Glossary: law firm marketing terms in plain English

In our state library, code D: we haven't yet checked a state's own text on a point, so the ABA Model Rule, or our national default, applies until we do.

See also: /locations/

The American Bar Association's model ethics rules for lawyers, which most states adopt with their own changes; Rules 7.1 to 7.3 cover advertising and solicitation.

See also: /locations/

Source: ABA Model Rule 7.2

Sending a copy of an ad to the bar before or after it runs; six states require it for ads, after Alabama dropped its filing on January 1, 2026.

See also: /resources/lawyer-advertising-rules-by-state/

Google's public library of each advertiser's ads, formats, dates and payer.

The law firm whose name an ad runs under and who answers to the bar for it; in our work, always the firm, never the agency.

Google's check of who an advertiser is; verified ads show the advertiser's name and location, and who paid for them.

Source: Google Ads, advertiser verification

The share of sampled AI answers that name a firm, by engine, practice, city and language, with a 90% interval.

See also: /standard/ai-mention-rate/

AI-written summaries that Google shows above some search results.

A recording rule under which everyone on a call must agree before it is recorded; about a dozen states use it.

See also: /locations/

Source: Recording laws by state, 2026 (secondary)

Calls answered live by a person divided by eligible inbound calls; voicemail and phone menus don't count as answers.

See also: /standard/speed-to-lead/

The words New York required on most lawyer ads and in advertising email subject lines until June 1, 2026, when its amended rules dropped the label.

See also: /locations/new-york/

A signed case whose originating lead can be matched to a marketing source; attributed is not caused.

See also: /standard/attribution/

The bookkeeping rule that credits each signed case to exactly one channel; by default the last paid touch in the 30 days before first contact.

See also: /standard/attribution/

Total cost divided by total attributable signed cases over a period: the cost of the average case.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

A claim that a lawyer holds a specialty certification; most states allow it only with certification from an approved body that the ad names.

Searches for a firm's own name; often credited with cases that other marketing created, so it should be tested before it's trusted.

See also: /standard/incrementality/

A firm's Google Maps listing; the firm should own it, not its agency.

Phone numbers assigned by source, sometimes swapped per visitor, that tie inbound calls to the ads or pages that produced them.

The federal commercial-email law: accurate headers, honest subjects, a postal address and opt-outs honored within 10 business days.

Source: FTC CAN-SPAM guide

California's consumer privacy law, as amended, which applies to businesses above set revenue or data thresholds.

See also: /locations/california/

Source: California Privacy Protection Agency

California's Invasion of Privacy Act, the basis of many lawsuits over call recording, chat widgets, session replay and tracking pixels.

See also: /locations/california/

The identifier an ad platform adds to a click (GCLID, GBRAID and WBRAID for Google), captured into the firm's records so signed cases can be matched back to ads.

See also: /standard/attribution/

Dating cost per signed case by when the lead arrived: cases from leads created in a period, divided by that period's cost. Used for decisions.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

How much of a lead cohort's eventual signings have usually landed by its age; below 90%, its figures are provisional.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

The public page a firm or agency publishes before claiming its reports follow The Probative Standard, giving the version, windows, data source, base counts and any contract definitions.

See also: /standard/

Stage 2: a qualified lead with a consultation or signing booked for a date, or an engagement agreement sent for signature.

See also: /standard/qualified-lead/

A state law that protects health data at any business size and limits geofencing near health facilities; Washington, Nevada and Connecticut have them.

See also: /locations/

The line many states require with any "no fee unless we win" claim, saying whether the client still owes costs or expenses.

Sending outcomes that happen off the website, such as signed cases, back to an ad platform, keyed to click IDs, so bidding learns which clicks became cases.

See also: /standard/value-bands/

Media divided by leads; a diagnostic only, never a headline.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

Media divided by qualified leads; the first cost worth managing to, because it arrives weeks before signed cases.

See also: /standard/qualified-lead/

What the marketing cost divided by the signed cases it can be matched to, labeled with its basis.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

Google's audiences built from uploaded customer lists. Google bars them in sensitive categories, and we never build them from client lists in any practice.

Source: Google personalized advertising policy

A lead or qualified lead closed without a signed agreement, with a reason code; never uploaded to ad platforms.

See also: /standard/signed-case/

A fixed set of outcome codes (junk, excluded, stage and decline reasons) that every contact and lead carries, mapped from the firm's own statuses.

See also: /standard/lead/

Designated market area: Nielsen's TV-market geography, often used to plan and test campaigns.

Google's matching of uploaded lead outcomes by hashed email or phone; off by default in our work and never used for sensitive practices.

See also: /standard/value-bands/

The admin list, exports and dashboard copies a firm holds so it can leave an agency without losing its history.

The average net fee on a firm's resolved signed cases of one type over 24 to 36 months; the basis of value bands.

See also: /standard/value-bands/

Paying a nonlawyer part of a legal fee, which ABA Model Rule 5.4 and most states bar; the reason marketing fees should be flat.

Source: ABA Model Rule 5.4

Targeting ads to a tight radius around a place; several states ban it near health facilities, and we never target hospitals, clinics, accident scenes or courthouses.

In The Probative Standard, a test call placed into a firm's own intake with its written consent; excluded from every count.

See also: /standard/speed-to-lead/

A pre-registered test that changes spend in some areas and compares their signed cases with matched controls.

See also: /standard/holdout-test/

Page tags that tell search engines which English and Spanish pages are versions of each other.

A signed case that would not have happened without the spend, estimated only in aggregate, from a test.

See also: /standard/incrementality/

Incremental signed cases divided by attributed signed cases in the same areas and period.

See also: /standard/incrementality/

The firm's process for answering, screening and signing inquiries.

Illinois's term, since July 2025, for lead generators, directories and matching services that connect clients with lawyers, with disclosure and certification rules.

See also: /locations/illinois/

The share of paid contacts that are spam, silent calls, wrong numbers, job seekers, vendors or out of scope.

See also: /standard/speed-to-lead/

A contact that passes all five tests of the qualified-inquiry standard, including a real conversation.

See also: /standard/lead/

A company that sells inquiries to lawyers; under the ABA model, allowed only if it doesn't recommend the lawyer or share fees.

Source: ABA Model Rule 7.2 comments

Leads with no live attempt after 24 hours, listed by ID.

See also: /standard/speed-to-lead/

Google's pay-per-lead ads for local services, with a Google Verified badge and a bar-license check for each lawyer.

Source: Google Local Services Ads policies

Since October 1, 2026, a business-hours missed call is billed as a lead when the caller stays on more than 20 seconds.

See also: /standard/speed-to-lead/

Source: Google, how Local Services Ads charges

Ad audiences built to resemble a list of existing customers; barred in sensitive categories such as health, and never built from client lists in any practice we serve.

Source: Google personalized advertising policy

The change in cost divided by the change in signed cases between two spend levels: the cost of the next case, not the average one.

See also: /standard/incrementality/

Media for a segment divided by attributable signed cases in it; used for channels, keywords, areas, practices and languages.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

A state law on automated calls and texts that adds to the federal TCPA; Florida's and Oklahoma's let consumers sue.

See also: /locations/

The smallest lift a test can reliably detect, set by a power analysis before the test runs.

See also: /standard/holdout-test/

Conversion names such as "Stage 3" that tell an ad platform nothing about a person's case.

See also: /standard/signed-case/

In many Latin American countries a notario is a kind of lawyer; in the US, Texas and California restrict the term in ads because it can mislead immigrants.

A recording rule under which one person on the call may record it; most states and federal law use it.

See also: /locations/

Google's all-channel campaign type, which assembles ads automatically; it can drop required ad text, so some states need extra care.

Writing down a test's design, metric and decision rule before it runs, so results can't be reinterpreted afterward.

See also: /standard/holdout-test/

Showing ads only to people located in an area, never to people merely interested in it, so each ad meets the rules of the state it reaches.

In our state library, a rule we verified by reading the rule, statute, court order, bar page or regulator page itself.

See also: /locations/

A person who consults a lawyer about possible representation and is owed confidentiality, which is why uploads need the attorney's sign-off.

A lead that intake screened against the firm's written case criteria and accepted as a potential case.

See also: /standard/qualified-lead/

The five tests a contact must pass to count as a lead: a real conversation, a new matter, in scope, not junk, not a test.

See also: /standard/lead/

Checking reported signed cases against the firm's own records every week, within 2%, and printing the gap.

See also: /standard/reconciliation/

A business that refers people to lawyers; Texas and California require certification, and Florida regulates them as qualifying providers.

Showing ads to people who visited a site before; allowed only where the platform's policy permits it, and barred in Google's sensitive categories such as health, crime and relationship hardships.

Source: Google personalized advertising policy

The firm's lawyer who approves every ad and the upload level, and who signs any bar filing.

A Google search ad assembled from up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions; only pinned text is guaranteed a position.

Source: Google Ads Help, about responsive search ads

Updating an earlier figure because new information arrived, such as a late signing; different from correcting an error.

See also: /standard/reconciliation/

People paid to steer clients to lawyers; California lets anyone sue them for $5,000 to $100,000.

See also: /locations/california/

Basic ad content that some states, such as Florida and Louisiana, exempt from filing.

California's 2025 law, in force since January 1, 2026, that created consumer suits over misleading lawyer ads, capping and uncertified referral services.

See also: /locations/california/

In our state library, a rule taken from a summary or quotation by a legal-marketing firm, law firm or tracker, checked against the official text before we rely on it.

See also: /locations/

Google's personalized-advertising categories, such as health and trauma, in which remarketing, Customer Match and lookalikes are barred.

Source: Google personalized advertising policy

Tools that record a visitor's clicks, scrolls and typing; a frequent target of wiretap suits, so we never run it on California pages we build.

Eight data-quality checks, on page one of every Probative report, that decide whether results are good enough to act on.

See also: /standard/signal-health/

An engagement agreement executed by the client and recorded in the firm's own system; for non-injury practices, a retained client.

See also: /standard/signed-case/

Days from a lead's first contact to its signed date, reported as the median and 80th percentile.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

Dating cost per signed case by when cases signed, whatever their lead date; used to reconcile with the firm's records.

See also: /standard/cost-per-signed-case/

Contact a lawyer starts with a specific person about their legal matter; live solicitation is banned almost everywhere, and many states add waiting periods after injuries.

Source: ABA Model Rule 7.3 comments

Minutes from an inquiry to the firm's first live attempt to reach the person.

See also: /standard/speed-to-lead/

The probability of signing within 90 days, given a lead's stage, case type and language, times its value band.

See also: /standard/value-bands/

A test that turns a channel's budget down or up in some areas, rather than off, to measure the cost of the next case.

See also: /standard/holdout-test/

A comparison built from weighted control areas, used to estimate what would have happened in test areas without the change.

See also: /standard/holdout-test/

The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act: autodialed, prerecorded and AI-voice marketing calls and texts need prior express written consent.

Source: 47 CFR 64.1200

A client's statement about a lawyer's work; states limit them, Arkansas treats them as misleading in ads, and the FTC bans fake or bought reviews.

Source: FTC Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule

Probative's free, versioned rulebook for counting signed cases and their cost, published under CC BY-ND 4.0.

See also: /standard/

Writing copy natively in another language for meaning and culture, rather than translating it word for word.

Up to four case-value groups, built from a firm's own closed cases, that tell ad platforms which leads matter most.

See also: /standard/value-bands/

The days a lawyer must wait after an injury or accident before targeted contact: 30 in many states, 21 in Alabama, 31 in Texas, 40 in Connecticut, and 45 after air and rail accidents nationwide.

See also: /resources/lawyer-advertising-rules-by-state/