Personal injury law firm marketing: paying for it lawfully
Personal injury sits inside prescribed legal business, where LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees and binds the firm paying as well as the party paid. So the first question is not which supplier, but what unit you are being charged in. Of 40 suppliers read on 3 August 2026, 12 published a price.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
Why does the funding question come before the choice of supplier?
Because in this practice area the unit of charge is restricted rather than merely negotiable, and the restriction attaches to the arrangement, not to the invoice.
In every other practice area a firm can compare suppliers on quality, then argue about the fee model afterwards. Here the fee model narrows the field before quality is reached. A proposal priced on signed claims is a different kind of object from one priced on a build, and no amount of good work makes the first one into the second.
We are not lawyers and this page is not legal advice. Whether any particular arrangement falls inside the prohibition is a question for the firm and its own advisers, and for a source that states the law rather than summarises it — uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com is the kind of place a firm looks that up, and it is not us. What follows is how we price, why, and what we would look at in somebody else's proposal.
What does section 56 restrict, and who does it bind?
Referral fees in prescribed legal business, which includes personal injury. It binds both the party paid and the party paying.
That second half is the part that gets skipped in supplier conversations. The rule does not treat the firm as the customer of a restricted arrangement; it treats the firm as a party to it. A supplier who is comfortable with its own position has told you about its own position.
Three consequences follow, and they are commercial rather than technical:
- The unit of charge is the first thing to read in a proposal, before the deliverables and before the price.
- A supplier's assurance is not a defence the firm can rely on. The firm's exposure is its own.
- Anything that varies with the number of claims arriving is worth putting in front of your own advisers, whatever it is called in the contract.
What does a legitimate arrangement look like when the unit cannot be a claim?
It is priced on work — a scope, a month, an artefact — and the price does not move when the claims do.
| What you are charged on | What that actually prices | The question to put to your own advisers |
|---|---|---|
| Per enquiry, per signed client, per claim | The arrival of a claim | Is this an arrangement caught by section 56 |
| Per month, named work, cancellable | Time and a defined scope | Does anything in it vary with claim volume |
| Per build, fixed scope, fixed price | An artefact the firm then owns | Who owns the pages and the domain afterwards |
| Per click, in the firm's own advertising account | Advertising inventory bought by the firm | Who is the contracting party with the platform |
| A share of damages or of fees recovered | Outcome | Whether this is a fee-sharing question as well |
The middle three rows are the ones a fixed-fee supplier can sit in. The top and bottom rows are where the difficulty lives, and both are common in this vertical because they are easy to sell.
A damaging admission: a fixed fee is worse for the firm in one specific case. If a campaign produces nothing, an outcome-priced supplier has been paid nothing and we have been paid in full. That is a real disadvantage of buying work rather than results, and it is the honest reason some firms want the other model.
Why is the firm paying exposed as much as the party paid?
Because the prohibition reaches both sides of the arrangement, so due diligence cannot be delegated to the counterparty.
In practice this changes who in the firm reads the contract. A marketing arrangement in injury work is not only a spending decision taken by whoever holds the budget; it is a matter the firm's own risk function has an interest in. Firms that treat the supplier contract as a procurement document and nothing else are the ones that discover the question late.
tealcompliance.com is an example of the sort of consultancy a firm engages when the question is about its own arrangements rather than its website. That is a different purchase from ours and we are not a substitute for it.
What does the same visibility cost to buy instead?
Enough that the temptation towards outcome pricing is easy to understand.
| City | Injury searches/mo | Cost per click | One month bought outright |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milton Keynes | 30 | £139.50 | £4,185.00 |
| Nottingham | 140 | £76.53 | £10,714.20 |
| Liverpool | 390 | £69.26 | £27,011.40 |
| Birmingham | 320 | £57.09 | £18,268.80 |
| London | 720 | £30.53 | £21,981.60 |
Searches and click prices measured 3 August 2026 across 18 UK cities. The right-hand column is arithmetic — volume multiplied by cost per click — and is what the traffic would cost to buy at Google's own prices, not a forecast of anything and not revenue.
Milton Keynes is the instructive row. It carries the highest injury click price in the UK dataset against 30 searches a month, which is a market where paid buying is expensive and thin at the same time. Organic work appears above those bidders without paying by the click, which is the argument for doing the slow thing in the practice area where the fast thing costs most.
What do we charge, and on what unit?
Fixed prices, published, on scope and time. Never per enquiry, per claim or per client.
Price Transparency Pack £890, ten working days. Firm Site £2,400, Firm Site+ £4,200, Authority Build £6,900. Retainers £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term, and £700 off a build taken with six months of retainer.
Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026: 12 published a price at all, 5 of those showed a range rather than a figure, 8 claimed a guarantee of some kind, and 1 offered work with no minimum term. We cannot promise a ranking and neither can anybody else.
Where is another supplier the better choice?
In three situations, plainly.
- marketinglawyers.co.uk and mltdigital.co.uk both rank for this search and both run a broader remit than ours. A firm that wants one supplier holding events, print, brand and search together should talk to a full-service agency rather than to us.
- uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com is the better purchase when what the firm actually needs is the underlying law rather than a website. It publishes no price, which is normal for a subscription service.
- tealcompliance.com is the better call when the question is about the firm's own arrangements and obligations. It is one of the 12 that published a price.
We build pages and we do not manage ad spend. If the firm needs claims this quarter rather than next year, paid campaigns are the answer and we are not the supplier for them.
Before you shortlist anyone
We read 40 legal-marketing suppliers in full in August 2026 — including several on this page. 12 published a price. 1 offered work with no minimum term.
The free report gives you the full count, named, so you can repeat it rather than take ours. It also shows how many people search for your practice areas in your town, and what those clicks cost to buy at Google's own prices.
Get the report — five questions, about two minutes →
No call required. Our own prices are on that page.
Where should I read next?
For the reader rather than the money: personal injury lawyer marketing covers what an injured person reads before they ring, and carries none of the funding argument above.
If the build is the question: solicitor website design and seo for law firm websites.
If paid media is on the table despite the click prices: law firm ppc agency.
For smaller corrections to what already exists: lawyer marketing tips, and marketing plan for a law firm if the exercise is a plan rather than a purchase.
Frequently asked questions
Can a marketing supplier be paid per claim in personal injury work?
LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees in prescribed legal business, which includes personal injury, so any arrangement priced on the arrival of claims is one to put in front of the firm's own advisers before it is signed.
Does the restriction apply to the firm paying, or only to the party being paid?
Both. It binds payer and payee, which is why a supplier's comfort with its own position tells the firm nothing about the firm's position.
How should we price marketing for an injury practice instead?
On work: a fixed scope, a defined month, or a build with a fixed price, where nothing in the fee moves when claim volume moves.
What is the first thing to read in a supplier's proposal?
The unit of charge, before the deliverables and before the total, because in this practice area the unit narrows the field before quality is reached.
What do injury clicks cost in the UK?
Between £30.53 in London and £139.50 in Milton Keynes across the 18 UK cities measured on 3 August 2026, which are the most expensive clicks in UK legal search.
Is a fixed fee always better for the firm?
No. If a campaign produces nothing, an outcome-priced supplier has been paid nothing and we have been paid in full, which is a real disadvantage of buying work rather than results.
Do you advise on whether an arrangement is permitted?
No. We are not lawyers, we do not provide legal advice, and that question belongs with the firm and its own advisers.