Plaintiff-side employment law has a marketing problem that injury firms rarely face: most people who reach out don’t have a case the firm can take. Some were fired lawfully, some missed a deadline, some are employers, some are looking for a job. That’s normal for the practice. It means the screening done at intake, and the filtering done in the ad account before that, is the real marketing work. This guide sits under our Google Ads for law firms pillar and covers the case types, the deadlines, search-term noise, wage pages, Spanish, Local Services Ads and a free intake qualifier.
Case types and fee shifting
Plaintiff employment work covers wage and hour (unpaid overtime, misclassification, off-the-clock work), discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination and leave claims. They differ in value, duration and proof, and they should be marketed and reported separately.
Fee shifting is what makes many of these cases viable. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a court in a successful wage case allows “a reasonable attorney’s fee to be paid by the defendant” along with costs (29 U.S.C. §216(b)). Under Title VII, the court may allow the prevailing party a reasonable attorney’s fee, including expert fees, as part of costs (42 U.S.C. §2000e-5(k)). The same FLSA section says no employee joins a collective action unless they give written consent filed with the court, which matters when a firm markets to coworkers of an existing client: each person decides for themselves.
Fee shifting doesn’t make every case worth taking, and it doesn’t mean every case is contingent. Any fee claim in an ad, such as “no fee unless we win”, needs your attorney’s approval and whatever explanation of costs your state requires; see our lawyer advertising rules guide.
Deadlines that drive urgency
Deadlines are the single most useful thing to put on pages and in intake scripts, because they are true, specific and urgent.
| Claim | Deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Federal discrimination charge (Title VII, ADA, GINA) | 180 calendar days from the act, extended to 300 days where a state or local agency enforces a law on the same basis | EEOC |
| Age discrimination (ADEA) | 180 days, extended to 300 only where a state law and state agency cover age; a local law alone doesn’t extend it | EEOC |
| Federal employees and applicants | Contact an agency EEO counselor within 45 days | EEOC |
| Equal Pay Act | No charge required; sue within 2 years of the last discriminatory paycheck, 3 if willful | EEOC |
| FLSA minimum wage and overtime | Suit within 2 years of the violation, 3 if willful | 29 U.S.C. §255(a) |
Two details from the EEOC matter for intake. Weekends and holidays count toward the deadline. And internal grievances, mediation or arbitration generally don’t pause it (EEOC). Someone who says “HR is still looking into it” may be running out of time. State-law claims often have different, sometimes longer, deadlines; your pages should state your state’s rules accurately.
Search-term noise: the cost most firms don’t see
“Employment lawyer” is one of the noisiest phrases in legal search. The same words cover:
- Job seekers: “employment law jobs”, “paralegal employment law”, “law firm hiring”.
- Employers: “employment lawyer for small business”, “how to fire an employee legally”, “employer defense attorney”.
- Benefits questions: “unemployment appeal”, “how to file for unemployment”, which are often agency matters.
- Workers’ compensation: a separate practice in most firms.
- Free help: “free labor board complaint”, “file wage claim online”, which often lead to state agency forms.
Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns (Google). In the first month, read the search-terms report every day and add negatives in groups. After that, weekly. Ads should also screen: “We represent employees, not employers” in the ad text costs nothing and saves clicks.
Two data rules apply too. Google’s customer data policy lists trade union membership as a sensitive category, so conversions tied to it can’t use enhanced conversions (Google), and Meta bars ads that imply union membership, with “Dislike your Union rep?” as its example (Meta). We send Standard uploads for employment: a click ID, a neutral stage, a value band and a time, never the claim details. We never build Customer Match or lookalike audiences from client lists, and remarketing runs only where the platform’s policy allows. The upload-level matrix has the full setting.
The intake qualifier checklist
Screening is where employment marketing succeeds or fails. The checklist below is short on purpose: it sorts most inquiries in a few minutes and flags the ones that need an attorney today. Ask only what you need for these answers and a conflict check. ABA Formal Opinion 492 advises limiting what you take in from prospective clients at first contact, so a declined inquiry doesn’t conflict the firm out of a related matter (ABA Journal).
Free checklist, Probative's method
The employment intake qualifier: eight questions, in order
| # | Question | Why it’s asked | What the answer does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Are you (or were you) an employee, not the employer or a contractor hiring others? | Filters employers and HR | Employer: decline politely, or refer to defense counsel |
| 2 | When did the last thing happen: the firing, the demotion, the last unpaid paycheck? | Deadlines (180/300 days; 2/3 years for wages) | Close to a deadline: attorney review today |
| 3 | Do you work for a federal agency? | 45-day counselor contact | Yes: same-day attorney review |
| 4 | Which state did you work in, and roughly how many employees does the employer have? | Jurisdiction and coverage thresholds | Out of state or too small for the statute: refer |
| 5 | What happened, in one sentence: unpaid wages, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, leave, firing? | Claim type for routing and reporting | Routes to the right attorney and the right report line |
| 6 | Have you filed anything yet: an EEOC or state agency charge, a wage claim, a lawsuit? | Prior filings change deadlines and strategy | Filed: get the date and agency |
| 7 | Did you sign a severance agreement, arbitration agreement or release? | Can limit or end claims | Signed: attorney reviews the document |
| 8 | Is it safe to contact you at work, on this number and at this email? | Many callers still work there | Record the safe method; never use a work email |
Track the answer to question 5 as a CRM field from the first contact. It feeds the report by claim type, and it lets you tell bidding which inquiries are worth more through value bands. Our law firm intake guide covers speed to lead and after-hours coverage, and the employment intake screening case study shows what structured qualification looked like for one firm.
Wage-law pages by state
Wage and hour questions are specific: “is overtime paid after 8 hours in [state]”, “minimum wage [state] 2026”, “can my boss make me work through lunch”. They are good pages to write because the answers are factual and the searcher often has a claim.
Write from primary sources. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division explains the federal rules (DOL), and its state table, updated July 1, 2026, shows which states set a minimum wage above the federal $7.25 and which have none (DOL). State labor agency pages cover overtime, meal breaks and final paychecks.
Three rules for these pages:
- Only the states where you practice. A page for a state where no one at the firm is licensed invites trouble with both the bar and Google.
- Date every figure. State minimum wages and thresholds change, often more than once a year in some places; a stale number is a wrong number.
- No mass-produced state pages. Google treats pages generated in bulk to manipulate rankings as scaled content abuse (Google). Each page should be written and checked by someone who knows that state’s law.
Spanish
Nationally, 13.9% of residents aged 5 and older speak Spanish at home, and 41.1% of them report speaking English less than “very well” (ACS 2024, Census). Since September 2026, Google matches Search ads to the language of the ad, so a Spanish search reaches only a Spanish ad (Google). Spanish employment marketing needs native writing, Spanish intake for every hour it runs, and the qualifier above asked in Spanish. Our Spanish-language legal marketing guide has the process and the state rules.
Local Services Ads and LinkedIn
“Labor lawyer services” is one of Google’s US Local Services categories (Google). It’s worth testing, with the same intake screening. Local Services charges for valid leads, and you can report a poor-quality lead through that lead’s feedback survey, which Google says may lead to a credit (Google). Our Local Services Ads guide covers the rest.
Microsoft Advertising can adjust bids by LinkedIn profile data: company, industry and job function (Microsoft). For a worker-side firm, broad use (people in your area, in industries you know well) can make sense. Targeting the employees of one named company is something we don’t do: it looks like soliciting a specific group, and a firm can’t explain it well to a bar or a judge. See our Microsoft Ads service for how we set it up.
Declined inquiries and reviews
Most inquiries end in a “no”, and how the firm says it shapes reviews and referrals. Every declined inquiry should get a short written reply the same week: that the firm can’t take the matter, that this isn’t a judgment on the merits, that deadlines may apply, and where to turn. For many workers that’s the EEOC, which says to contact a field office as soon as possible if they’re unsure how much time remains (EEOC), or the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division for wage questions (DOL). Have your attorneys approve the wording once and use it every time.
For reviews, ask every client the same way once the matter resolves, offer nothing in return and don’t screen for happy clients; Google’s policy bars incentives and selective solicitation (Google). When a declined caller posts a harsh review, keep the reply short and free of anything about their situation. ABA Formal Opinion 496 says a negative review alone doesn’t permit a lawyer to reveal client information in reply (ABA), and Model Rule 1.18 protects what prospective clients shared too.
How to measure it
- Signed cases by claim type, from your case-management system, every week.
- Qualified leads as the early signal, using the qualifier’s outcome, since employment cases can take weeks to sign.
- Send qualified and signed stages back to Google and Microsoft as offline conversions, with value bands by claim type. Our guide to sending signed cases to Google Ads shows the setup.
- Cost per signed case by claim type, using our cost per signed case tracker.
What this means for your firm
- Write the qualifier down and have intake use it on every inquiry, in every language you advertise in.
- Ask the deadline question second, right after “are you the employee”, and route near-deadline leads to an attorney the same day.
- Clean the search terms daily for a month, then weekly. Put “we represent employees” in the ads.
- Write state wage pages only for states you practice in, from primary sources, dated.
- Report by claim type, in signed cases, and bid on that.
Probative is AI-first SEO and ads for law firms. See our employment law approach, with employment law ads and employment law SEO, and the pricing page for our flat fees.
Marketing information, not legal advice. Deadlines and fee rules depend on the claim and the state; check with your own counsel and your bar’s advertising rules.