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Why Law Firm Marketing Case Studies are BS

Let me tell you about a peculiar phenomenon I’ve observed over two decades of growing law firms through both strategy and execution, its the case study trap that law firms keep falling into. Marketing agencies love to parade their “hero story” case studies showing how they helped Law Firm X achieve astronomical growth through their proprietary methodology, usually with words like, growth accelerator, growth hack, instant client framework and whatever other BS they can get chatgpt to manufacture. But there’s a fundamental problem with this approach that we need to dissect.

The Appeal of Law Firm Marketing Case Studies

First, let’s acknowledge the obvious appeal of case studies. They provide tangible proof points and tell compelling stories of transformation. Research from the Content Marketing Institute shows that 73% of B2B marketers use case studies as a marketing tactic. The narrative is seductive – “We did this for them, we can do it for you too.” But this oversimplified view ignores a crucial reality about law firm marketing.

Now, I could say that as the agency that launched, the publicly listed, Australian Family Lawyers, that their exponential growth was solely attributed to our involvement. What a case study!

But its not true. Sure, we were there, as were other agencies, notwithstanding its founder, Ned Finn, who was ahead of the game! When we first discussed the fact that at that time, despite family law being a national jurisdiction, and yes I know there are some nuances from state to state, no one owned the category. It was ripe and it was ready! And Ned, was unrelenting in chasing that opportunity down.

The point being that theres a case study, but A, there are multiple facets to it, a number of which have something to do with marketing, but thats not the full story and B, its old.

I can tell you that to do what Australian Family Lawyers did 10 years go, will cost you massively more money today!

And I can do the same, with probably 50 other law firms.

But I’m not going to tell you about the 20 or more it didn’t work for.

The inconvenient truth is that marketing success in law firms is highly contextual.

Why? Because law firms, contrary to what many marketing agencies or experts would have you believe, are not widgets in a factory. They are complex organisms with distinct cultures, capabilities, market positions, and competitive contexts. The idea that you can take Marketing Strategy X that worked for Firm Y and simply transplant it to Firm Z is intellectually lazy at best and commercially dishonest at worst.

Let’s break down the key variables that make each law firm unique.

Market Position & Competition

Even within the same practice areas, law firms face radically different competitive landscapes based on geography, specialty focus, and market tier. A marketing strategy that works brilliantly for a boutique IP firm in Boston might fall completely flat for a similar-sized firm in Dallas. Or, a strategy for a Estate Planning practice in Ipswich that worked well, will work for a compensation law practice in Sydney.

Very different breeds of cattle on very different pastures.

From experience, we know partner buy-in to marketing initiatives can vary from 20% to 90% across firms. This internal alignment (or lack thereof) has a massive impact on marketing effectiveness that no case study can capture.

You probably already know, that I’m a huge Belbin Team Roles proponent and I’m in good company, and most law firms according to Belbin, simply put, from a leadership team perspective haven’t got what it takes to grow!

The Resource Reality

Here’s another inconvenient truth – marketing budgets in law firms vary wildly. Marketing spending as a percentage of revenue ranges from less than 2% to over 8% in our experience.  That’s a massive difference in available resources that directly impacts what’s achievable.

Yet marketing agencies love to showcase their most successful case studies, which often feature firms at the higher end of the spending spectrum. It’s like showing someone a photograph of an Olympic athlete and saying “This could be you!” while conveniently ignoring the years of training, genetic advantages, and support system that made that achievement possible.

The Implementation Gap

Even if we accept the premise that a marketing strategy could be perfectly replicated, we run into what I call the implementation gap.

  • Different skill levels in internal marketing teams
  • Varying levels of partner engagement and support
  • Inconsistent execution of tactical elements
  • Resource constraints and competing priorities
  • Market timing and external factors

A strategy that worked brilliantly for one firm can fail spectacularly at another simply due to implementation variables that no case study can adequately capture or control for.

The Time Horizon Problem

Another critical issue with case studies is their tendency to focus on short-term wins while ignoring long-term sustainability. Law firms typically require 3-5 year investment horizons. Yet most marketing case studies focus on 6 weeks to 6 months where everything apparently went perfectly. I can give you amazing conversion rate scores on a bunch of campaigns that we are running now, but equally I can give you some that simply struggle for oxygen because of the competitor mix that exploded in the last 6 weeks.

These type of fake case studies create unrealistic expectations and can lead firms to abandon potentially effective strategies too early when they don’t see the same rapid results achieved in the case study. It’s what I call the “highlight reel delusion” – its like being in a band and judging your daily practice sessions against someone else’s greatest hits.

It’s what Binet and Field call the long and the short. Marketing agencies love talking the short, but rarely do they talk the long. And, the empirical data says that is the long that consistently builds solid law firms.

None of this means that case studies are worthless or that you can’t learn from other firms’ successes. But it does mean we need a more nuanced approach to evaluating marketing partners and strategies.

The Path Forward

Smart law firm leaders understand that marketing success comes from finding the right fit between strategy, capabilities or execution, and context – not from copying someone else’s playbook, which, when you measure it against all relevant factors, won’t work for you.

Dan Toombs
Dan Toombs
Law Firm Marketing Expert