This audit is built for managing partners and law firm owners, and for anyone responsible for an LSA account's results. It works two ways: as a monthly health check on an account you run, and as a takeover audit on an account you have just inherited. Every item names the standard, how to check it, and what to do when it fails. The full strategy behind each item is in the companion guide, Google Local Services Ads for Lawyers.
Critical items take the account off the page or waste budget directly; fix them the day you find them. Important items move ranking and cost within weeks. Best practices compound over quarters. Score each item Pass, Fix, or Not applicable, and note the recommendation as you go.
The First 30 Minutes on Any Account
When an account is new to you, or when performance drops with no obvious cause, check these five places in order before touching any strategy. Most "the algorithm changed" mysteries resolve here.
- Business Verification tab. Licenses, insurance, background checks: every document inside its renewal date, every attorney's bar license current. One expired document silently pauses the ads.
- Billing, inside Google Ads. LSA billing is managed through the linked Google Ads account, not the LSA dashboard, and a declined card stops spend with no obvious alarm in the LSA interface. If an account "just stopped spending," check billing before anything else.
- Budget pacing. Compare spend to budget week by week. Capping out midweek means rationed exposure; spending near zero means an eligibility, billing, or ranking issue upstream.
- Job types and service areas. Read every enabled toggle in every vertical. Each one is a standing agreement to buy those leads, and mismatched leads are charged with no credit.
- Hours versus real coverage. Listed hours are a promise the ranking system holds you to. 24/7 listed with no after-hours answering is a responsiveness leak; 9 to 5 listed with a capable answering service is exposure left on the table.
Migration warning, 2026 to 2027. Google is migrating LSA into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The account administrator gets 14 days' email notice. Two audit actions: confirm the administrator email on the account is monitored, and export or screenshot all historical performance reports the moment notice arrives, because they do not carry over. Manual max-per-lead bidding retires with the move, so accounts built on bid caps need a bidding plan before their migration date.
Layer 1: Eligibility and Exposure
Layer 2: Responsiveness
Layer 3: Reputation
Layer 4: Profile and Lead Handling
Layer 5: Economics
The Reason Codes: Seven Reasons a Lead Is a "Don't Want"
A "don't want" rating without a reason is a wasted rating. The reason code is what turns intake's judgment into a profile change, a credit trail, or a training note. Manual disputes ended in July 2024; the feedback survey plus these codes is the current discipline.
Read the monthly mix as a diagnostic: WPA and OOA are profile-scope defects fixed in settings. SPM is a routing defect. NOI belongs in the cost-per-signed-case math. The mix tells you whether to fix the profile, the routing, or the expectations.
Personal Injury Benchmarks for Scoring
| Metric | Benchmark | Source |
|---|---|---|
| PI cost per lead, average | $127 to $378 | OptimizeMyFirm; LEXGRO |
| PI cost per lead, market range | $140 (low competition) to $344 (Los Angeles) | OptimizeMyFirm |
| Lead to signed case | 8% to 25% | LEXGRO; OptimizeMyFirm |
| Cost per signed case | $960 to $4,725 | Derived from both datasets |
| Monthly budget for steady flow | $3,000 to $10,000 | Legal agency consensus |
| Live-answer rate target | 90%+ | Operating standard |
| Message response target | Under 15 minutes | Operating standard |
| Rating floor / competitive bar | 3.0 eligibility / 4.5 competitive | Google requirement; practitioner consensus |
| Feedback-to-credit conversion | Roughly 15% to 25% of flagged leads | Managed-account practitioner reporting |
| Evaluation window | 90 days | Ranking signals accumulate over 60 to 90 days |
Common LSA Questions and Answers
Review count or review rating: which matters more?
Google lists both as ranking inputs and does not publish weights. In practice, count with recency does the heavier lifting once a firm clears roughly 4.5 stars: a 4.4 with 300 recent reviews outperforms a 5.0 with 10, both in ranking and in what prospects choose. Below 4.5, rating becomes the constraint. The audit standard is both: 4.5 or better, with volume competitive for the market and fresh reviews arriving monthly.
Can a burst of reviews trigger spam filters? Should asks be spaced out?
Google's automated review systems flag unnatural patterns, and a sudden spike on a profile with little history is exactly that pattern; flagged reviews can be filtered or removed. A mass email blast to years of old clients is the risky version. The safe version is structural: ask at case resolution, every time, which naturally spaces reviews and weights them toward recency, the thing both the algorithm and prospects reward.
Can we offer a discount for leaving a review?
No. Google's review policies prohibit incentives of any kind, money, discounts, or free services, and violations risk review removal and profile penalties. This correction matters because older training materials recommend incentive programs. Asking is fine; paying in any form is not. A QR code or direct link handed over at resolution is compliant and effective.
Is there a deadline to flag a bad lead?
Yes, and it is tighter than most teams assume. Manual disputes were retired in July 2024. Charged leads are reassessed automatically, and your input is the lead feedback survey, where leads older than roughly 30 days age out of credit eligibility. Wrong-practice-area and out-of-area leads are no longer credited at all, which is why profile scope now does the job disputes used to do.
Where do profile photos actually show up?
The compact ad in the search unit shows the headshot or logo; the additional photos appear when a searcher taps through to the expanded profile. Google's guidance states profiles with high-quality images may rank higher and pay lower costs per lead, so photos are a pricing input, not decoration. After the Google Ads migration, accounts can carry up to 100 photos.
Do LSAs show on Google Maps or only in search?
Both. Google Search and Google Maps are the two placements, confirmed in Google's migration documentation, and they remain the only two after the move to Performance Max pay-per-lead campaigns. LSAs never serve on YouTube, Gmail, or the Display Network.
How much do message leads cost compared to calls?
Google states message leads are typically priced lower than the corresponding phone lead, with pricing based on the customer's estimated likelihood to book, including whether they contacted other advertisers. The "half price" figure in older trainings is a reasonable rule of thumb, not a published rate. Message leads also earn exposure: enabling them increases the likelihood of receiving leads, especially nights and weekends.
Why did an account suddenly stop spending?
Check billing in the linked Google Ads account first: LSA billing runs through Google Ads, a declined card stops everything quietly, and a Google Ads suspension suspends LSA with it. Then check the Business Verification tab for an expired license or insurance document. Only after those two pass is it a ranking or market question.
Does Google spread leads out through the week?
Yes. Google's own advertiser guidance has stated the system attempts to spread lead delivery so providers do not exhaust budgets early in the week, and current budget mechanics pace the same way. The audit implication: a budget that caps out midweek is not a win, it is a signal the algorithm is rationing you, and headroom buys back that exposure.
Can one lawyer cover several practice areas, or does each need its own listing?
One profile covers the firm; practice areas are enabled as job types, and each attorney added with a bar license expands what the profile can credibly claim. Licensing requirements vary by state and practice category, so the toggles available can differ by market. The discipline is the same everywhere: enable only what the firm actually signs, because every toggle is a purchase agreement.
An LSA account is healthy when five things are simultaneously true: the badge and billing are clean, the phone gets answered live, reviews arrive every month, every lead gets rated with a reason, and the cost per signed case beats the firm's alternatives over a 90-day window. Every audit finding is one of those five failing, and the checklist above tells you which one and what to do about it.
Want This Audit Run on Your Account?
The checklist finds the leaks; fixing them is intake process, review systems, and scorecard discipline working together. If you want help turning findings into a working system, start a conversation.
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