Built for US criminal defense and DUI firms
Criminal Defense Attorney Marketing and Criminal Lawyer Marketing Software
One page per charge and per county, DUI and record sealing pages written to your state, and Google Ads copy that stays inside the bar rules, all waiting for a lawyer to approve them. Paste your firm website and read the drafts before you pay.
- of felony defendants in large state courts had publicly funded counsel in the last BJS count (1996 data)
- 82%
- contingent fee allowed for a criminal defendant under Model Rule 1.5(d)(2)
- $0
- states with Clean Slate automatic record sealing laws by the end of 2025
- 13 + DC
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What gets written
Rules cited are ABA Model Rules 1.5(d)(2), 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3. Fee, click and lead figures are reported ranges from fee guides and legal marketing vendors, and are labeled that way.
The short answer
Criminal defense attorney marketing is the work of being the firm a person finds, trusts and calls in the day or two after an arrest or a court summons. Because ABA Model Rule 1.5(d)(2) bars contingent fees in criminal cases, every matter is a flat or hourly fee, commonly reported at $1,500 to $5,000 for a misdemeanor and $5,000 to $25,000 or more for a felony, so the cost of acquiring a client has a hard ceiling. Paid calls reported at $40 to $100 each work for felony and DUI work and lose money on cheap misdemeanors. AutoMarketer drafts the charge and county pages, the DUI and record sealing content and the Google Ads copy that lower that cost, from $49 a month, and an attorney approves every line before it goes anywhere.
In the product
What you get
One page per charge
People search for what they were charged with, not for criminal defense in general. First offense DUI, possession, domestic violence, theft, probation violation and record sealing each get their own page, written for the person who was arrested last night and is reading on a phone.
One page per county and court
Arraignment timing, diversion programs and which court hears the case change by county. Drafts name the courts you actually appear in, so the page matches the search "DUI lawyer" plus a county name, which is how most of these searches are typed.
Record sealing pages that match your state
Thirteen states plus DC have passed Clean Slate laws that seal some records automatically. In those states a sealing page has to say what clears on its own and what still needs a petition, or it promises work the client does not need. Drafts are built around that split and the attorney confirms it.
Google Ads copy without the risky claims
On Growth at $149 a month you get Google Ads copy by charge type. It avoids guaranteed outcomes and unverifiable results, which Rule 7.1 treats as misleading, and it never mentions bail bonds, a category Google Ads has banned since July 2018.
Pages that answer at 2 a.m.
A DUI prospect usually decides within a day or two and often searches late at night. Pages lead with what happens next, how fast the firm calls back and what the first meeting costs, because that is what the person is trying to find out before choosing who to call.
Read the output before you decide
The demo needs no account and no card. Paste your firm website and read real drafts written against your own charges, counties and state, then decide whether it is worth paying for.
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01
Paste your firm website
The system reads your site and works out which charges you defend, which counties and courts you appear in, whether you quote flat fees, and how the firm talks to clients.
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02
Read the drafts
You get charge and county pages, record sealing content, social posts and, on Growth, email and Google Ads copy, all written against your practice rather than a generic law firm template.
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03
An attorney reviews every line
Check the statements of state law, penalty ranges, diversion rules and anything that could read as a promise of an outcome. Edit or reject anything. Nothing leaves the review queue without approval.
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04
Export and publish it yourself
Approved drafts export as CSV or copy straight out. They go live on your own site, your own ad account and your own profiles, when you choose.
Use cases
Who it is for
Solo DUI and misdemeanor practices
The lawyer is in court all morning and returning calls all afternoon. The website still has one page that says "criminal defense" and nothing about the charges people actually search. Drafts fill in the charge pages without hiring anyone.
Firms paying per call
Pay per call vendors report $40 to $100 for a qualified criminal defense call. That works on a $10,000 felony and fails on a $1,500 traffic misdemeanor. Organic charge pages carry the cheap matters so paid calls can be saved for the cases that pay for them.
Practices adding record sealing work
Expungement and sealing clients research for weeks rather than hours, which is exactly the buyer that organic pages catch. In Clean Slate states the page has to be honest about what clears automatically, and the drafts start from that split.
Former prosecutors opening a defense firm
A new firm has no reviews, no referral network and no ranking pages. The fastest asset to build is a complete set of charge and county pages, and drafting them is the part that usually stalls a new practice for months.
Compared
How a drafting tool compares to the usual ways criminal defense firms buy marketing
| What you need | Legal marketing agency | Pay per call or leads | AutoMarketer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | $1,500 to $10,000 a month reported for law firm retainers | Reported at $40 to $100 per qualified call | $49 Starter, $149 Growth, $399 Scale a month |
| Pages on your own site for each charge and county | Yes, if you pay for them | No | Yes, drafted for attorney review |
| Answers the phone or books the consultation | Sometimes, as an add on | Yes, the call comes to you live | No, the pages bring the call, your intake answers it |
| Publishes for you | Yes | Not applicable | No, you export and publish it yourself |
| Cost keeps falling as content ages | Only while you pay the retainer | No, every call is priced again | Yes, the pages stay on your domain |
| Knows your state bar rules | A good one does | Partly | No, the attorney review is the check |
| Attorney approval before anything runs | Depends on their process | Not applicable | Built in, nothing leaves the queue unapproved |
How much does criminal defense attorney marketing cost?
Criminal defense firms buy marketing in four shapes. Full service legal marketing agencies are reported at $1,500 to $10,000 a month before ad spend. Pay per call vendors report $40 to $100 for a qualified criminal defense call. Paid search sits beside them: WordStream's 2026 benchmarks put the legal average at $9.87 a click and $131.63 a lead, and criminal defense agencies report $20 to $50 a click for high intent searches and $60 to $180 in the most contested metros. Software that drafts the content instead of staffing it sits far below all three: AutoMarketer is $49 a month for SEO and social drafts, $149 with email and Google Ads copy, and $399 with Bing and Meta ad copy as well. What you give up at the low end is someone else pressing publish and owning the plan.
Why criminal defense marketing runs on a fee ceiling
Most legal marketing advice is written for personal injury firms, where a contingency fee on a serious case can justify thousands of dollars to sign one client. Criminal defense cannot use that math. ABA Model Rule 1.5(d)(2) prohibits a contingent fee for representing a defendant in a criminal case, and every state has adopted a version of it. Every matter is billed flat or hourly, so the value of a new client is whatever the fee is, and the fee depends heavily on the charge.
| Matter | Fee commonly reported | Cost per signed client at 10 percent of fee | What that means for paid calls at $40 to $100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple misdemeanor or traffic criminal charge | $1,500 to $5,000 | $150 to $500 | Works only if you sign one call in two to four |
| First offense DUI | $1,500 to $3,500 in one law school guide, $2,000 to $5,000 flat in others | $150 to $500 | Tight. Speed of callback decides it |
| Repeat or aggravated DUI | $3,000 to $8,000 | $300 to $800 | Usually works |
| Felony, resolved before trial | $5,000 to $25,000 | $500 to $2,500 | Comfortably works |
| Felony that goes to trial | $10,000 to $100,000 or more | $1,000 and up | Paid channels pay back easily |
The fee ranges come from consumer fee guides and law school clinic material, not from an audited survey, so treat them as a starting point and replace them with your own numbers. The pattern holds either way: paid calls make sense for felony and DUI work and lose money on cheap misdemeanors, which is why the cheap matters need a channel with no per click charge.
The paying market is smaller than the arrest numbers suggest
The last time the Bureau of Justice Statistics counted, about 82 percent of felony defendants in the 75 largest counties had publicly funded counsel, and private attorneys represented about 17.6 percent. That data is from 1996, the most recent national count BJS has published on the question, so read it as a direction rather than a current share. The point for marketing is that most people arrested for a felony will never hire a private lawyer, and broad "criminal lawyer" traffic includes many of them. Charge pages that state a fee or a fee range up front filter for the people who can hire you, and they cost nothing per visitor while they do it.
What criminal defense prospects search for
Almost nobody types "criminal defense attorney" alone. They type the charge, often with a place: first offense DUI plus a county, possession of a controlled substance plus a city, probation violation hearing, how to seal a record in a named state. Each of those is a separate page on a well built defense site, and each competes with far fewer firms than the head term. Agency guides report that DUI prospects usually choose a lawyer within 24 to 72 hours, often late at night, so the page has to answer three questions in the first screen: what happens next, how fast you call back, and what the first meeting costs.
Record sealing is the exception to the rush. Those clients research for weeks, compare firms and read everything, which is the buyer organic content catches best. Thirteen states plus DC have now passed Clean Slate laws that seal some records automatically, with Illinois the thirteenth in late 2025. In those states a sealing page that promises to file for something the state will clear on its own is a Rule 7.1 problem, so the page has to separate what clears automatically from what still needs a petition.
Bar rules that shape every criminal defense ad
Rule 7.1 bars false or misleading statements about a lawyer's services, which in practice rules out guaranteed outcomes and results that create unjustified expectations. Rule 7.2(b) bars paying anyone for recommending you while allowing payment for the reasonable cost of advertising and for qualified lawyer referral services, which is the line to check before signing with a lead vendor. Rule 7.3 governs solicitation: live person to person contact is restricted, but in Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Association (1988) the Supreme Court held that states cannot flatly ban truthful targeted letters, which is why direct mail to people recently arrested is legal in most states, usually with labeling, filing or waiting rules that vary by state. And on Google, bail bond ads have been prohibited since July 2018, while ads for legal representation are not affected.
None of that is a reason to avoid drafting tools. It is the reason every draft in AutoMarketer waits in a queue until a lawyer approves it. The software does not know your state bar's version of these rules. You do, and the review step is where that knowledge is applied.
Where AutoMarketer fits for a defense practice
AutoMarketer reads your firm website and drafts the content a defense practice needs and never has time to write: charge pages, county pages, record sealing pages, social posts, and on Growth the email and Google Ads copy. It does not answer your phone, does not publish to your site and does not manage your ad account, and the comparison table above says so. For the economics of paid search in legal more broadly, see PPC for lawyers and what Google Ads cost, and for the DUI side specifically, DUI lawyer marketing and the cost per signed client. If you also handle family or injury matters, the same approach is laid out for family law marketing and personal injury lawyer SEO, and SEO for law firms covers the channel as a whole.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
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