Castellano & Mercer Law Group, San Marco, Jacksonville
Industry
Legal, Personal Injury
Location
San Marco, Jacksonville FL
Engagement
10-Month Reputation Campaign
Castellano & Mercer had been practicing personal injury law in Jacksonville for 15 years. Their case results were exceptional, they'd recovered over $45 million in combined settlements. Managing partners Victor Castellano and Diane Mercer were respected in the legal community. They'd even been named Super Lawyers Rising Stars.
But online? They were invisible. Their Google Business Profile had exactly zero reviews. Their Avvo profiles were unclaimed. They had no presence on FindLaw, Justia, or any legal directory. When potential clients searched "personal injury lawyer Jacksonville," they found firms with hundreds of reviews and polished video testimonials, firms that, frankly, didn't get half the results Castellano & Mercer achieved in the courtroom.
The problem was cultural: the partners viewed marketing as beneath them. They relied entirely on attorney referrals and past client word-of-mouth. But Jacksonville's personal injury market had evolved. Potential clients were researching attorneys online before ever making a call. Studies showed that 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and in legal services, reviews were the deciding factor between two similar firms.
Their competitors, most notably three aggressive marketing-first firms, were dominating the Local Pack and attracting the high-value cases that used to come to Castellano & Mercer. The firm's new case volume had dropped 35% over two years, and their average case value was declining because they were getting fewer complex cases and more minor fender-benders that didn't require their level of expertise.
The key constraint was authenticity. Castellano & Mercer would never do cheesy TV commercials or aggressive marketing. The strategy had to reflect their professional standards while competing with firms spending $50K/month on advertising.
We designed a personalized outreach campaign to past clients. Not automated emails, personalized messages from the attorney who handled their case, referencing the specific outcome. We identified 400+ former clients with successful resolutions, segmented them by case value and relationship strength, and sent carefully crafted requests over 10 weeks. The personalization was key: response rates were 4x higher than generic review requests. We focused first on Google (for Local Pack impact), then expanded to Avvo and Google's Questions & Answers section.
For new clients, we implemented a post-resolution review system. When a case closed successfully, a branded SMS and email sequence triggered within 48 hours, during the "gratitude window" when clients are most likely to share their experience. The message came from the attorney's direct line. We A/B tested 12 variations and found that review requests mentioning the specific settlement amount (with permission) generated 67% higher completion rates than generic requests.
Every review received a thoughtful response within 24 hours, written by us but reviewed by the managing partners. Positive reviews got specific acknowledgment. The three negative reviews (inevitable in legal) received empathetic, professional responses that actually improved the firm's perceived character. We also established monitoring on 22 platforms, including legal-specific directories, Reddit r/Jacksonville, and NextDoor neighborhoods in their key service areas.
To complement the review strategy, we built a Case Results section showcasing 30 anonymized case outcomes with settlement amounts, organized by injury type. We also published 8 comprehensive legal guides ("What to Do After a Car Accident on I-95," "Jacksonville Construction Accident Claims: Your Rights") that demonstrated expertise and captured informational search traffic. These pages became the second-highest source of contact form submissions after the homepage.
We claimed and optimized profiles across 35 legal directories (Avvo, FindLaw, Justia, Martindale-Hubbell, Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers), all with consistent NAP data, professional headshots, and case result summaries. Each profile was treated as a conversion-optimized landing page, not just a citation. We also established the firm's NOLO profile with Jacksonville-specific content that ranked independently for several target keywords.
Within 10 months, Castellano & Mercer went from the least visible to the most trusted personal injury firm online in Jacksonville:
Google Reviews
0 reviews 204 reviews (4.9★)↑ From zero to market leader
Case Inquiries Per Month
18 50↑ 178% increase
Average Case Value
$42K $78K↑ 86% higher quality
Local Pack Position
Not visible #2 for "PI lawyer Jax"↑ Top 3 in Local Pack
Referral Source Shift
90% attorney referral 55% organic / 35% referral↑ Diversified pipeline
Directory Profiles Active
0 35 optimized profiles↑ Complete legal web presence
I'll admit it, I was skeptical about 'online reputation management.' I'm a trial lawyer, not a marketer. But the results speak for themselves. We're not just getting more cases, we're getting the right cases. Complex cases with serious injuries where we can make a real difference. That's what this was always about.
The most telling metric wasn't in the data, it was in the courthouse hallways. Three months after the campaign launched, other Jacksonville attorneys began referring more complex cases to the firm, citing their "strong online reputation" as a factor that would benefit clients. The review strategy didn't just attract direct clients; it reinforced the referral network that had always been the firm's backbone.
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