Conversion tracking for criminal defense, measured in signed retainers
Criminal defense has the most urgent intake in legal: someone is arrested, a family member searches at two in the morning, and the call happens within minutes. That urgency makes the phone the whole funnel and makes call qualification the entire measurement problem — most calls are out of jurisdiction, out of practice area, or cannot afford representation. The build sends signed retainers from the case management system with the charge class attached, so bidding learns which traffic produces cases you can actually take.
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Getting and tracking leads for criminal defense lawyers
Where a criminal defense firm's leads come from, and why the caller is often not the client
A criminal defense firm's leads are urgent calls, often at night and often from a parent or partner of the person arrested, mixed with bail, mugshot and inmate-record searches that only look like defense leads. Count a lead when intake confirms a pending charge in a court the firm appears in, and store both the caller and the defendant.
'Most of our calls come from the arrested person's mother at one in the morning.' The decision is made fast, often before the arraignment, and the firm that answers is usually the firm that gets the retainer. For tracking, the trouble is that the person who clicked the ad and dialed the tracking number is not the person on the matter in Clio or MyCase. When someone later tries to match signed cases to calls by phone number, the family member's number finds nothing, and the campaign that produced the case gets no credit.
Arrest-adjacent searches leak budget every week. Google does not allow bail bond ads, so people looking for a bondsman, a mugshot or an inmate lookup see lawyer ads instead and sometimes call them. Google also treats commission of a crime as a sensitive interest category, so remarketing lists and Customer Match are off the table and the account has to learn from what intake sends back. The ten-minute check: filter last month's search terms for bail, bond, mugshot, inmate, jail and records, then pull answered against missed calls by hour from your call tracking and lay them over your ad schedule and LSA hours.
Fixed means arrest-research negatives, ads that run only when a lawyer or a trained intake service answers, caller and defendant both stored at intake, and signed retainers sent back with the charge class, matched on the caller's number or the click ID. Our free audit looks at a month of night calls and the cases they became.
Where the leads come from
| Channel | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Local Services Ads | Criminal lawyer services listings for callers who need someone tonight | A missed call in listed hours is charged after 20 seconds, so list only the hours you staff; match leads on the caller's number, not the defendant's. |
| Google Search ads | DUI, drug, assault and other charge-specific searches with their own pages | No remarketing in this sensitive category; signed retainers imported by charge class do the learning. |
| Business Profile | The listing families check before calling, with reviews and hours | One profile per staffed office; the hours shown must match who actually answers. |
| Meta | Little direct intake for arrests | Useful mainly for expungement and record-sealing offers; never build audiences from charge pages. |
| Shared lead sites and directories | DUI and criminal case-evaluation sites such as Total DUI | Total DUI's consent lets up to three attorneys contact the same person, so the first callback wins; tag the source and timestamp first contact. |
| Chat and answering services | Intaker, Ngage and after-hours answering lines | A chat lead followed by a phone call is one prospect; deduplicate before counting either. |
Which calls count
- Count it when
- Count the call when intake confirms a pending or likely charge in a court the firm appears in and a consult is booked, whether the caller is the defendant or a relative.
- Minimum duration
- Duration misleads here, because a bail question can run as long as a real enquiry. Use the intake outcome where possible; if a timer is the only option, set it from your own recordings and review it monthly.
- After hours
- Arrests happen at night and on weekends. Advertise in those hours only when a lawyer or an intake service that can book a consult answers in the firm's name; otherwise set ad schedules and LSA hours to staffed time.
Where each lead should land
- Local Services Ads call
- Intake record with referral source Google LSA, the caller's number and the defendant's name, carried into the matter when signed.
- Search ad call or form
- Intake record with the click ID or tracked call ID, so the signed retainer and charge class can go back to Google Ads.
- Shared lead site or directory
- Intake record with the vendor as source and the time of first contact.
- Chat transcript
- Intake record deduplicated against calls by phone number before it counts as a lead.
Criminal defense · what breaks
What criminal defense attorneys usually run into
- 01
Every call counted regardless of qualification
Wrong jurisdiction, wrong charge type, and no ability to pay are the majority of inbound at 2am.
- 02
Charge classes valued identically
A DUI and a federal case are the same conversion unless the value says otherwise.
- 03
After-hours traffic converting differently
Urgency changes behaviour completely and one bidding strategy serves neither daypart.
Criminal defense · the fix
What changes — Criminal defense
Signed retainers as the conversion
From the case management system, with the charge class and fee.
Calls filtered before they count
By duration and by whether intake qualified the caller.
Dayparts measured separately
Because overnight and business-hours traffic behave nothing alike.
Criminal defense · architecture
The conversion map for criminal defense attorneys
Four steps, with the qualification gate doing most of the work.
- 1
Tracked phone call
The dominant channel. Filter by duration at minimum.
- 2
Qualified call
Jurisdiction, charge type and ability to pay confirmed by intake.
- 3
Consultation held
A real commitment from both sides.
- 4
Retainer signed
The money event, at the fee.
- 5
Charge class
Carried on the conversion, because fees vary by an order of magnitude.
Criminal defense · diagnose
Where criminal defense attorneys tracking usually breaks
- 01
Number-swap script deferred
Emergency callers dial before a lazy-loaded script has run, so the calls that matter most are the ones least attributed.
- 02
Out-of-jurisdiction calls counted
Pure cost, and counting them teaches the algorithm to find more.
- 03
Intake systems that drop the identifier
The call platform has it and the matter record does not, so nothing joins.
- 04
Referral and courthouse traffic
Real cases with no click. Report separately.
Criminal defense · prove
How the work is proven — Criminal defense
Source of truth
The case management system — retainers signed by execution date, by charge class, for the same window
- Signed retainers reconciled per matter against what each platform reports.
- The share of calls carrying a session measured, since phone is the whole funnel.
- The qualification filter agreed in writing before anything is sent.
- Number-swap timing verified on a real page load rather than in preview.
Criminal defense · free audit
What we check in the free audit
- Number-swap script deferred
- Out-of-jurisdiction calls counted
- Intake systems that drop the identifier
- Referral and courthouse traffic
Checked against
The case management system — retainers signed by execution date, by charge class, for the same window
Free30 minutesNo obligation
Criminal defense · when not to buy
What lands in your monthly report — Criminal defense
One page a month, in language you can put in front of a managing partner.
- Signed retainers and fees by campaign and charge class, over a closed month.
- Cost per signed retainer next to cost per call — usually a startling gap.
- Call-to-retainer rate by campaign and by daypart.
- Out-of-jurisdiction call volume, which is normally an immediate targeting fix.
Criminal defense · what we deliver
The flow we build — Criminal defense
Click identifier captured with the number swap running immediately
Callers dial within seconds; a deferred script loses the highest-intent traffic.
Carried into intake and onto the matter record
Through the call platform's session and the intake system.
Signed retainer fires the conversion
With the fee and the charge class attached.
Declined and withdrawn matters excluded
A consultation you did not take is a cost, not a conversion.
Written guarantee
95%+ tracking accuracy
Measured against The case management system — retainers signed by execution date, by charge class, for the same window. Miss it and we keep working at no cost.
From $400 · See packages
FAQ
Criminal defense questions, answered
No, and in criminal defense this is the most expensive mistake available. Overnight inbound is dominated by callers outside your jurisdiction, outside your practice area, or with no ability to pay. Unfiltered call conversions teach Google to find more of exactly that population.
The actual fee, with the charge class attached. A misdemeanour and a federal matter differ by an order of magnitude and averaging them removes the only signal that distinguishes a good campaign from a busy one.
Separate campaigns and separate reporting. Urgency changes conversion behaviour completely, and a single bidding strategy across both dayparts underperforms in each.
It should not be. What leaves your systems is a click identifier, a timestamp, a fee and a charge class — no names, no facts, no matter details. If a proposal involves more than that, ask why.
More on Criminal defense
- Google Ads · Criminal defenseGoogle Ads conversion tracking for criminal defense attorneys
- Meta · Criminal defenseMeta Ads conversion tracking for criminal defense attorneys
- TikTok · Criminal defenseTikTok Ads conversion tracking for criminal defense attorneys
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