Tom’s Trek: Gained $50K+ and Ranked #3 on LSA Message Leads—Was It Worth It? - #240

LSA message leads promise more clients for US family law firms—but are they worth it? Tom ranked #3 and got mostly junk. 

Tom just hit his first $50K+ revenue and discovered the 3 signs LSA message leads waste your budget: leads ghost after first contact, conversion rate craters vs phone leads, and cost per signed client stops making sense.

See the real numbers on LSA lead quality, cost per lead, and conversion rate—so you know whether to run message leads or kill them. 

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📄 CHAPTERS

0:00 - LSA Message Leads and Tom's First $50K+ Month
2:35 - The Real Numbers: $28K Profit and a 50% Close Rate
4:10 - Ranked #3 on Message Leads—But the Quality's Junk
8:44 - Jeff's 15% Rule for Ad Spend and Revenue
12:42 - Fixing Intake: Booking Consults From Missed Calls
17:06 - Commission Structure and the Partnership Question

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Transcript

0:00

the majority of the vast majority of attorneys, the title partner is very important, is it about compensation that you want it? You want to make more money to be an equity partner, or you just want to be a partner because you can structure where they can make as much as if they had equity. but you retain decision making, you retain 100% of the talked to a lot of attorneys that run firms, and you would super surprised with how many of them have partners that aren't equity partners. That's by far more common than you see partner. It's more likely than not that they don't have equity in the Hello, and welcome to the Sterling family law show. I'm Jeff Hughes. I'm your co-host, along with Tyler Dolph co-host. And we're back with Tom Hartin again, watching him build his firm from scratch. And we are talking about the month of March 2026. Excited to share what happened. I saw the numbers this morning and I my jaw hit the ground. It was awesome. So Tom, Hello. Hello, Tyler. Thanks for having me back. Yeah. March 20th, 26 was a great month. It was simultaneously my first in terms of top line revenue, my first $40,000 month end, my first $50,000 month. So that was to hit both. I was excited when I had 40 and then towards the end of the month, I was like, oh my God, we were going to hit 50. So came up pretty much just that 52,000 new clients signed, which was which is awesome. 12, 12 hires. So, you know, a couple we always get a couple like small things sprinkled in, you know, prepare an uncontested divorce packet to grant. And those are in terms of profitability. Those actually are very profitable cases because. Right. I'm not going to take anything that's lower than a two grand fee. But really that takes like three hours to do so in terms of terms of, you know, hourly payment. And that actually is a pretty, pretty good thing to take. If I could get 20 of those a month, I'd be pretty happy. Man. They don't come along that often. So yeah. Top line revenue 51,950. So we'll call it 52,000 expenses. I'm separated my expenses, employee costs and Google ads. So expenses between my two offices, my marketing company and then various miscellaneous expenses which are like LexisNexis and all the AI stuff that I'm subscribed to and not fully using yet. yeah, but primarily primarily office space and marketing expenses. And then employee costs 12,000 a month. Again, I expect that that will stay about the same. And Google ads I spent just it was just under 2000. It was like 1927, something like that. So just rounded it up to 2000 for the month, which is very low. And I had very different experiences with the ads in March and April, which we could talk about and then see total expenses about 23 five. So profit just shy of 30,000, about 28,500. So my most profitable month by at least 10,000, probably even closer to 15. Tom, give us your, like, gut reaction to that. Like, how does how is that landing on you and your family after taking this deep dive? it's awesome. I mean it's I don't want to get to two caught up in it She didn't buy a Corvette or Rolex or anything. it's no, no, no, it is. You know, it's March probably the busiest month of the year for divorces in February or March. And just, you know, it seemed like a lot of things were all kind of coming together at once. I had a few consults in January and February that were just kind of stringing along. And then I think within a week I had like 4 or 5 of those clients that did consults in January or February that just called them were like, how do I sign the retainer? And I remember there was one day where like three of those people signed at once, people that did consults in January. So, yeah, that was just that was just awesome. I remember just counting, like every day. I was like, wow, we made that much more, that much more. And yeah, kind of continued into into early April. Not things have tapered off a little bit. So I don't know. We'll see what the next month brings. I expect April to be similar, but maybe a little bit lower. But you know, I'd say at least in that in the 4550 range. And then I don't know, because at the end, the end of April has been a little bit slower. So I don't know if that's just, just, you know, it's a couple of weeks. So I don't want to draw too much data from it, but who knows if it's, you know, the season starting to slow down. But, you know, my Google ads has been so this is this is my question for today regarding Google ads. So do you guys do you guys know when you run LSF, you can turn something on called message leads. Do you guys use those. We do. you do. Okay. So here's been my experience with message leads. And my marketing company that I'm working with was was pretty spot on. They kind of warned me about it. When you turn on message leads you rank higher. And I've tested this I've run the same budget. I've run, you know, not a crazy high budget, right?$2,000 a month budget. If I have message leads turned on, they rank me number three every time, right. There's two. Two big spenders in my area. Pretty much everyone else as much as leads turns off. So they they will prioritize people that have message leads turned on. So that's the plus side of it. The bottom side of it is the message leads tend to be junk. I think I'm like one for ten and message leads. You know they are cheaper. So it's not like I wasted a fortune, but it is that that's kind of my conundrum is turning off the message leads, let you rank higher and you'll get more. This way you'll get more. You will get more calls too, because you're ranked higher, right? But you're also going to get more junk leads. And I don't know if you've how much you've played around with the the Google people can now click on you can message up to four firms at once. So there's a button like message for message up to four firms. Right. So people probably click me and the two other top people they see and send that message out. And I've had just completely random inquiries. I've had people reach out, I respond like immediately within 30s later, and then they say nothing else. So, you know, it's definitely lower intent people than someone who's going to, you know, someone who's going to call is at least putting in some type of effort to, you know, select the firm that they want and, you know, waste ten, 15 minutes of their time talking to me on the phone compared to a message lead, that's just going to blast it out and then say like, no, I'm not going to follow it. So I don't know. That's been my that's been my experience. And I probably need a few months more data to draw any serious conclusions. But it's been, you know, message leads. If I run that Google ad budget, I've even tested turning it up higher to like 5000 a month with message leads turned off. And I'm on average probably ranking like six fifth or sixth, whereas with a lower budget, like half the budget, but with the message leads turned on, I rank like three. Wow, So. you said you think you've converted one out of ten of those leads. Yeah. Okay, so Which is. cost to get that one conversion? I want to say the average cost per lead for message leads is probably somewhere around like 225 to 50. Yeah, it's high, you know. And then the phone calls there, they're like twice that. I would say my average cost per cost per lead is probably on the 400 range for a it's you know it's a competitive market. But they I've had at least in March to have an analyzed data yet I had you know, probably closer to like a 50% close rate. So that's that's good. It's very good. If I could duplicate that I'd run a very high budget. So if you spend 2500 bucks to get that one conversion, that's probably not going to be worth it because I But then if I, if I have that off, then I'm not getting the phone call leads either. Not that I'm not getting them right. So in, in the whole not say in a two week period where I had them off and I had my budget set to like $5,000 a month. So in theory, I should be getting, you know, 12 to 15 leads out of that. I got maybe like 3 or 4 just because I was ranking so low. And I think I converted, like, you know, to two out of those 3 or 4 from the phone calls. a target cost per conversion. I don't yet. I have like a target. As of now, I'm trying to target a minimum of minimum of 40 K a month and new retainer signed. So I'm kind of like seeing where I'm at halfway through the month. And if I need to turn my ads on, then I do it. I think as a rule of thumb, you shouldn't be anywhere north of 15% of your total revenue. I think that's at least a that's as high as you want to go. 15%. So in terms of my budget. spend. So if you do a ten grand in revenue, you shouldn't spend more than $1,500. Okay, okay, so I'm probably probably about that, right? I mean, if my if I'm looking at 5000, I'm probably closer to at least for March, I was closer to way less than that actually. Probably closer to 4% if my. money as you can at 4%, right? Yeah. Right. If. Right. So if I, if there was a way to rank as number three and get only phone call leads, I would I would crank that up because it's helping me target a different market, you know, expand. Right. Most of my leads are very local. So it's helping me expand more into Suffolk County. But yeah, those message leads. And again maybe maybe it's a small sample size. Right. It's ten leads. Maybe I give it another month. I'm not I'm not burning through a fortune. Right. We're talking about 2000 so. enough to make decisions on Yeah I agree. It's just like I would say of those ten message leads, I think seven of them didn't respond beyond their initial inquiry. So like they were like they were really bad leads. So when I say 50% of your size law firm, that's going to still feel painful. But you can you should be able to make your numbers work at 15%. Yeah. And it's again, it's where we're constrained by it's my associate and and half of me. Right. Because I'm still balancing other stuff. So right now we have 6570 active cases which is good. So I don't in my mind if, you know, I don't need to really blast out too many ads right now. But if that number wide, if we close ten cases next month, then yeah, I'll need to do it and just eat, eat whatever it is. Right? It's going to be a game of averages over the long term. Right? So if I spend two grand in March and another two grand in April, maybe in May, I need to spend ten grand to bring in more cases. Hey, family law firm leaders. My partner Tony Carl's just released his book where he lays bare our precise blueprint for growing sterling lawyers from 0 to 17 million. This is the blueprint that we still use daily. And Tony explains it in very simple terms. The truth is, this is not simple to do. Success requires and demands hard work. But if you have the patience and the work ethic to do it, your family law firm will succeed. Have you explored LSA with messages at a higher budget? With messages at a Why would I do So you said you did know messages at a higher budget and got some data. Then you did messages at a lower budget. Got some data. I wonder so messages is a new feature. Google is is incentivizing you to use it, which is why you're ranking higher because they want the data to to know if it's working or not. So I'm just theorizing that if we have margin and you have the capacity to deal with it, the one out of every ten leads being a good one. What would it look like? Just that's a third scenario we haven't explored. I guess I'm afraid if I turn on, if I with message leads and crank up my budget, I'm going to be just getting a whole bunch of message leads. But yeah, you know, it's certainly try it. I think my next my next thought was the only remaining fourth scenario, which is to go for an even higher budget with message leads turned off and see where that gets me. I mean, because at 5KA month they're not filling my budget. No, 5KA week I have it at and they're, you know, they're not filling that. So I don't know, maybe they'll rank me higher. So I'll just playing around with the algorithm. Yeah, I think I go back to Jeff's point. Use the data to make your decisions. Yeah. So I think I'll try that next. And then maybe, maybe I should try a couple of weeks with, with a higher budget. The. with your answer rate right now? For what do you mean for a phone call. leads coming in for Oh, good. Yeah. kind of overwhelmed a little bit with the volume, Yeah. I mean, so I did fix my answering service to start booking consults directly. So that was a big problem we talked about last month where my answering service and that was my fault. I just never set it up properly that basically we're picking up the phone. So Google wasn't digging me for missing calls, but all they were basically doing was like taking down basic information and saying, he'll call you back. At which point a lot of people are just calling another firm. So they are they're now booking. If I don't answer their booking a console for me, which has been pretty good. I've had a had a good show up. Right. Actually today I had someone not show up, but I think since I turned that on, that's the first that was the first one that happened. And you track your show rates. I don't, but you know, it's it's rare that someone doesn't show. Right. It's going to be it's it's over 95%, probably more like 98%, something like that. It's I mean, again, it's I know we don't want to harp on that. Talked about it, but it's it's free. I offer free consults. Right. So for someone to call and say I'm looking for, I might get a divorce or I need help with the child custody case. Do you offer free consults? We say yes. Person's going to. They're likely going to show up. Maybe not. Maybe again. Small. Everything. Everything I'm saying is small. up front for the console before they can even get it scheduled. They've got. They got to pay for I know, and that's definitely a long term goal. But, you know, right now is just to bring in as much business as I can. working for you right now, so don't change it. No, no, I'm not I'm not right now. Yeah. But, you know, I'm I'm doing the kind of another thing I'm having an issue with is people call I'm the one that does the consult because I'm just trying to have my associate bill as many hours as possible. She's my she's my revenue machine. And then and then when I go to transfer the case over to her, I get kind of like a well, I called the firm. I thought you would be working on my case, you know? So that's something I'm working on as well. Just being, you know, it's all about just being more honest upfront Set the expectation. know, making sure I'm telling people how awesome she is because she is. The key there, Tom. It's it's not the handoff. We rarely ever lose cases on a handoff. Almost never like it only happens a few times a year at most. The key is the receiver does something quickly, like a quick phone call, a quick message. Something happens right away. If you let a few days go by then, then the client starts to feel like neglected and they move on. So if there can be nothing else but an email right away and a schedule phone calls on the on the calendar, that saves so much. Handoffs are not a problem after that. Yeah. No, I get that. So and it really hasn't been that big and I haven't lost anyone over it. I've had a couple people be like, you know, uncertain. But then once she shows up at the court appearance, they see that she's a great attorney. And, you know, it's not like there are plenty of firms around here doing the same thing that I am. But rather than putting, you know, a ninth year associate, which which I'm doing on the case, they're putting like a first or second year associate on the case, you know, that's that's a different issue. It's hard to say she's better than me because she's more experienced. But it is kind of the case. words to come out though. So I was I'm a little surprised to hear you got 65 to 70 active files. So that's first. Congratulations. That's great. That my next question is as you think planning ahead hiring another associate. What's that number from an active caseload do you think you'll have I think it would have to I don't know. In my mind it's like 100 of those of those like 65, 70. I don't know, I guess I need to go take a look and see how far along a lot of them are. You know, a lot of them might be closer to wrapping up. But again, we had we had a good march, obviously. So those 12 hires are those are all newer clients. And it's up to her. You know, I check in with her all the time. I see her, you know, she works out of the other office, but I go there at least once a week. I'll see you tomorrow. And I'm always checking in with her, you know. How's your workload? Too busy. Not busy enough. Just. Right. And she seems to say, you know, right now things are just right. So. Well, you've got a terrific first attorney in the door. I yeah, we I don't know. Another issue that we not not an issue, something that I haven't really figured out yet is how to pay a commission structure. So like, how do you guys like she brings in a case. How do you guys do that? So like a referral fee. Yeah, I mean for her, right. Yeah. Well, the broadly speaking, what we do is we pay a certain percentage of collections depending on the position. So senior associates get paid less than partners, partners less than senior partners and so forth. Okay. So that's the first You talked about this recently. Actually, I listened to it. Then on top of that, if they bring in a case from could be we even allow previous clients as long as they're after a year I think because we don't want it to be like the same case, but usually it's coming back on something that's related to the first case. But if it's after year, that tells us the signal is our attorney did a great job, that clients coming back or trusting us and so forth. So we count that as a referral. And again, that's another percentage. And don't quote me on this. This is on the website J. Sterling Hughes, you can go look up our whole comp plan. But I want to say it's like 8% for a senior associate, ten for a partner and 12 for a senior partner is those are the percentages that they get of that. So if they're at 35% as a senior partner on a case, or that's their collections baseline and maybe 33, but it's right in there, they get an additional 12 on top of that for bringing the file back or in the door from their networking. So we want to reward obviously good work and networking as well. Right. Yeah. She's she's got a great network. I don't I don't know if I've said this before, but they are the bar association where she is in Suffolk County. She's very, very close. Like she's very well known. So she brings me to these events and I like going not to say that she forced me to go, but because she I think when she started at my firm, people are like, oh, where are you working? And she's like, I started at Hartin Family Law. And they're like, who? She's like, oh, like, you don't know Tom Hartin. They're like, nope, nope. So she's this well-known attorney who's working for someone that nobody knows who they are. But I'm starting to get out there and they're fun mostly. you just pay them because it's so worth it. You want them to be so hard to leave for financial I know, I know. stay forever. It's worth it. It just gives way to your firm. It's Yeah, I hope she doesn't listen to this. Doesn't listen to this. But I would be screwed if she left. So, yeah, I know I'm paying her as much as I can. And, you know, I think what was important for her, which wasn't really a possibility at her old firm, was partnership. And I still don't know how that works. Right. Because there's different levels of partnership. And I've thought about it, you know. Does someone want the title of partner where the pay raise. Yeah. You know, keep performing. I'll give you that next year. That's that's nothing to me, you know. Does someone want to be an equity partner? Right. That's that's obviously a way different conversation. Well, quite often, honestly, an equity partner and non-equity partner is not much difference in compensation. If you do it correctly, it doesn't make much of a difference. Yeah, I guess, but I think in my mind I couldn't write equity partners generally, I don't know, I come from the big law world. Right. An equity partner gets they get votes, they get decision making. They, you know, way ins. On what's happening at the firm. I think part of the reason I wanted my own firm and don't I don't I don't think I could ever give up decision making for my firm. I don't know how yours yours works if you have the final say on everything, but at least for now, like I like, especially given that I'm very I'm very like tech driven and I don't think she is. It's just not not that's not disparaging at all. It's just not how she is. Right? She's been she's been practicing a while. All the tech is new. She's just used to doing things the way she is and she's amazing at it. But I don't like I don't want to have to run a decision like, should we get this technology? Like, I just want to do So let me elaborate on what I just said a moment ago. Tom, for the majority of the vast majority of attorneys, the title partner is is very important, okay? Because it gives them a in the marketplace. It gives them to other attorneys. That's more important than the actual equity component. And if you dig a little deeper or dig deep with someone on this conversation, you're going to discover that, I think. And you're also, if you dig a little deeper on the comp part, is it about compensation that you want it? You want to make more money to be an equity partner, or you just want to be a partner because you can structure where they can make as much as if they had equity. But you but you retain decision making, you retain 100% of the equity. So I talked to a lot of attorneys that run firms, and you would be super surprised with how many of them have partners that aren't equity partners. That's by far more common It's more likely than not that they don't have equity in the firm. Yeah. And that's that's a no brainer. If I'd be more than happy to do that. So yeah, we're not not there yet. But let's see again, I think April will be a little worse than March, but still a very good month. But we'll see how things go from there. And a lot of that will be, I think, how may how I figure out this Google Ads situation. March concludes the 18th month that we've been Are So since September of 24, we started a little before that. But you went live kind of that was your first full month. And we're 18 months into it and you crossed your first $50,000 a month. That's awesome. And by the way, all of Tom's numbers he gives us and we post them on J. Sterling Hughes. So he is really transparent with putting this information out there. So if you're a new attorney wanting to start a practice, you want to see how it actually looks in the wild. Listen to all of Thomas podcasts and then go look at his numbers. Because he's been he's been sharing these since day one. So congratulations Tom. I looked at last April by the way. Or excuse me, last March That was my that was after my work. Oh no it wasn't. But yeah, one of my. Yeah. I mean just you're doing so well. So I'm super excited for you to continue to see you build Thanks. Me too. for me, getting that second associate is going to be like a massive thing for me because that I think that allows me to pretty much step out and kind of spend, spend some time doing patent work and and then the rest, like running my firm and just have two people doing all doing all the legal ops. So I'm not there yet, but I don't know what that number looks like. But I would say top line probably I'd want to see like a consistent 6570, I think. Before you hire your second associate. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Why? That's good. Oh, Oh I don't know. have the discipline to wait that long, but. Well I don't have the funds to not wait that long. So if I had this disposable income I would I would hire them tomorrow. I think, Tom, what you're saying, though, is really important, that you're going to put lines in the sand and make decisions based on the the data that you're bringing in. Okay. Once I get three months in a row of XYZ, I'm going to start looking and I know it's going to take 60 days to find that person or whatever it is. Having those milestones and benchmarks are important to to growing a business sustainably. And that's why the next two months I really want to spend dialing in my, my ads. Because if I know right, as of right now, I don't know if I hire somebody, whether I'll have the work right. If I if I get a Google good like Google ad conversion rate and cost per cost per lead and everything like that, then it's just all right. How much am I going to have to spend in order for this to get this employee that that makes the decision a little bit easier. So figure it All back here in in May to hear about April. Awesome. Thanks, Thanks, Tom. Have a great day.