Choosing a paid search agency is one of the higher-stakes vendor decisions a family law firm makes. The wrong pick costs a quarter or two of budget and momentum. The right one compounds. Below are nine questions to ask a family law PPC agency before you sign, and while all nine are useful, five of them do the real separating work. Those five are flagged as you go.
For the complete picture, see our The Complete Guide to Vetting a Family Law PPC Agency.
Certifications, awards, and client logos tell you very little about whether an agency can run a profitable family law campaign in your market. The questions that matter are operational, specific, and often uncomfortable for generalists to answer.
Use these in a discovery call. Take notes. The answers will tell you almost everything you need to know.
1. What percentage of your current clients are family law firms?
You want an agency where family law is either the entire focus or a dominant majority of the book. Specialization shows up in negative keyword libraries, ad copy instincts, and knowledge of how search behavior shifts around custody disputes, divorce filings, and modifications. A generalist can learn your market, but they'll learn it on your budget. If the answer is a vague "we work with a lot of law firms," push for specifics: how many family law clients, in what markets, at what monthly spend levels.
2. How do you build and maintain the negative keyword list?
Strong family law accounts run deep negative keyword lists that get updated weekly, not quarterly. You want to hear specifics: search term reports reviewed on a set cadence, categories of exclusions (pro bono, free, DIY forms, job seekers, celebrity divorces, unrelated practice areas), and a documented process for adding negatives across campaigns. Family law keywords are among the most expensive in Google Ads, so every irrelevant click is meaningful. An agency that treats negatives as a one-time setup task is signaling how they'll treat the rest of the account.
3. Who will actually manage my account day to day?
The person on the sales call is often not the person touching your campaigns. Ask directly: who logs into the account, who writes the ads, who reviews search terms, and how many other accounts do they manage? At smaller, specialized shops you're more likely to work with a senior practitioner from day one. At larger agencies, execution often shifts to junior coordinators after onboarding. Neither model is inherently wrong, but you should know which one you're buying.
4. How do you track consultations, not just leads?
A "lead" in most reporting dashboards is a form fill or a phone call. That's not the metric that pays your bills. You want an agency that tracks conversions all the way through to booked consultations, and ideally retained clients, using call tracking with recordings, form submission tagging, and either CRM integration or a shared intake log. If they can only show you click and lead volume, they can't tell you whether the spend is working. Ask to see a sample report before you sign.
5. What's your process for the first 90 days?
Good agencies have a documented onboarding sequence: account audit or fresh build, conversion tracking setup and verification, keyword and negative research specific to your practice areas and geography, ad copy drafts for your review, landing page recommendations, and a defined learning period before performance is judged. You want to hear a clear sequence with milestones, not "we'll get things running and see how it goes." Ask what they need from you in weeks one and two, that answer alone reveals how organized their process is.
6. How do you handle sub-practice area and geographic targeting?
Divorce, custody, child support, modifications, and adoption behave differently in search. So does a suburban market versus a dense urban one. You want an agency that structures campaigns around these distinctions rather than lumping everything into one "family law" campaign. Ask how they'd approach your specific service mix and county-level or city-level targeting. If the answer is generic, the campaigns will be too.
7. What does your reporting look like, and how often do we talk?
Reporting should be built around consultations booked, cost per consultation, spend, and trend lines over time, with commentary on what changed and why. Monthly calls are standard, and you should have direct access to your account manager between them for questions that don't wait 30 days. Ask to see an anonymized sample report. If it's mostly impressions, clicks, and CTR with no line of sight to booked business, that's the report you'll be reading every month.
8. Under what circumstances would you tell a firm not to run Google Ads?
This is the question most agencies flinch at. A practitioner who has done the work will have real answers: intake process isn't ready, budget is too low for the market to be competitive, website converts poorly and the firm won't invest in fixing it, average case value doesn't support the cost per acquisition the market requires. An agency that says "Google Ads works for everyone" is telling you they'll take any check. You want the one that will tell you no when the answer is no.
9. What are your contract terms and what happens if I want to leave?
Look for month-to-month agreements or short initial terms after a reasonable onboarding period, and a clear commitment that the Google Ads account belongs to you. That means you keep the account, the historical data, the conversion tracking, and the campaign structure if the relationship ends. Ask directly: "If I leave in six months, what do I walk away with?" The answer should be everything.
How to use these questions to ask a family law PPC agency
Don't send these as a written questionnaire. You'll get polished, non-committal answers. Instead, work through them on a live call and listen for specificity, hesitation, and whether the person can go three layers deep on any given topic. Follow up with "can you give me an example?" when an answer sounds rehearsed.
A short checklist for the call itself:
- Ask the five separator questions first (1, 3, 4, 7, 8) while attention is highest
- Take notes on hedging language and vague answers, those are data
- Request a sample report and a sample onboarding plan in writing
- Confirm account ownership and exit terms before any contract discussion
- Ask for two references from family law clients specifically, not general law firm clients
If you want more depth on evaluating agencies and building an internal review process, our resources library covers vetting, benchmarks, and what to expect at different spend levels. You can also learn more about how ORSA works exclusively with family law firms.
Running Google Ads for your family law firm?
ORSA manages paid search for family law practices exclusively. If your campaigns should be producing more consultations, we’ll take a look and tell you what we see.
Final Thoughts
There are five questions that separate a competent legal PPC agency from one that will cost you six months and significant budget, none of them are about certifications or client lists. Questions 1, 3, 4, 7, and 8 are the ones to weight most heavily: specialization, who actually manages the account, how consultations are tracked, what reporting looks like, and whether the agency will tell you no when no is the right answer. The other four questions matter, but a strong answer on those five is what predicts a productive engagement.
Ask the questions in that order, listen for specifics, and trust what you hear. If you want to see how ORSA answers them, start a conversation here.
