Legal marketing and advertising is a $4 billion-a-year business. If you’re thinking of starting your own firm or growing your current firm – either in practice areas or in geographic regions – you would be wise to invest time in a competitive audit for your particular market. You want to ensure that your plans are physically and financially practicable; an audit is the best way to do that.
Why? Because there are a lot of attorneys out there, and you need to be strategic when it comes to allocating resources in your marketing channels. Some channels may have low competition and yield high returns for your firm, while others will become giant money pits that will cause even the largest firms to struggle for success.
MeanPug Digital provides competitive audits to potential clients for all marketing channels. We believe that all law firms should know what they are getting themselves into before investing a single dollar into legal marketing. Let us help guide your strategic marketing allocations. Chat with us today to have our team do a marketing audit of your competition by marketing channel.
How many lawyers are there in the US?
As of January 1, 2024, the American Bar Association (ABA) reports there are 1,322,649 practicing lawyers in the United States of America. A quarter of them – a full 25% of all active lawyers – practice in New York and California.
How many lawyers are in each state?
At-a-Glance
| State Name | Number of Lawyers | Lawyers Per 1000 Residents |
| Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming TOTAL | 12,414 2,294 15,885 6,808 175,883 23,249 18,028 3,058 80,080 34,307 4,139 4,076 62,093 15,485 7,190 7,845 13,632 19,524 3,693 26,020 40,075 34,366 26,065 6,699 24,679 3,603 5,839 7,563 3,461 39,311 5,404 187,656 26,515 1,663 36,488 12,245 12,233 47,519 3,815 11.090 2,042 19,458 98,345 8,537 2,198 24,120 26,318 4,600 15,172 1,726 1,274,508 | 2.43 3.13 2.14 2.22 4.51 3.96 4.98 2.96 3.54 3.11 2.88 2.07 4.95 2.26 2.24 2.67 3.01 4.27 2.65 4.21 5.72 3.42 4.54 2.28 3.98 3.18 2.95 2.37 2.47 4.23 2.56 9.59 2.45 2.12 3.10 3.02 2.89 3.67 3.48 2.06 2.22 2.73 3.22 2.50 3.39 2.77 3.37 2.60 2.57 2.96 3.81 |
Why these numbers don’t tell the whole story
If you’re wondering where those 48,000+ attorneys went, consider the following: some attorneys practice in multiple states, whereas others are licensed but don’t practice. Some work on behalf of the government (local, state or federal), as public defenders, or as Of Counsel, and might not be counted in state totals. Based on our data, we think the numbers shake out roughly like this:
- In Government: 12% 159,755
- Public Defenders: -1% 9,470
- In-House Counsel 10% 130,000
We also don’t know how many attorneys joined or left the profession over the course of 2024.
But even if the numbers don’t line up exactly, you still have a good view of how many other lawyers are working in your state. And we can extrapolate how many are in your desired regions, too.
From here, we need to break down how many attorneys there are practicing your area of law. These are rough estimates, given that the same exceptions apply here:
Total Number of Attorneys by Practice Area
| Litigation Area | Firm Count | Attorney Count |
| Personal Injury Medical Malpractice Workers’ Compensation Mass Torts Social Security Disability Employment Law Family Law Immigration Estate Planning Real Estate Bankruptcy Criminal Defense Insurance Defense Business Law | 42,000+ 29,004 200 | 165,720 75,378 56,970 16,000+ 30,023 7,165 54,335 252,159 354,669 |
What type of law firms are your competition?
Not all competition is created equal. A solo represents a far different business threat than a large law firm with multi-million dollar marketing budgets. Roughly speaking, law firm competition can be categorized by the business models of the firms in question. Some law firm business models may practice the same litigation areas as you, but will not be marketing competition.
- Marketing Law Firms
- Full Service Firms
- Trial Lawyers
- Solo Practitioners
- Sub-case-type / Niche Specialists
- Integrated Law Firms
- National Practices
For some forms of marketing you will also face competition from non-lawyer marketing companies. While some states have more strict laws regarding non-lawyers marketing for legal services, nearly all states and case types have some level of competition from skilled marketers that are non-lawyers. Whether these competitors warrant a portion of your marketing budget is also going to heavily depend on how well these competitors rank in your local market. The general rule of thumb is legal directories aren’t worth the investment if they aren’t ranking in the top 3 positions in google search.
Examples of non-lawyer Marketing Competition:
- Aggregators (non-lawyer competition)
- Lead Generation Providers (non-lawyer competition)
What does this mean for your legal marketing efforts?
So now you understand that you have tough competition, the next question you should answer is how is my firm different and how are we going to retain more clients? As a full service agency, MeanPug Digital can find the marketing channel that will have the least competition and best ROI for your law firm. There is no silver bullet: competition is tough and marketing budgets need to be allocated intelligently. Let us guide your strategy for a more successful year.
We’d love to do a full competitive audit for your firm. Reach out today for a free consultation.
Sources:
American Bar Association
MeanPug Aggregated Data from State Bar Associations
