Chicago spends $7.3 million monthly on legal advertising across 108 firms. Third-largest market in America. And nobody owns it. Malman Law sits at #1 with 13.7% share. Lerner & Rowe trails at 13%. In most major markets, the top firm controls 20% or more. In Chicago, the ceiling is 14%.
But here’s what makes Chicago different from every other fragmented market. The top two firms aren’t sleeping on streaming. Malman and Lerner & Rowe both allocate 34% of their budgets to CTV. Horwitz Horwitz & Associates runs 66.6%. Meanwhile, Allen Law Group ($550K/month) puts zero on streaming. Zero. The third-largest legal ad market in America is split right down the middle between firms that get it and firms that don’t.
Who’s Spending What
The Chicago market data tracks all 108 advertisers. The top five account for 52% of the market, but the spread from #1 to #5 is just 6.5 percentage points. That’s the tightest competitive field of any top-10 DMA.
Five firms. $3.8 million combined. The old story about Chicago was simple: nobody’s doing CTV. That story’s wrong. The real story is a split. Two of the top three firms deploy meaningful streaming budgets. Two of the next three deploy almost nothing. Chicago isn’t behind on CTV. It’s divided.
The 34% Divide
Malman Law and Lerner & Rowe each put 34.2% of their budgets into streaming. That’s $341K and $324K monthly flowing to CTV platforms. Combined, these two firms account for $665K in streaming spend. In a market where total CTV allocation sits at $1.44 million, two firms drive nearly half of all streaming legal advertising in Chicago.
This isn’t a cautious test. A third of their budgets. In the third-largest market in America. Both firms independently arrived at the same allocation. That tells you something about where the Chicago audience lives.
Malman splits the rest across broadcast ($491K) and radio ($166K). Lerner & Rowe diversifies across broadcast ($423K), radio ($189K), and cable ($13K). Both maintain strong traditional presence while deploying meaningful streaming TV advertising for law firms alongside it.
Horwitz Horwitz at 66.6%
If Malman and Lerner & Rowe represent the 34% club, Horwitz Horwitz & Associates represents where the market is headed. At $431K monthly (5.9% share), Horwitz runs 66.6% streaming. That’s $287K monthly flowing to CTV.
Two-thirds of their budget. On streaming. In the third-largest DMA.
Horwitz spends just $143K on broadcast and $1,300 on radio. They’ve flipped the traditional model. Streaming first, broadcast as the supplement. And they maintain top-six position, proving the approach works in Chicago.
Kenneth J Allen Law Group takes it further. $116K monthly. Every dollar goes to streaming. One hundred percent CTV. Smaller player at 1.6% share, but they’ve demonstrated that a streaming-only strategy sustains presence in a market this size.
The Broadcast Holdouts
On the other side: Allen Law Group at $550K monthly runs zero streaming. The fourth-largest advertiser in Chicago puts everything into broadcast ($527K) and cable ($24K). Not a single dollar on CTV.
Consumer Law Group at $353K (#8 in the market) runs $23 on streaming. Twenty-three dollars. Rounding error. Davis Law Firm at $382K puts 1.5% toward CTV. Witherite Law Group at $206K runs 100% radio. Not a dollar on broadcast or streaming. Just radio.
These holdouts aren’t small firms. Allen Law Group is #4 in the market. Consumer Law Group is #8. They spend real money. They just haven’t pointed any of it toward streaming platforms.
Radio at 19%: The Chicago Commute
Radio captures 18.7% of Chicago’s legal ad spend. That’s $1.36 million monthly. High for a top-3 DMA. Houston allocates 35% to radio, but Houston’s commute culture is different. LA runs 22%. Atlanta matches at 19%.
The explanation is straightforward: Chicago commuters sit in traffic. The Kennedy, the Dan Ryan, the Eisenhower. Some of the worst congestion in the country. Legal advertisers follow the audience.
Witherite Law Group leans all the way in: $206K monthly, 100% radio. No broadcast. No cable. No streaming. Radio in a commute market.
ATRA tracks $2.5 billion in annual legal advertising nationally. Radio’s share holds steady while broadcast declines slowly and CTV grows. Chicago over-indexes on radio because the commute creates a captive audience. But that audience streams when they get home. The Illinois Department of Transportation counts roughly 300,000 traffic crashes annually. Those drivers listen to radio in the morning and stream at night. Legal advertisers should follow them to both places.
The Channel Mix
Broadcast takes 59.9% at $4.36 million. Streaming captures 19.8% at $1.44 million. Radio holds 18.7% at $1.36 million. Cable barely registers at 1.6% ($115K).
The 19.8% streaming allocation places Chicago in the middle of major markets. Los Angeles leads at 33%. Atlanta runs 48%. Boston sits at 9%. Washington DC trails at 3%.
But the average masks the divide. Malman, Lerner & Rowe, and Horwitz pull the streaming number up. Allen Law Group, Consumer Law Group, and Davis pull it down. Chicago isn’t at 20% streaming across the board. It’s a market of 34% and 0%.
The Opportunity
Fragmentation combined with a streaming split creates a rare setup. No firm dominates total spend. No firm dominates CTV. The streaming leaders are the biggest spenders, but they haven’t locked up the channel the way Morgan & Morgan dominates markets like Washington DC at 31%.
A firm deploying $200K to $300K monthly in Chicago connected TV campaign services enters the top tier of streaming advertisers immediately. That’s enough to match Horwitz’s streaming presence or challenge the Malman/Lerner & Rowe duopoly on CTV inventory.
The firms spending $500K+ on broadcast with zero streaming have a simpler path. Redirect 15% to 20% from broadcast. That’s $75K to $100K monthly. Enough to build meaningful CTV presence without sacrificing traditional reach. Allen Law Group could go from zero to top-five in streaming by moving $110K from broadcast.
The third-largest legal ad market in America isn’t waiting for a breakthrough. It already happened. Malman, Lerner & Rowe, and Horwitz proved streaming works in Chicago. The holdouts just haven’t caught up yet.
References
- Nielsen. "Streaming Reaches Historic TV Milestone, Eclipses Combined Broadcast and Cable Viewing." 2025.
- eMarketer. "US TV and Connected TV Ad Spending Forecasts, H2 2025." 2025.
- ATRA. "Legal Services Advertising in the United States, 2020-2024." 2025.
- IAB. "2025 Digital Video Ad Spend and Strategy Report." 2025.
- Illinois Department of Transportation. "Illinois Crash Facts and Statistics, 2024." 2025.
