How clients choose a lawyer
- Family law is high stakes. People research for weeks, often late at night. They want to know what happens first, what it costs, and whether they’ll be treated decently.
- Wills: everyone means to, few do. A fixed price and one appointment move them.
- Conveyancing is compared on price, booked around a contract date, often on an agent’s recommendation.
- Employment is urgent for employees, with short time limits, and considered for employers.
- Criminal work is urgent, phone-first and local to the court. Commercial work is considered and referral-heavy.
What Meta does well for law firms, and what it does badly
Meta is good at putting a real lawyer’s face, a fixed fee and a clear first step in front of people nearby, and at reaching people who’ve already visited your website.
It’s bad at urgent work, because people in a hurry search rather than scroll, and at any ad built on the reader’s situation. It can’t see enquiries your practice software doesn’t report, so your plan counts them on your website and logs every matter opened. And ads can show on a shared device: for family and criminal work, keep retargeting general.
First steps that work for law firms
- A fixed-fee first meeting with a named outcome: the client leaves with a plan. It caps the fear of an open-ended bill.
- A short, free first call for urgent work such as criminal and employment matters. It triages fast.
- A fixed-fee wills package: the will plus the powers-of-attorney documents your state uses, in one appointment.
- Fixed-fee conveyancing, plus searches and government fees, with the list on the page.
- A fixed-fee review of one document: a lease, an employment contract, a shareholder agreement.
- A free information session on wills, or on separation and parenting arrangements.
Your plan picks the first step for your practice area. It skips success rates, “aggressive”, “top” and “leading”, stock gavels and scales, and anything aimed at the reader’s situation.
Rules your ads must follow
- Nothing false, misleading or deceptive. Your profession’s conduct rules apply to every ad, alongside the Australian Consumer Law.
- No results claims. No success rates, case results or “we win”. Testimonials must be genuine, consented and about your service, not outcomes.
- “Specialist” only if accredited by your professional association in that area.
- Fixed fees say what’s excluded: disbursements, searches, government fees, and GST if it isn’t included.
- Personal injury advertising is restricted in Queensland and the Northern Territory, to the point of ruling out Meta ads until your law society confirms otherwise. Check your state’s rules before an ad runs.
- Describe the service, never the reader’s situation. Meta’s personal attributes policy rejects “Been charged with drink driving?”; “Traffic and drink-driving matters: talk to a criminal lawyer” passes.
- Lead forms never ask for the facts. Conflict checks and details happen on the call.
Your plan covers these rules in full for your practice area. It’s general information, not legal advice.