Key findings
- A truck accident lawyer click costs $256.00 on Google Ads, the most expensive head term in law and 55 times an employment lawyer click ($4.65).
- Seven of the ten most expensive legal clicks are personal injury terms, all above $110 per click.
- "Car accident lawyer near me" costs $189.51 per click, 43% more than "car accident lawyer" ($132.42).
- At the national average personal injury click ($112.76), a firm converting 5% of clicks and signing 15% of leads pays about $15,000 per signed case; a firm converting 10% and signing 25% pays about $4,500.
- Motorcycle accident, wrongful death, slip and fall, and dog bite terms all cost over $139 per click yet have organic difficulty of 29 or lower, which makes them cheaper to rank for than to buy.
What a click costs, by practice area
Average Google Ads cost per click for the head term in each practice area, with monthly US search volume and how hard the term is to rank for organically (0 to 100). Personal injury rows are highlighted.
| Search term | Searches / month | Avg. cost per click | SEO difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Truck accident lawyer | 165,000 | $256.00 | 41 |
| Motorcycle accident lawyer | 110,000 | $232.52 | 29 |
| Slip and fall lawyer | 90,500 | $142.36 | 28 |
| Wrongful death attorney | 110,000 | $142.28 | 27 |
| Dog bite lawyer | 49,500 | $139.88 | 25 |
| Car accident lawyer | 550,000 | $132.42 | 44 |
| Personal injury lawyer | 673,000 | $112.76 | 83 |
| Workers compensation lawyer | 74,000 | $36.86 | 13 |
| DUI lawyer | 165,000 | $35.82 | 27 |
| Criminal defense lawyer | 673,000 | $19.96 | 30 |
| Tax attorney | 301,000 | $19.77 | 30 |
| Divorce lawyer | 450,000 | $10.62 | 47 |
| Family law attorney | 49,500 | $9.93 | 26 |
| Medical malpractice lawyer | 550,000 | $9.60 | 39 |
| Immigration lawyer | 301,000 | $8.96 | 43 |
| Business lawyer | 246,000 | $8.20 | 19 |
| Estate planning attorney | 33,100 | $6.24 | 26 |
| Employment lawyer | 201,000 | $4.65 | 41 |
Reading it: the most expensive clicks in law are injury clicks. A truck accident click costs 55 times an employment law click. That spread is the market’s estimate of what a signed case is worth, and it is why every point of landing-page conversion matters most in the top rows.
The “near me” and city premium
Local intent costs more because it converts more. The same case type can cost 40% more with “near me” or a city attached, and organic difficulty swings widely by city.
| Search term | Searches / month | Avg. cost per click | SEO difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car accident lawyer near me | 49,500 | $189.51 | 36 |
| Car accident lawyer Austin | 3,600 | $171.95 | 23 |
| Personal injury lawyer Houston | 6,600 | $148.96 | 68 |
| Personal injury lawyer near me | 90,500 | $131.33 | 30 |
| Personal injury lawyer Phoenix | 4,400 | $130.98 | 64 |
| Best personal injury lawyer | 22,200 | $116.75 | 50 |
| Personal injury lawyer Miami | 2,400 | $116.15 | 59 |
| Personal injury lawyer Chicago | 4,400 | $88.19 | 79 |
| Personal injury attorney Los Angeles | 6,600 | $85.80 | 74 |
- Austin car accident searches are unusually open: a $171.95 click with organic difficulty of 23.
- Los Angeles and Chicago are the opposite: cheaper clicks ($85.80 and $88.19) with difficulty of 74 and 79, so paid search is the realistic entry.
- “Personal injury lawyer near me” (90,500 searches a month) is answered by the map pack first, so the Google Business Profile and review count decide who gets the call.
From click to signed case
Cost per signed case = cost per click ÷ landing-page conversion ÷ lead-to-signed rate. Same clicks, same budget, very different outcomes:
per signed case for a typical firm: $112.76 click, 5% of clicks become leads, 15% of leads sign.
per signed case for a tight firm: the same click, 10% of clicks become leads, 25% of leads sign.
Mirador Law’s cost per conversion after Outlier rebuilt its landing pages and account structure; conversions doubled in one month. Case study.
The conversion ranges (5% to 12% click to lead, 15% to 30% lead to signed with intake that answers in under five minutes) are what Outlier sees running injury campaigns, not a survey.
Where SEO beats paid outright
Practice areas where the click costs over $100 but organic difficulty is under 35. A page that ranks for one of these replaces thousands of dollars a month in ad spend, permanently.
- Motorcycle accident lawyer: $232.52 per click, difficulty 29, 110,000 searches a month.
- Slip and fall lawyer: $142.36 per click, difficulty 28, 90,500 searches a month.
- Wrongful death attorney: $142.28 per click, difficulty 27, 110,000 searches a month.
- Dog bite lawyer: $139.88 per click, difficulty 25, 49,500 searches a month.
Methodology
Volumes are average monthly US searches. Cost per click is the average advertisers paid for the exact term in Google Ads. Difficulty is Semrush’s 0 to 100 estimate of how hard it is to reach the top 10 organically. All figures were pulled on September 23, 2026 and will be refreshed yearly.