30% of firms with 2-19 lawyers, and 22% of those with 20-49 lawyers.
On the bright side, last year’s numbers were somewhat worse. Just 25% of firms under 50 lawyers in the 2024 survey said they were in the process of creating a plan or knew they one, and 42% rejected the idea of a written plan outright.
Who Firms Are Targeting
Who exactly are law firms marketing to? More than 40% of those responding to the survey said they primarily target corporate and business clients. Just over a quarter serve general consumer clients. And around 20% balance the two. Size matters when it comes to client mix: 8 in 10 firms of 150-plus lawyers exclusively focus on businesses, while less than half of law firms with fewer than 20 lawyers (excluding solos) do the same.
One in 10 firms rejected the corporate or consumer labels altogether, saying they focus on specific niche practices such as high-net worth individuals or government agencies.
Midsize firms in the survey were most likely to say they are targeting a particular client segment or industry. Roughly a quarter of the firms in the 50-149-lawyer and 20-49 lawyer ranges said their practices are dedicated to niche areas.
A Familiar Client Mix
Nearly 2,400 firms taking the survey provided information about the number of active clients on their firms’ rosters. On the high end, a few large firms reported more than 30,000 active clients. Overall, however, respondents averaged 611 active clients, with figures varying depending on firm size. Firms of 150-plus reported 5,319 clients on average; 50-149 lawyers, 2,092 clients; 20-49 lawyers, 1,356 clients; 2-19 lawyers, 398 clients; and solos, 98 clients.
For corporate and business-oriented firms, the roster tilts toward middle-market companies. With the exception of solo practitioners, law firms of every size said middle-market enterprises held the bulk of the slots on their lists of clients. (Among solos, small businesses ranked first.)
Not surprisingly, Big Law had the most large company clients, and those firms also served the highest percentage of mid-market enterprises. Firms of 20-49 lawyers had the most varied client mix, with small, medium and large businesses each representing roughly one-third of their client base.
Describing the Firm
Best Law Firms also asked firms about their messaging: What are they telling clients about their firms, and how are they differentiating themselves from their competitors in those conversations?
Most firms said they emphasize their deep specialization in specific industries or practice areas. Roughly a quarter of large, midsize and small firms selected this option.
Touting the firm’s focus on client service was the second-highest scorer. In third place were efforts to build reputations through industry awards and rankings. Firms said they are less likely to outflank competitors by discussing alternative fee arrangements or their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Lost in Communication
Similarly, commitment to DEI and pricing flexibility hardly registered in client retention and acquisition efforts, firms said.
And although many in-house law departments are looking to their outside counsel to innovate and reduce costs with artificial intelligence, few firms said they thought messaging about operational efficiency through technology was effective with their clients.
Most firms ranked messaging about “superior client service practices” highest among their client retention and acquisition efforts (56%), with “industry specialization” in second place (33%) and “recognition through awards and rankings” in third (7.3%).
Relying on Word of Mouth
When asked how they describe their firms to potential clients, more than 800 firms provided open-ended answers outlining their approaches.
Examining those answers with the help of artificial intelligence yielded a list of keywords or phrases that firms used most often in their descriptions. “Personal service” topped the list. “Client focused,” “results driven,” “trusted advisor,” “responsive service,” and “strategic counsel,” were also among the most common descriptors.
When it comes to getting those messages out to current and potential clients, the most popular form of marketing is the oldest: word of mouth. More than 90% of firms cited word of mouth as one of their most important methods of reaching clients. Smaller firms, in particular, rely on reputation and referrals. Just 5% of firms with fewer than 50 lawyers left word-of-mouth off their list top marketing options compared to 37% of firms with more than 50 lawyers.
In an age of ever-more sophisticated technology tools and content platforms, why is word-of-mouth marketing still so popular? The simple answer is that works. Fifty-eight percent of firms said word-of-mouth and client referrals were responsible for more than half of their new business last year.
Other Formats
A trio of other marketing formats are also being used by more than half of the firms surveyed. Three-quarters of respondents said they were marketing to clients via their firm websites; 60% are attending and sponsoring events or doing speaking engagements; and 50% are using social media content.
A number of other forms of digital marketing—search engine optimization (SEO), social media advertising, search engine advertising and YouTube advertising—ranked somewhat lower, as did forms of content marketing like blogs, podcasts and e-mail newsletters. The number of firms adopting digital and content options also appeared to stagnate last year, with only SEO marketing showing double-digit growth among U.S. firms.
More traditional marketing options like billboards and television/radio advertising tended to rank at the bottom of the list for firms, albeit with one key, and perhaps counterintuitive, exception—print advertising. Forty-six percent of firms said they still use print advertisements to reach clients, with firms under 50 lawyers far more likely to use print to get their message out.
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David L. Brown is a legal affairs writer and consultant, who has served as head of editorial at ALM Media, editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and Legal Times, and executive editor of The American Lawyer. He consults on thought leadership strategy and creates in-depth content for legal industry clients and works closely with Best Law Firms as senior content consultant.
