How to improve SEO for starting law firm?

I'm making this post on the behalf of my partner as he is really busy and I don't really know anything about SEO.

He is a lawyer and made his own website with wordpress as well as learnt the basics of SEO via tutorials.

However he feels he doesn't get good enough results from the SEO as the only visits he gets on his website are from google adds and he would like to know how to get a better "natural" SEO.

Basically, he would like to be among the first to appear on Google when people look for “lawyer+[ourcity]”. However, despite having designed a site that respects the basic SEO rules (make the words appear in titles and often, make long enough pages and articles), he is not even at the 100th place for this specific research.

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Only Google ads allow him to have clients visiting his site.

He is using several SEO add ons but there are a lot of them and he feels kinda lost, so he don't know if he should subscribe to any "premium plan" that are offered to him, or if it would be a waste of money. He is not reluctant to spend money however, if it is effective to help him reaching the front page.

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What would be the more interesting approach? Just doing some wise updates on his site ? Buying a SEO add on premium plan ? Hiring a professional (and how to know in advance if he will be good ?).

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He struggles a lot to make his firm start and would warmly appreciate any advice you can give him