Before hiring an SEO consultant for your UK law firm, ask twelve questions: who specifically will do the work; how many other law firms they currently work with; whether they know Rule 8.8 and the SRA Code of Conduct in detail; what proportion of their work is implementation versus reporting; what their monthly deliverables look like; how they measure success commercially; whether they handle AI search visibility; their approach to local pack and Google Business Profile; what their existing law firm clients would say about them; what their notice period is; what software stack is included; and whether you’ll have direct access to them or be routed through account management.
These twelve questions separate the consultants who deliver from the ones who present well but underperform. Here’s why each one matters, and what the right answer sounds like.
1. Who, specifically, will do the work day to day?
The most common failure pattern: the senior consultant pitches the work, then the account manager and a team of juniors actually deliver. By month three, the partner has stopped hearing from the senior person.
Right answer: "I do. Here’s the work that will be done personally by me. Here’s what I’d delegate to a researcher or specialist (specific examples)." A clear, named individual with no hedge.
Wrong answer: "Our team will handle it." "You’ll have a dedicated account manager." "We have specialists for each discipline." All of these mean you won’t get the person you met.
2. How many other law firms do you currently work with?
Sector specialism matters — SRA compliance, legal sector language, practice area knowledge can’t be faked. A consultant who works with no law firms doesn’t have the depth. A consultant who works with 30 law firms doesn’t have capacity for any of them.
Right answer: Between two and eight active law firm engagements, with named examples (with their clients’ permission). Selective, knowledgeable, with capacity.
Wrong answer: "We work with hundreds of firms across many sectors." That’s an agency answer, not a consultant answer.
3. What do you know about the SRA Code of Conduct and Rule 8.8?
The Code of Conduct constrains what UK solicitors can say in marketing. Rule 8.8 specifically governs publicity. An SEO consultant who doesn’t know what these are will produce content and recommendations that managing partners then have to walk back, or worse, will create regulatory risk.
Right answer: A specific, accurate summary of what Rule 8.8 requires (publicity must be accurate and not misleading; specific provisions around claims about expertise, results, fees and outcomes). Bonus points for awareness of Rule 8.6 (clients’ rights) and Section 8 of the SRA Standards and Regulations more broadly.
Wrong answer: "We make sure everything is compliant." Vague reassurance — they don’t actually know the detail.
4. What proportion of your time is implementation versus reporting?
Some consultants spend more time writing reports than doing the work that produces results. The split matters.
Right answer: 70–85% implementation (writing content, building schema, doing technical fixes, managing Google Business Profile, citation work), 15–30% on strategy, reporting and senior advice.
Wrong answer: Heavy reporting and strategy with vague implementation. That usually means they’re delegating implementation to juniors or sub-contractors.
5. What will you actually ship in our first 90 days?
If a consultant can’t tell you the specific output you’ll see, they’re selling activity rather than outcome.
Right answer: A specific list. Examples for a typical first 90 days: a senior-level technical audit and the priority fixes shipped; comprehensive Google Business Profile optimisation for each office; rebuilt practice area page for one priority service line; baseline citation cleanup across the top 30 UK legal directories; schema markup deployed sitewide.
Wrong answer: "We’ll start with a strategy phase." A real senior consultant has done strategy before signing — the first 90 days should ship work, not produce more strategy documents.
6. How do you measure success commercially?
Rankings and traffic are not commercial measures. Enquiries that turn into instructions are.
Right answer: A focus on qualified organic enquiries, attribution through to instruction stage, Google Maps engagement metrics (calls, direction requests), and AI visibility tracking. The consultant should ask you how you currently measure enquiry source and have views on how to improve that tracking.
Wrong answer: A dashboard of rankings and traffic with no commercial integration. That’s reporting on the wrong things.
7. Do you handle AI search visibility? How?
AI search visibility (citation in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Grok) is now material to a UK law firm’s commercial visibility. A consultant who treats this as a future problem is already behind.
Right answer: A specific approach to AI visibility — schema deployment, entity SEO, citation building across sources AI engines weight heavily, tracking of brand mentions across AI engines, content strategy that targets prospect-style natural-language queries.
Wrong answer: "We’ll get to it later" or "AI visibility follows from good SEO." The first ignores it. The second is partially true but misses the entity SEO and citation-source work that’s distinct from traditional SEO.
8. How do you approach Google Maps and local pack rankings?
For most UK law firms, the Google Maps local pack drives more enquiry volume than organic results. A consultant who treats local SEO as an afterthought is the wrong choice.
Right answer: Per-office strategy, full GBP optimisation methodology, structured review acquisition programme (compliantly worded), local citation work across legal-specific and general business sources, location page strategy on the website. They should have views on the right number and structure of GBPs for multi-office firms.
9. What would your existing law firm clients say about you?
Listen for whether the answer is specific or generic.
Right answer: "Talk to them yourself — here are three contacts." A senior consultant should welcome direct reference conversations.
Wrong answer: Testimonials and case studies on a website but unwillingness to facilitate live reference calls.
10. What’s your notice period and lock-in structure?
Genuine senior consultants don’t need long lock-ins because their work is the reason clients stay. Agencies that require 12–24 month commitments are usually structuring for their own cash flow.
Right answer: Initial 6–12 month commitment to allow the work to compound, then rolling monthly with 30 days notice. No retention fees, no penalty clauses.
Wrong answer: Minimum 24 month commitments, exit fees, automatic renewal terms.
11. What software stack is included and what’s extra?
A senior consultant should bring the full professional tooling required (Ahrefs or Semrush, BrightLocal, schema testing, rank tracking, AI visibility tracking) without you needing to license it separately. Transparency on what’s included avoids surprise costs.
Right answer: Full professional tooling included in the retainer fee.
Wrong answer: Software costs charged separately or expected to be licensed by the firm.
12. Will I have direct access to you, or be routed through account management?
If you can only contact the consultant through a project manager or account director, you don’t have a consultant — you have a vendor.
Right answer: Direct contact, named individual, reasonable response times agreed in advance.
Wrong answer: "Your account manager will be your primary contact."
Two questions that reveal a lot
Beyond the twelve above, two questions tend to expose whether the consultant is genuine:
- "What’s the last project you turned down, and why?" A senior consultant has turned down work — because the firm wasn’t a fit, capacity was full, or the engagement structure wouldn’t have produced good outcomes. Someone who has never turned down work has no standards.
- "What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in a previous engagement?" Real senior consultants have made real mistakes and can talk about them. People who claim flawless track records aren’t being honest.
Frequently asked questions
How long should the hiring process take?
For a senior engagement of £30,000–£150,000 a year, expect 4–6 weeks. An initial scoping call, a written proposal, reference checks, a second meeting, then engagement letter. Anyone who pressures faster is selling rather than consulting.
Should I get multiple quotes?
Yes — ideally two or three from senior independents and one from a generalist agency for comparison. The comparison itself will reveal what good looks like.
What red flags should I watch for in the pitch process?
Guarantees of specific rankings or traffic numbers. Promises of first-page positions within 90 days. Refusal to share who specifically will do the work. Heavy reliance on case studies from outside the legal sector. Pressure tactics on signing.
Should the consultant be physically based near our office?
For most engagements, no — senior consultants work remotely as standard. What matters is responsiveness and quality of work, not proximity. The exception is if you specifically want regular in-person partner meetings.
What’s a reasonable retainer for a regional UK law firm?
For a senior consultant working specifically with law firms: £2,000–£6,000 per month covers a regional firm focus. Multi-office competitive city work is £6,000–£15,000. Below £2,000 a month, the consultant cannot deliver the depth required. Above £15,000 you’re typically paying for the agency margin rather than additional output.
If you’re vetting consultants now, the SRA-Compliant AI Visibility Audit gives you a senior independent view of where your firm currently stands — useful baseline information whoever you ultimately hire. Request the audit here.
