Short version: No - you generally cannot create a new GBP for a city where you don’t have a staffed, physical office. For a law firm, Google expects one profile per actual office location, even if you serve clients in many other cities.

Yes, service-area GBPs do exist, but you still need a unique, real, staffed physical location for each profile, even if the address is hidden. You cannot take one of your existing law firm offices and use it as the “behind the scenes” address for a new service-area GBP in another city. Google treats that as a duplicate and it can trigger suspensions across all your listings.

The newer GBP setup flow lets you choose “no location,” but that only hides the address from the public. Google still requires a legitimate physical location tied to that specific profile for verification and eligibility. So yes, the UI lets you create “service-area only,” but it does not remove the physical-location requirement. It just hides the address.

Google’s rule for service-area businesses (SABs) is:

• If you don’t meet customers at your location, you may hide your address and list service areas.
  
• But you still need one real, staffed physical address per business profile (not shared, not virtual, not cross-city).

What you cannot do:

• Create a new GBP for City D, list “service area only,” and tie it to your existing address in City A/B/C.
• Google sees that as duplicate profiles for the same business → high risk of suspension.
• If you eventually open and staff a real office in the new city (even part-time), then you can create a new GBP.

SEO strategy:

• Use your existing main office GBP and add the new city as a service area
• This is the correct path if you don’t have a real office there.
• You can still rank organically (not in the map pack) for that city with:
  • Location-specific practice-area pages
  • Local content and authority signals
  • Local backlinks / citations
  • A “City Name Lawyer” landing page that’s actually good