Fractional CMO for your law firm: in-house marketing without the overhead. Much of the best commercial work comes through LinkedIn, the founder's name, and referral partners, and the rest through searches that are among the most expensive I've seen in Australian legal search. I lead all of it as one system and measure what every click and every referral is worth.
conversion rate, against a 5.55% average for legal search ads¹
14.1%
Line: conversion rate, against a 5.55% average for legal search ads¹
I'm Joshua David Little. I've run my own consulting firm since 2004, I've helped lawyers prepare complex cases for trial, and I ran the first family-law ad on ChatGPT, before the platform allowed legal-services ads. For a commercial firm, a lot of my work is getting the founder's knowledge in front of the right people without eating the founder's week.
A contract, a shareholder agreement, a business purchase, a falling-out with a partner: running a company brings an owner to a lawyer for each of them. Owners search for the exact thing, ask the people they trust, and compare a firm with a cheaper online option.
At the top of the national range, top-of-page bids for business lawyer run about three times those for family lawyer, and small business lawyer and commercial lawyer aren't far behind.² At those prices, a firm needs to know which clicks became matters.
Commercial lawyer is searched about 2,400 times a month in Australia, about four times as often as business lawyer at 590, and corporate lawyer gets about 1,300.² The busier word is also the cheaper click, so it belongs on your pages.
Online legal platforms compete for small-business work, and one sits at 3.0 stars on ProductReview.com.au.³ A firm that explains what a lawyer adds, for the matters where it counts, gives the owner a reason to pay for one.
Commercial lawyer 2,400 a month · contract lawyer 1,600 · corporate lawyer 1,300 · buying a business 1,300 · business lawyer 590 · small business lawyer 590 · shareholder agreement 480 · franchise lawyer 260.²
Some commercial firms are built around one industry, such as property, and their best clients are the mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and accountants who refer the work. If your firm works that way, treat those partners as clients: keep them informed about the work they sent, and give them something useful to pass on.
Many commercial founders want two things at once: a steady flow of business clients, and a name of their own in the market. One way I work with a founder is to start with one bigger piece, a talk, a podcast appearance, or an hour of recorded conversation, and cut it into five, ten, or twenty short pieces for LinkedIn and the firm's other channels. The founder gives an hour, and the content keeps going out.
The founder's profile, LinkedIn content under each named lawyer, and the partners above come first. Outreach to companies is something we plan together once those are working.
A partner or shareholder dispute, buying a business, selling one, a franchise agreement, a contract that's gone wrong. Each one gets a page written for the owner living it, with the lawyer who runs that work named on it. In Melbourne, Google's AI named four firms for a partner falling-out, the kind of question a dispute page answers.
A business client who comes to you for a shareholder agreement will one day need a succession plan, a family trust reviewed, or a will with a testamentary trust, and testamentary trust alone is searched about 9,900 times a month in Australia.² I follow how your business clients reach your estates team, and build the follow-up that gets them there on purpose.
The accountant and the financial adviser are often beside the owner at those moments. Make useful things for them, things that help them do their own job, and sending a client to you becomes the natural thing to do.
Fast replies and a steady flow of reviews both show up in your marketing: in what people read before they ring, and in how many enquiries become matters. I find where the enquiries you've already paid for are lost between the first contact and the engagement, and train your intake and sales team to win more of the qualified ones.
If your staff run the marketing between files, I'll train them and lead the work too.
Instead of trying to convert visitors directly into clients, we strategically capture their information first so we can follow up and nurture the relationship.
Create guides, toolkits, and webinars that help prospects understand their legal situation – positioning you as the expert before they ever call.
Get contact information and permission to follow up by offering something genuinely helpful, not just a consultation request.
Automated emails that continue providing value while keeping your firm top-of-mind during their decision process.
Continuously refine what's working through data – not guesswork – so your results keep getting better.
Know exactly which marketing activities generate clients and how much each client costs to acquire so we know which platforms to amplify and which need more optimisation.
How each step looks for an Australian commercial firm: A guide for the owner buying a business or setting up a shareholder agreement; a way to sign up on every page and every ad; follow-up that keeps helping while the deal takes shape; testing that keeps what works; and tracking that follows each enquiry to the new matter.
A regional practice that handles business sales beside conveyancing and wills depends on the people who know it. The marketing that fits is personal: material for the accountants, brokers, and agents who refer, a strong local profile, and talks in the community.
A 14.1% conversion rate, against a 5.55% average for legal search ads.¹
About 75 times its ad spend back in estimated case value.⁵
About 11 times its ad spend back in estimated case value.⁵
The system is based on best practices that work across industries, so it adapts to any practice area with customised resources and messaging for your specific clients.
Use both, each where it fits. Australians search commercial lawyer most, so your main pages should use it. The page for each matter should use the words owners type for it, such as shareholder agreement or buying a business.
It can be, for the right searches, if you know what each new matter costs. We follow each click to the first meeting and the engaged client, cut the searches that don't produce work, and put more behind the ones that do.
Yes, by making it much easier for them. We build useful material for the accountants, advisers, brokers, and agents who share your clients, your lawyers share it directly and on LinkedIn, and we keep a record of who sends what. Your lawyers keep the relationships.
Yes. Australian commercial firms are part of my work, alongside firms in the US, the UK, and Canada.
Over video. We hold the assessment on a video call, and our strategy calls the same way.
Nothing locks you in for the long term. I'd rather keep your firm as a client by helping it grow than by holding you to a contract.
Cost follows what your firm needs and how much of the work my team takes on, and we set the scope together after your assessment.
¹ LOCALiQ, 2026 search advertising benchmarks: attorneys and legal services average a 5.55% conversion rate.
² Google Ads Keyword Planner, Australia, average monthly searches and top-of-page bid estimates.
³ ProductReview.com.au, an online legal platform's listing, rated 3.0.
⁴ Aquila's research: Google's AI, a Melbourne business question and a Brisbane planning question.
⁵ Case value estimated from average case value.
A 45-minute to one-hour video call with me. We map your firm's marketing together on a whiteboard, and you keep the map whether or not we work together.
Currently accepting a limited number of Fractional CMO relationships.