Law Firm Website Design

What a law firm website has to do

The site has four jobs, in this order: show that you handle the visitor's kind of problem, show that real, qualified people stand behind it, make contact easy, and avoid anything your regulator would object to. A site that does the first three and ignores the fourth is a liability. A site that does only the fourth looks like a brochure that nobody reads.

Visitors arrive in different states. Someone searching after an arrest or a sudden dispute wants a phone number within seconds. Someone comparing firms for a will or a company matter wants to read, check fees and look at your lawyers. Design for both on the same page set by putting the phone and a short form at the top and the explanation below.

The page list

Keep the list as short as your firm. Ten strong pages beat forty near-copies.

Let the regulator shape the layout

Your regulator decides some content and sometimes where it must sit. These examples show the range, and none replaces reading your own rules.

• England and Wales. The Solicitors Regulation Authority requires price and service information for listed matters to be prominent, accessible and clearly signposted. That means a menu item, not a paragraph at the bottom of a blog post. It must say whether prices include VAT, what the price covers, including disbursements, typical timescales and who does the work.
• California. Rule 7.2 requires a communication to include the name and address of at least one responsible lawyer or law firm, which belongs in the footer of every page. Rule 7.1 warns that guarantees of results and unjustified testimonials can mislead, so a "results" page needs careful wording and a disclaimer your counsel approves.
• Cyprus. The Advocates' Code of Conduct Regulations permit publicity that is accurate, not misleading and respectful of confidentiality, and they say an advocate never assures a client of success. Our Cyprus law firm guide explains what that means in practice.

Intake forms and confidentiality

The contact form is the most sensitive part of the site. Follow these rules:

1. Ask only for name, contact route, matter type and preferred language. Do not ask visitors to describe the dispute in the first form.
2. Add a short line telling visitors not to send confidential documents yet. Ask your regulator or insurer whether a notice about the lawyer-client relationship is required. We do not draft that wording.
3. Send form data to a system you control, with access limited to the people who need it.
4. Tell visitors what happens next and how soon, and then do it.

If you add a chat widget or an automated receptionist, treat it as part of the intake process and apply the same rules. Our guide to AI receptionists for law firms covers the questions to ask.

Speed and mobile

Many visitors will arrive on a phone, so design phone-first. Google's Core Web Vitals "good" thresholds are 2.5 seconds for largest contentful paint, 200 milliseconds for interaction to next paint and 0.1 for cumulative layout shift, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads. When a page misses them, check the large hero photo, any autoplay video and any pop-up chat box first. Our Core Web Vitals explainer shows how to test.

Show real people

Google's guidance on helpful content calls fabricated creators, such as AI-generated headshots or invented credentials, deceptive. Use photographs of the actual lawyers, and list only credentials that someone could check. A new or small firm can still look credible by being specific: which matters you handle, which courts or registries you deal with, and which languages you work in.

What decides the cost, and a break-even example

We do not publish prices and we quote in writing, so this section gives you a way to judge any quote instead. Six things move the price: the number of pages, custom design versus a template, who writes the content, photography, the number of languages and integrations such as booking, intake or case-management software. Hosting, maintenance and updates are yearly costs on top.

Here is a worked example. The numbers are illustrative.

• Build cost: EUR 8,000
• Running cost: EUR 100 a month, or EUR 1,200 a year
• First-year cost: EUR 9,200
• Average fee per new matter: EUR 1,500

EUR 9,200 divided by EUR 1,500 is about 6.1, so the site needs to bring in seven signed matters in the first year to cover its cost. At an average fee of EUR 15,000, a single matter covers the year. Use your own fees, and remember that fees are revenue, not profit.

For general cost ranges and what drives them, read our guide to the cost of building a website.

Template or custom?

Choose a template when you have one office, up to about ten pages, one language and no integrations. Choose custom work when you need several languages, many practice areas, a client portal or a brand that has to stand apart from similar firms. If you already have a site, plan the move so you do not lose your rankings. Our redesign without losing SEO guide explains how.

To discuss a build, see our web design service and contact us.