Is the Defendant Buying Ads on Your Firm’s Name? Check in an Hour.

You can run most of this yourself in an hour, with public tools. Google’s Ads Transparency Center and Meta’s Ad Library show what an advertiser is running and where. A search for your firm’s name plus the product name, from the venue, shows who is bidding above you. A search for your case terms shows which intake sites look like yours. And the same search shows where your own case page ranks against the defendant’s.

The four checks

Targeted ads. In the ad libraries, search the defendant’s corporate name and look at the geography. Ads concentrated in the zip codes around the courthouse, or in your claimants’ communities, are a finding. Paid search. From a browser in the venue market, in a private window, search your firm’s name and the product. A sponsored result above your own listing is a finding, and the ad’s destination tells you whose. Look-alike sites. Search the case terms a claimant would use and read the first five pages. An intake page that borrows your language or your look is a finding. Search ranking. Note where your case page sits against the defendant’s safety page for the same search. Ninth against second is a finding.

What to do with what you find

Screenshot everything with the date visible, and keep the URLs. Bring it to your leadership committee before you decide anything. Do not assume motive from a single ad: a sponsored result on your firm’s name is as often another plaintiff firm as it is the defendant, and the response is different. And if nothing is running, write that down too. A clean check is a finding, not a failure.

Or text me the case name

These four checks are the free Defense Check. Text me a case name and, the same day, you have them in writing, with dates and sources, a plain “nothing found” where there is nothing, and one next step. What it looks like →