Serving law firms nationwide (332) 278-5681 hello@pioneerly.com

Fractional law firm CMO

Fractional CMO to Turn Your Law Firm's Purpose Into a Well-Executed Growth Plan

We work alongside founding and managing partners to guide their firms through the next stage of growth, bringing deep legal marketing expertise, integrity, and a revenue-oriented mindset to the table.

  • 20+ years of experience
  • 100+ law firms served
  • $600M+ in client revenue
Google 5.0 Verified Reviews
Trustindex 5.0

Top Rated Service 2026

verified by Trustindex

Trustindex verifies that the company has a review score above 4.5, based on reviews collected on Trustindex over the past 12 months, qualifying it to receive the Top Rated Certificate.
Piotr Szalkiewicz and Matt Sarson, the founders of Pioneerly, in front of a courthouse

Piotr Szalkiewicz

Founder & Managing Partner, Pioneerly

Chair, American Attorney Marketing Association

Roles: Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, Fractional Chief Growth Officer

Matt Sarson

Co-founder & CMO, Pioneerly

Author

Roles: Fractional Chief Marketing Officer

Meet your fractional CMO

Piotr Szalkiewicz, Founder and Managing Partner of Pioneerly

Chair, American Attorney Marketing Association

American Bar Association Member 2026

Founder & Managing Partner, Pioneerly

Piotr Szalkiewicz

A fearless mind.

Piotr Szalkiewicz is one of the leading legal marketing experts in the U.S. He works with law firms that have growth and ambition built into their DNA. His favorite partners have a clear mission and want someone to help them translate it into a clear go-to-market strategy. He brings people together and builds teams packed with talent that work in sync toward a shared goal. Piotr's approach to marketing is based on creativity, data, and a focus on revenue.

Piotr has 22 years of experience across marketing, growth, and entrepreneurship, having held all types of leadership roles, from CMO to CGO to VP, before founding the legal marketing firm Pioneerly. He has worked with 100+ law firms and is currently working hands-on with clients at Pioneerly in a Growth Counsel capacity.

Experience

22 years building and scaling companies across legal, tech, and media

100+ law firms worked with

Best fit for

Fast-growing firms

You want marketing, intake, tracking, and reporting to work as one system. You want a marketing leader who can make a lasting impact at your firm, whether by developing your team's skills or evaluating and leading your marketing vendors. You want a trusted voice at the leadership table who can provide strategic advice and take a hands-on role in putting that strategy into action.

Matt Sarson, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Pioneerly

Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Pioneerly

Matt Sarson

A strategist who starts with people.

Matt works with firms whose growth depends on their reputation, referrals, and the visibility of their attorneys. He cuts the marketing activity that runs on autopilot: posts without a purpose, campaigns without a clear goal, and vendor reports that don't help anyone make a decision. In its place, he makes sure every marketing effort has a clear reason behind it. Having lived on three continents, he brings a habit of looking at a problem from different perspectives before choosing a direction.

Experience

18 years across content, community, brand and strategy

50+ law firms worked with

Best fit for

Firms that grow on reputation and referrals

Your attorneys' names bring in the work, you have people producing content across channels who need direction, and you want the firm to use AI well.

Practice areas we work with

  • Personal injury
  • Family law
  • Immigration law
  • Criminal defense
  • Estate planning
  • Mass tort
  • Employment law
  • Civil litigation
  • Workers' compensation
  • Bankruptcy
  • Elder law
  • Tax law
  • Real estate law
  • Consumer protection and lemon law
  • Intellectual property
  • Healthcare law
  • Cybersecurity law
  • Construction law
  • Veterans law
  • Business law
  • Corporate law
  • Startup law
Marianella Manzur, Partner and Chief Revenue Officer at Joorney

“Piotr and his team took our go-to-market strategy and marketing to another level. I’m very impressed with the lasting impact they achieved for us.”

Marianella Manzur

Partner and Chief Revenue Officer, Joorney

200+ person firm

Recent collaborations

What a fractional CMO does at your firm, week by week

A fractional law firm CMO is a senior marketing executive who leads your firm's marketing part-time, usually one or two days a week, with the same authority as a full-time CMO. They oversee your strategy, budget, in-house marketers, marketing vendors, and intake, and report to the partners every month. At Pioneerly, that person is Piotr Szalkiewicz or Matt Sarson. Some firms call the role an outsourced CMO, a part-time CMO, or a fractional marketing director. Here's what a typical month looks like and what lands on your desk.

A typical month

What lands on your desk each month

Week 1Results and budget

MeetingsYour CMO walks the partners through last month's results and this month's budget.

DecisionsThey adjust spending by channel based on the cost per new client and new opportunities worth pursuing.

Monthly partner report

  • New clients
  • Cost per new client
  • Consultations that become clients
  • Revenue by channel
  • Signed revenue per ad dollar
  • Pipeline by practice area

Week 2Vendor performance

MeetingsYour CMO meets with your SEO, ads, web, and other vendors to compare what each promised with what they delivered.

DecisionsThey determine which vendors to keep, where to revise the brief or renegotiate terms, and who needs replacing.

Vendor scorecards

  • SEO agencyKeep
  • Ads agencyRe-brief
  • Web teamKeep

What each vendor was asked to do, what they delivered, and what happens next.

Week 3Intake and follow-up

MeetingsYour CMO listens to calls with your intake lead and reviews how inquiries progress toward becoming clients in each practice area.

DecisionsThey identify where potential clients drop off and direct changes to intake scripts, call routing, and follow-up.

Intake report

  • Inquiries
  • Consultations
  • New clients

Where inquiries drop off, by practice area and by intake person, and what changed since last month.

Week 4Team and priorities

MeetingsYour CMO leads the marketing team through next month's plan and approves content and campaigns.

DecisionsThey set priorities for the quarter and identify the hires and tools the team needs to deliver.

Next month's plan and budget

  • Budget by channel, with last month's cost per new client next to each line
  • Campaigns and content approved for the month
  • Vendor changes and the reasons for them
  • Partner sign-off

Every quarterWe review the 12-month plan with you, bring you a market review built on Pioneerly's data, and update the hiring plan.

Real authority. Clear accountability.

Your fractional CMO has the authority to make marketing decisions, put them into action, and answer for the results. The partners know who's responsible and get a report every month.

  • Takes an active role in your leadership meetings
  • Hires, directs, and replaces marketing vendors
  • Leads intake improvements alongside your intake lead
  • Reports results and next steps to the partners every month
  • Manages the marketing budget within the total approved by the partners
  • Leads your in-house marketing team
  • Coordinates with your firm to keep campaigns aligned with applicable attorney advertising rules

Your fractional CMO comes with powerful resources behind them

Most fractional CMOs are one person with a laptop. When you hire Piotr or Matt, Pioneerly's market data, frameworks and tools, AI capability, and network come with them.

Piotr Szalkiewicz and Matt Sarson

Piotr and Matt

Your fractional CMO

Market intelligence you can't buy elsewhere

  • 50states tracked
  • 5,000+law firms monitored
  • 67published benchmarks

At Pioneerly, we love working and giving our clients an edge through data. We maintain our own market intelligence that grows every month. We also published resources such us U.S. Legal Market Health Index and Personal Injury Marketing Benchmarks.

A specialist team on call

  • SEO
  • AI search
  • Paid ads
  • Content marketing
  • Webinars & events
  • Social media
  • Web
  • Intake
  • RevOps
  • Analytics

Your fractional CMO has access to a team of specialists who can step in whenever there's a need at your firm that your current resources can't cover.

Legal AI expertise

  • AI agents
  • Workflow automation
  • AI-assisted intake
  • Document automation
  • Knowledge management
  • Business intelligence
  • AI training

Piotr and Matt have both been developing AI solutions for law firms since the very beginning. Pioneerly was one of the first firms on the market to offer custom AI agents for legal workflows, and Firm Intelligence remains one of the most innovative and impactful AI-powered solutions for large law firms.

A network of managing partners, attorneys, and legal professionals

Our network includes attorneys, judges, managing partners, paralegals, and other professionals across the legal industry. Through the Pioneerly Attorney Referral Network and our wider relationships, we love making introductions that lead to shared expertise, new collaborations, and ambitious projects.

Eight signs your firm could use a fractional CMO

  • You know what you spend and how many leads come in. But you can't confidently say which channels bring in clients or what it costs to acquire them.

    How we'd helpWe connect marketing and intake data so you can see which channels lead to signed matters and make better budget decisions.

  • Referrals and familiar campaigns have brought you this far, but new business has stalled or comes in waves. You need a clearer plan before committing to another hire or a new office.

    How we'd helpWe review what's working, build ways to attract clients beyond referrals, and set clear priorities, budgets, and targets for your next stage of growth.

  • The phone is ringing, but too many inquiries are for work you don't handle or matters you want less of. Your marketing isn't attracting the mix of work you want to build the firm around.

    How we'd helpWe sharpen your positioning, targeting, and messaging around the matters you want, then track whether more of the right inquiries turn into clients.

  • Whether you have a marketing manager or work directly with agencies, a partner still has to set priorities, review campaigns, and keep everyone moving. It takes time they need for clients and the firm.

    How we'd helpWe lead the day-to-day marketing work, give your team direction, and keep the partner involved in major decisions without needing them to manage every detail.

  • Each agency has goals for its own channel, but there's no shared growth strategy connecting their work to what your firm wants to achieve.

    How we'd helpWe give your agencies a shared plan, coordinate their work, and bring the results into one monthly report.

  • More people are calling, but your intake team is stretched thin. Calls go unanswered, follow-up slips, and potential clients go elsewhere.

    How we'd helpWe work with your team to improve call handling, scripts, and follow-up, then track how many inquiries become consultations and clients.

  • The launch date is set, but the marketing plan is still a list of ideas. You need to know what happens next and who's responsible.

    How we'd helpWe turn those ideas into a launch plan with a budget, deadlines, clear responsibilities, and targets for the first 90 days.

  • Your CMO or marketing director has moved on. Finding the right replacement takes time, but your team and agencies need direction now.

    How we'd helpWe step in from week one to lead the team, keep campaigns moving, and prepare a clear handover for your new hire.

0 of 8 sound like your firm

You don't need to figure this out alone. Let's talk about what's holding your firm back and build a clear plan to move it forward.

Book a Call With Piotr or Matt

Retain your fractional CMO

Piotr Szalkiewicz

Piotr Szalkiewicz

Embedded fractional law firm CMO

$12,000 a month

Best fit: fast-growing, multi-office, or multi-practice firms.

  • Engagement10 hours a week: one full day at your firm, plus two hours and same-day availability during the rest of the week.
  • Term3 months to start, then month to month.
  • ExclusivityOne firm per practice area per market.
Book a Call With Piotr
Matt Sarson

Matt Sarson

Embedded fractional law firm CMO

$10,000 a month

Best fit: firms that grow on reputation and referrals, and firms with a content team that needs direction.

  • Engagement10 hours a week: one full day at your firm, plus two hours and same-day availability during the rest of the week.
  • Term3 months to start, then month to month.
  • ExclusivityOne firm per practice area per market.
Book a Call With Matt

Frequently asked questions

A fractional CMO is a senior marketing executive who leads your firm’s marketing part-time, with the authority of a full-time CMO. They oversee the strategy, the budget, your marketing vendors, your in-house marketers, and intake, and report to the partners every month. At Pioneerly, the role is held by Piotr Szalkiewicz or Matt Sarson, embedded in your firm one full day a week plus 2 hours across the other four days, with same-day availability for urgent matters.

At Pioneerly, $12,000 a month with Piotr or $10,000 a month with Matt, for 10 hours a week. Across the market, fractional CMOs for law firms run from about $3,000 to $20,000 a month, depending on hours and seniority. A full-time law firm CMO costs $250,000 to $380,000 a year, plus benefits and the months it takes to recruit one.

Ten hours a week, and yes, they’re ours.

An agency does the work it’s briefed on. A CMO decides what the work should be, connecting your firm's goals with marketing. Your CMO sets the strategy and the budget, briefs and grades every vendor, agencies included, and answers to the partners for the results.

A marketing manager executes: campaigns, content, vendors, reports. A CMO decides what’s worth doing, owns the budget, and carries the results at the leadership table. Managers do their best work with a leader above them, and a fractional CMO gives a firm that leader before a full-time one makes sense.

Firms between about $2 million and $200 million in revenue with growth ahead of them: fast-growing firms, multi-office firms, firms adding a practice area, and firms that grow on referrals and want a system around them.

They stay if they’re good. In the first month, your CMO reviews every vendor: what they were asked to do, what they delivered, and what each new client cost. Good vendors get a clearer brief and a single point of contact at the firm. Vendors who can’t show results get a re-brief, a renegotiation, or a replacement.

Day to day, yes. Your CMO sets their priorities, reviews their work, and backs their decisions in front of the partners.

Yes. When your firm needs a marketing manager, an intake lead, or an in-house specialist, your CMO writes the role, screens the candidates, sits in the interviews, and helps to onboard the hire.

Yes, from week one. Your CMO takes over the vendors, the campaigns, and the reporting, keeps the plan moving, and documents the function so your new hire inherits a running department. Some firms recruit during the engagement and hand over at the end of it. Others decide the fractional arrangement covers what they need and keep it.

The first three months are a fixed term to allow time for the audit, development of a growth plan, and the first round of vendor reviews. After that, it runs month to month, and you can end it with a month’s notice.

Everything. The strategy, the growth plan, the vendor scorecards, the reporting setup, the intake scripts, and the accounts belong to the firm from day one, documented in a form your next marketing leader can pick up. Vendor contracts stay in your name, and every login stays yours.