Every legal advertising market in America will eventually look like Atlanta. The question is when. DMA #7 pushes $12.9 million monthly through legal advertising. Growth hit 118% year-over-year. And 48% of that spend goes to CTV. Not 48% of viewing. Forty-eight percent of actual advertiser spend.
No other market comes close. The national average for CTV allocation in legal advertising hovers around 15% to 20%. Washington DC sits at 3%. Houston allocates 18%. Atlanta doubled the next closest market and kept going.
Five firms drive the arms race. Morgan & Morgan leads at $2.24M monthly (17.4%). Montlick Injury Attorneys trails at $2.11M (16.4%). Thompson Law, Gary Martin Hays, and Alexander Shunnarah push the top five above 60% combined market share. These firms compete with serious money on streaming platforms. They proved it works. Everyone else is catching up.
The $12.9M Battleground
Atlanta grew 118% in a single year. That’s not a typo. The market added roughly $7 million in monthly legal ad spend, doubling from approximately $6 million to $12.9 million. That kind of growth doesn’t come from incremental budget increases. It comes from firms going all-in on media.
Morgan & Morgan’s $2.24M gives them the top slot, but Montlick runs within $130K of their pace. In most markets, Morgan maintains a comfortable lead. In Atlanta, Montlick is breathing down their neck. Thompson Law at $1.4M (10.9%) and Gary Martin Hays at $1.4M (10.9%) add pressure from below. Alexander Shunnarah at $1.07M (8.3%) rounds out a remarkably competitive top five.
The total is staggering. Five firms spend $8.2 million monthly. In Atlanta alone. That’s more than the entire legal ad market in most top-25 DMAs. The Atlanta market data breaks down all 151 advertisers, channel by channel.
Why Atlanta Leads on Streaming
The 48% CTV allocation didn’t happen by accident. Thompson Law runs 69% of their budget through streaming. Gary Martin Hays operates above 50%. Even Morgan & Morgan, traditionally a broadcast-heavy operation, deployed meaningful CTV dollars in this market.
Three factors converged. Atlanta’s population skews younger than most major legal markets. The metro area sprawls across 29 counties, making broadcast targeting inefficient. And the cost of traditional broadcast inventory in DMA #7 makes streaming’s CPMs look attractive by comparison.
Atlanta isn’t just a leading indicator for CTV adoption. It’s proof of concept. Firms that went streaming-heavy didn’t shrink. They grew. Thompson Law’s 69% streaming allocation coincides with aggressive market expansion. Montlick’s CTV advertising for legal markets helped them close the gap with Morgan. The data says streaming works.
For the full breakdown of Atlanta’s streaming transformation, including advertiser-level channel allocation data, see our deep dive on the 48% streaming shift.
Broadcast at 31%
Atlanta’s broadcast share of 31% is the lowest among top-10 DMAs. For comparison, New York runs 51%. Dallas hits 67%. Houston is at 47%.
Cable captures just 2%. Radio takes 19%. The remaining 48% flows to streaming.
This channel mix didn’t kill traditional advertising in Atlanta. It redistributed it. Broadcast still gets $4 million monthly. That’s a substantial commitment. But it’s no longer the majority of the market. Firms in Atlanta use broadcast for broad reach and brand maintenance. They use CTV for targeting, measurement, and conversion.
The 118% Growth Signal
ATRA tracks $2.5 billion in annual legal advertising nationally, growing 39% since 2020. Atlanta grew 118% in one year. That pace puts it in a category of its own.
The growth reflects something beyond normal market expansion. Atlanta is where national firms and regional powerhouses collide. Morgan & Morgan entered aggressively. Thompson Law scaled fast. Montlick refused to cede ground. The result is a spending arms race fueled by competition.
That arms race makes Atlanta an expensive market to compete in. But it also validates CTV as the growth channel. The firms driving the growth are the firms investing in streaming. Not all of the increase went to CTV. But a disproportionate share did.
What Atlanta Teaches Everyone Else
Atlanta isn’t an outlier. It’s a preview. Streaming adoption in legal advertising will reach 48% in every major market. The timeline varies. Some markets lag by two years. Some by five. But the direction is uniform.
For firms in other DMAs, Atlanta provides the blueprint. Start CTV before your market looks like Atlanta. The early-mover advantage compounds. Build audience familiarity on streaming before your competitors arrive. Establish the measurement infrastructure. Optimize creative for the living room screen.
The firms that wait until their market hits 48% streaming will pay Atlanta prices to get in. The firms that start now will own the channel before anyone else shows up.
Every market in America will eventually look like Atlanta. The only question is whether you’re ahead of that curve or behind it.
References
- Nielsen. "2024-2025 Local Television Market Universe Estimates." 2024.
- Nielsen. "Streaming Shatters Multiple Records in December 2025 with 47.5% of TV Viewing." 2026.
- ATRA. "Legal Services Advertising in the United States, 2020-2024." 2025.
- Georgia Governor Highway Safety Office. "Georgia Traffic Safety Facts, 2024." 2025.
