Acquiring new clients and growing your law firm has never been more challenging. According to the American Bar Association, there are over 1.3 million active lawyers in the United States, meaning knowing how to get legal clients requires standing out in an increasingly crowded field.
Combined with the fact that clients are more discerning with how they spend their money, traditional marketing methods are less effective.
Instead, one of the most sustainable paths for growing your firm is by focusing on client experience.
Positive reviews and enthusiastic referrals have become some of the most effective ways of generating new leads without increasing marketing budget. When your clients feel cared for throughout their case, they can become persuasive advocates for your business and help bring in high-quality leads.
Below, we’ll cover six strategies for building new client pipelines that are both actionable and scalable. These strategies reflect insights from our 2025 Legal Client Experience Report, which shows that sustainable growth happens when you elevate the client experience and turn satisfied clients into brand advocates.
1. Define Your Ideal Client and Niche
To stand out in a competitive industry, you need to define who your clients are. Most potential clients aren’t looking for a generic law firm.
Instead, they want a law firm that focuses on a particular niche, such as family law, immigration, or personal injury. Focusing on your niche enables you to better craft messaging that connects with your audience.
Understanding how to find clients as a lawyer begins with developing client personas. When developing client personas, consider how different demographics are likely to have different communication preferences and pain points.
For example, younger clients may prefer being able to communicate via text or a secure app and could be put off by a firm that only communicates by phone, email, or in-person meetings.
Despite this preference, Case Status’s analytics show that only 9% of law firms offer a self-service mobile app to their clients, creating an unnecessary pain point for many potential leads, especially younger ones.
When law firms do provide a self-service app, adoption rates are over 80%, creating a transformative client experience while saving firms an average of 1,300 hours a year.
When you understand what legal clients want in this type of way, you can better position your firm as the most obvious choice in your particular niche. By focusing on expertise, a client-centered approach, and services that appeal to specific client needs, you’ll stand out in a competitive field.
2. Build a Strong Online Presence
Your website is often the first impression potential clients have of your firm. Ensuring it is mobile-optimized, loads quickly, and clearly communicates your value and services can help secure new clients.
Slow-loading websites that aren’t mobile-optimized suggest a lack of professionalism, which can send potential leads to competitors.
One of the best ways to get legal clients online is by listing your firm on legal directories like Avvo, Justia, and local bar association pages. Not only do these listings help people find you more easily, they also improve your website’s search engine optimization, so it will potentially rank higher in search results.
Consistency across all platforms is also one of the most effective ways for law firms to acquire clients.
For example, make sure your website, Google Business Profile, and all local listings use the same branding, address, phone number, and practice areas. This consistency helps develop credibility with search engines, which in turn helps improve your rankings in local search results.
3. Leverage Client Reviews and Testimonials
Online reviews are among the most important tools for bringing in new clients.
Potential clients attach significant weight to online testimonials, so you’ll want to make sure you have a system in place for happy clients to easily rate and review your services on popular platforms like Google.
However, it may not make sense to simply wait until a case concludes before requesting a review.
Instead, identify the stages of the case process and set up automated review and feedback requests at moments when client satisfaction is likely to peak, such as settlement milestones or after receiving favorable rulings.
How do attorneys get clients through reviews? Tools like the Case Status Client Feedback Tracker can help.
With it, you can set up trigger points during the case process for automated review requests, which also frees up your staff who may otherwise feel uncomfortable reaching out to individual clients requesting reviews.
A client feedback tracker also lets you identify detractors early and intervene in order to improve their experience. With effective reputation management you can drive law firm growth while ensuring your clients receive excellent service during every stage of their case.
Our Client Feedback Tracker can help you in the following ways:
4. Implement a Client-Centric Communication Strategy
Legal proceedings can be stressful for clients, which is why regular communication is essential for building trust and reducing anxiety.
In fact, Case Status analytics show that 1 in 4 clients feel anxious not knowing what is happening with their case, yet only 35% of law firms actually measure their response time.
By developing a communication strategy that puts clients first, you can improve client retention and satisfaction. Using a secure messaging platform enables your firm to send automatic updates to clients and reduce their anxiety (even outside of business hours!).
With AI-powered tools, you can better track your response time and more easily identify gaps in communication that may be leaving clients feeling out of the loop.
The best legal client portals also provide clients with flexibility while also ensuring security. For example, our Mobile Client Portal gives clients the feeling of more control over their case, such as by providing access to self-service case information.
This greater client control makes keeping informed of their case easier on their terms and timelines, while still keeping important case information on a secure portal.
5. Utilize Content Marketing to Showcase Expertise
Content marketing, such as blog posts, webinars, and social media, allows your firm to demonstrate expertise in your niche area while providing real value to potential clients researching legal information.
Most people find lawyers through a combination of local search results, social media, referrals, and online reviews. Your content marketing strategy should focus on these high-impact areas.
How to get clients as a lawyer through content marketing begins with understanding what questions clients are most likely to search for. Content should address comment client concerns relevant to your practice area, which are also high-intent keywords.
For example, a personal injury law firm should have a blog post, video, or social media post that directly addresses the question, “What to do after a car accident?”
Your content should strive to provide detailed and useful information, which will help you build trust with your audience. Because trust is one of the most important qualities potential clients look for, it’s essential for developing new leads.
Plus, the more your audience engages with your content, the better your search engine optimization will be, which will help you climb higher in Google’s rankings.
Remember that effective content marketing takes time and it may require several months before you see results.
You should focus on developing a consistent schedule for publishing new content, which will slowly grow into a library of useful content that can position your firm as a reliable resource for potential clients.
6. Build Referral Network
Referrals remain one of the most effective ways for generating high-quality leads for law firms. If you want to learn how to get new legal clients through referrals, you should focus on building your referral network by utilizing industry connections and keeping in touch with past clients.
One of the primary ways large law firms generate new business if from their existing client base or client “alumni”. Don’t lose touch with past clients after their case finishes. You can use drip marketing campaigns and mass messaging to keep your firm visible to past clients, such as by sharing videos, blog posts, and other valuable information with them.
You can even send automated birthday and holiday greetings to previous clients, which helps your firm remain memorable long after the client’s case has been resolved.
When building a referral network of previous clients, your strategy will be more effective if you’re able to focus on ongoing communication with happy clients.
A tracking tool, like Case Status, can help law firms identify satisfied customers, which makes it easier to turn their positive experiences into valuable referrals.
Growing Your Client Base Through Superior Experience
Law firms that prioritize creating happy clients tend to win out over the long term.
How to get legal clients in a sustainable way depends on understanding that reviews, referrals, and retention are the result of customer satisfaction, not just the case outcomes (which are not always in your full control).
By integrating tools like Case Status, you can better systematize communication, track engagement, and leave clients with a more positive impression of your firm.
The result of increasing positive customer experiences is more glowing reviews and a higher likelihood of referrals that will accelerate your firm’s growth.
Ready to turn happy clients into referral engines? Book a Case Status demo to automate updates, reduce calls, and drive 5-star reviews at scale.
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