This playbook is for trial users at criminal defense firms configuring GavelGrow for the first time. By the end you will have 24/7 automated intake firing on every inbound lead, after-hours call routing to the on-call attorney, retainer-ready lead records (jurisdiction, charge, bond, court date), and court-date reminder automation for signed clients. Most criminal defense firms see retained-from-after-hours leads go up sharply within the first 30 days.
Looking for the Criminal Defense marketing pitch? See /solutions/criminal-defense.
A DUI arrest happens at 1am. The lead calls 5 firms. Whichever firm answers first gets the retainer; everyone else loses. Your setup priority is 24/7 SMS auto-response within 60 seconds and after-hours call routing to the on-call attorney mobile.
A lead that comes in at 3am, gets assigned to intake the next morning, and gets a callback at 2pm has already hired someone else. Setup must collapse the handoff window — every after-hours lead routes directly to an attorney, with the case context (jurisdiction, charge, bond, court date) pre-loaded.
Criminal defense is unique in that every signed client has a calendar of court dates from day one. Court-date reminder automation is both a client-service expectation and a chance to demonstrate value. Setup must capture the next court date on intake and trigger reminders 7 days, 1 day, and 2 hours before.
Stand up 24/7 intake, after-hours call routing, and retainer-ready lead records.
Tune local SEO attribution, segment by charge type, and add court-date reminder automation for signed clients.
Use 500-firm benchmarks, expand to underweight charge types, and lock in repeatable reporting.
Bracketed tokens like [city] are placeholders — replace with your firm service area before launching campaigns.
40-50% of paid budget for most firms — DUI is the highest-volume sub-category in criminal defense
[city] DUI lawyer[city] DUI attorneyDUI defense lawyer near mefirst offense DUI attorney [city]felony DUI lawyer [city]20-30% — segment each charge type as its own campaign so you can read CPL by charge
drug possession attorney [city]assault lawyer [city]domestic violence attorney [city]theft / shoplifting lawyer [city]weapons charge lawyer [city]15-20% — broader intent, useful for top-of-funnel; expect lower conversion rate than charge-specific
[city] criminal defense attorney[city] criminal lawyerbest criminal defense attorney [city]criminal defense lawyer near mefelony defense attorney [city]5-10% — cheap clicks, defends your name from competitor bids
[your firm name][your firm name] reviews[partner last name] criminal defense[firm name] DUI lawyer[firm name] [city]10-15% — high-intent crisis searches; route directly to the 24/7 SMS sequence and on-call attorney
just got arrested in [city]arrested for DUI what to do[city] bail bond lawyer24 hour criminal defense attorneylawyer for arraignment tomorrow [city]Criminal defense is venue-locked. Captures whether the matter is in a court your firm covers; out-of-jurisdiction leads route to a referral workflow rather than the consult queue.
DUI, drug possession, assault, domestic, weapons, federal — each surfaces a different conditional question set and routes to the right attorney specialty.
Drives urgency. An arrest in the last 24 hours triggers immediate on-call attorney routing; a 90-day-old matter routes to standard consult queue.
Critical for retainer quoting — clients in custody need different urgency and different conversation than out-on-bond clients. Lets the attorney quote on first call.
Foundation of court-date reminder automation post-signing. On intake, drives same-day callback priority if the date is within 7 days.
First-offense vs prior convictions changes retainer significantly. Y/N + brief description lets the attorney assess case complexity before the call.
Conditional field, DUI-specific. Drives DMV hearing deadline tracking (typically 10 days from arrest in most states).
Y/N + names if known. Triggers a conflict check before the firm signs — critical because conflicts in criminal defense are absolute.
Many criminal defense leads cannot speak freely from home, work, or shared device. Captures preferred channel and time window.
All sequences are TCPA-compliant by default — STOP / HELP keywords honored automatically, consent events captured to an append-only audit log.
Targets are anchored to the GavelGrow 500-firm benchmark dataset.
Target: $80 mid-market average; $40 top-quartile (per the 500-firm benchmark)
If off-target: If CPL is above $100, audit local SEO budget vs paid Google Ads — many criminal defense firms over-spend on broad keywords when charge-specific terms convert better.
Target: Under 60 seconds for SMS auto-response; under 5 minutes for live attorney callback
If off-target: After-hours speed-to-lead is the highest-leverage metric in criminal defense. If after-hours median is over 10 minutes, the routing schedule is the issue — audit call-forwarding rules first.
Target: 30%+ of nights / weekends leads retained within 24 hours
If off-target: If retention is below 20% on after-hours, the on-call attorney is missing calls or the auto-SMS is reading as automated. Personalize the first sentence with the firm name and a reassuring tone.
Target: 15-25% mid-market for criminal defense
If off-target: Below 12% is usually an intake quality issue, not ad spend. Audit the retainer-quote cadence — many firms wait too long to quote and lose the urgency window.
Target: 90%+ of organic leads attributed to a specific page / keyword
If off-target: Untracked organic leads make local SEO budget decisions guesswork. If coverage is under 80%, check that all charge-specific landing pages have the call tracking number and form embed.
Target: 100% of signed clients with a court date get the 7-day, 1-day, and 2-hour reminder
If off-target: Misses here directly produce bad Google reviews and missed arraignments. Audit weekly against the case management view; if even one client missed a reminder, debug the trigger.
Each tracking number supports a routing schedule by day of week and time of day. Build the rotation as a per-day schedule (e.g. Monday nights to Attorney A mobile, Tuesday nights to Attorney B mobile, etc.). Update the schedule weekly or assign a back-office staffer to manage it. The on-call attorney sees the lead context (charge, jurisdiction, court date) on their mobile before they call back.
Capture an emergency contact field on the intake form — a family member or friend who is making the inquiry on the arrestee behalf. Auto-SMS routes to the emergency contact, not the in-custody client. Lead record holds both contacts. Most arrest-moment intake is actually filed by family, not the arrestee.
GavelGrow does not have native conflict checks today — that stays in your case management tool or manual process. But the intake form co-defendants field surfaces the names you need to check before signing. Build a Days 1-30 SOP: every retainer-ready lead pauses for a 5-minute conflict check against your existing client list before the attorney quotes.
Yes — task management lets you attach deadlines to any case. Build a template that auto-creates a DMV hearing task the moment a DUI lead converts to a signed case, with reminders at 48 hours and 24 hours before deadline. Critical for DUI practice; do not skip this configuration.
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