Case studies / Legal
Criminal defence · Four yearsThree consultations booked over a weekend. Nobody was in the office.
People get arrested on Friday and Saturday nights. Most law firms find those enquiries on Monday, by which point the person has already called somewhere else. For the Law Offices of David Gutierrez we built the capture and booking to run without anyone there, alongside four years of Google Ads across three practice areas.
A small firm covering three practice areas on one budget.
The Law Offices of David Gutierrez handled DUI and DWI defence, traffic tickets, and expungement, three practice areas with very different economics, advertised from a single monthly budget.
We were brought in to run Google Ads across all three practices, and to build automated capture and consultation booking so weekend and overnight enquiries didn't wait until Monday.
Arrests don't happen during business hours.
Criminal defence demand concentrates into exactly the hours a law office is shut, Friday night, Saturday night, the early hours of Sunday. The ads keep running. The enquiries keep arriving. And in most firms they sit in an inbox until Monday, by which time the person has spoken to whoever answered first.
The enquiry waits for the office to open.
A form submitted at 1am on Saturday is read at 9am on Monday, fifty six hours later. In a category where people contact several firms in the first day, that delay decides most of the outcome before anyone has read the message.
- Enquiry arrives Saturday, 1am
- First response Monday morning
- Competitors contacted Several
- Likely outcome Already retained
The consultation is booked before anyone reads it.
Enquiries captured and consultations scheduled automatically, at any hour, with no staff involved. The firm's Monday morning starts with appointments in the calendar rather than a backlog of messages to chase.
- Enquiry arrives Saturday, 1am
- First response Immediate
- Consultation Booked
- Monday morning Appointments waiting
Three practice areas, one budget, weekend demand.
The Law Offices of David Gutierrez handled DUI and DWI defence, traffic tickets, and expungement. Three practice areas with very different economics, advertised from a $3,000 monthly budget.
Four things shaped the account.
Demand peaked when the office was closed
The searches that matter most in criminal defence happen at night and at weekends. Advertising into those hours only pays if something is there to catch what comes back.
Speed decides who gets retained
Someone facing a charge contacts several firms quickly. The one that responds first has an advantage that no amount of advertising budget can buy back afterwards.
The three practices cost very different amounts
Traffic and expungement leads came in around $15. DUI leads came in around $200. Run from one blended budget and the expensive practice absorbs the cheap one's spend without anyone noticing.
A small team, and no overnight staff
Hiring for out of hours intake isn't realistic for a firm this size. Whatever handled the weekend had to run itself.
Five parts, run for four years.
The advertising and the intake were built as one system rather than two.
Separate campaigns for each practice area
DUI, traffic tickets, and expungement given their own campaigns, budgets, and keyword sets. With a tenfold gap in cost per lead between them, a shared budget would have flowed to the expensive side automatically.
Each practice visible and fundable on its own terms.
A landing page per sub-practice
Dedicated pages rather than one general site, so someone arriving from a traffic ticket ad read about traffic tickets. The relevance work that keeps cost per click down and the answer the visitor needs are the same work.
Around $2 a click on traffic and expungement terms.
Capture the enquiry the moment it arrives
Automated capture and response on every enquiry, at any hour. Not a confirmation email, an actual reply that moves the conversation forward while the person is still on the page thinking about it.
No enquiry waiting for office hours.
Book the consultation automatically
Scheduling built into the flow so someone contacting the firm at 1am on Saturday could put a consultation in the calendar themselves, without waiting for anyone to reply. The firm arrived on Monday to appointments rather than a queue.
Weekend enquiries converting into booked consultations.
Maintain it for four years
Continuous search term review and negative keyword work across all three practices, which is where the low cost per click and cost per lead came from. Relevance compounds, it doesn't arrive.
~$15 per lead on traffic and expungement, sustained.
Two numbers, ten times apart.
- Monthly budget $3,000
- Cost per click, traffic & expungement ~$2
- Cost per lead, traffic & expungement ~$15
- Cost per lead, DUI ~$200
- Engagement 4 years
Both figures were acceptable, because a DUI case is worth many times a traffic matter. What isn't acceptable is averaging them: a blended cost per lead across these three practices produces a number that describes none of them and hides which one the budget is actually funding.
The part worth copying isn't the cost per lead. It's that the advertising and the intake were built as one thing, because a $15 lead that waits until Monday is worth considerably less than a $15 lead that books itself on Saturday night.
Most firms treat those as separate problems owned by separate people. The ad account is the agency's job and intake is the office's. In a category where demand arrives outside office hours and the first responder usually wins, that division costs more than any bidding decision.
One month in.
"We have been working with Yauheni at DiscoverMyBusiness for a little over a month now. I'm not going to pretend like I know and understand everything that he does, however, our firm has definitely seen a drastic increase in new leads and clients. His platform in DiscoverMyBusiness is easy to use for myself and our staff. The automation he offers is invaluable to our firm. I got to the office this morning and had three new consults scheduled automatically over the weekend with no human interaction at all."
David Gutierrez · five star review posted publicly on Google in October 2021, a month into an engagement that ran for four years.
Four things for any out-of-hours business.
Check when your enquiries actually arrive
Pull the timestamps. If a meaningful share land outside office hours, your response time is being decided by your opening hours rather than by your team.
First response usually wins
In urgent categories people contact several providers at once. Being the one that replies immediately is worth more than being the one with the better ad.
Let people book, don't make them wait
A scheduling link converts intent while it exists. A promise to call back asks someone in a difficult moment to sit and wait, and many of them won't.
Ads and intake are one system
Optimising the account while the follow up sits until Monday means paying auction prices for leads that go cold before anyone reads them.
What went into it.
Six of our services, over four years.
What happens to an enquiry that arrives at 1am?
If the answer is that someone reads it on Monday, you're paying auction prices for leads that go cold before anyone sees them. Give us read only access and we'll show you when your enquiries actually arrive, and what the delay is costing. Findings are yours to keep either way.
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