People go to a lawyer when they have a problem they can no longer put off: a dispute, a divorce, a breached contract, a company to set up. Before they ring, they check two things: whether the firm deals with problems of that kind and who the people they would be talking to are. That is what a law firm website answers, soberly and without loud advertising.
The profession has its own rules on how lawyers may make their work known. We build the structure, write the informative copy together with you and ask you to confirm with the bar association the final form of any content that presents the firm.
Practice areas written for the person with the problem
Many lawyers’ sites reel off “civil law, commercial law, employment law”. The person searching does not think in branches of law. They type “challenging a dismissal decision” or “dividing a jointly owned flat”. That is why each practice area has its own page, organised around the real situations people find themselves in.
The page explains, in general terms, what the procedure involves and which documents are usually useful at the first meeting. It gives no advice on a particular case and does not anticipate outcomes: each case is analysed separately, and the site says so explicitly.
- Situations covered: worded the way an ordinary person would describe them.
- What working together involves: the first conversation, the review of the documents, the next steps.
- What to prepare: documents and information that are useful at the consultation.
- The lawyers who work in the area: with a link to each one’s profile.
The lawyer’s profile and bylined articles
People choose a lawyer, not a logo. Each profile includes a real photograph, the bar association the lawyer belongs to, the areas they work in, the languages they speak and, where there is any, their published writing or teaching. No superlatives and no lists of “cases won”: the outcome of a case is not promised and is not used as advertising.
Explanatory articles are how people who do not know you find you on Google. The lawyers write them, or we draft them after a conversation with the lawyers, and then the author checks them before publication. Each carries a byline, the publication date and the date of the last update, because legislation changes and an out-of-date article does more harm than having none.
We agree from the outset who reviews the older pieces. If nobody at the firm has the time, it is more honest to publish only a few pieces and keep them well maintained.
Law firm website: the contact form and sensitive data
Given a form, people tend to write everything: other people’s names, sums of money, diagnoses, accusations. To limit that, we ask for little and state clearly, next to the fields, that the details are discussed later, once the firm has checked whether it can take the case (for example, that there is no conflict of interest).
Ordinary email is not a secure channel for documents, and a website is not an archive. That is why we do not put document upload in the public form and do not keep messages in the site’s database once they have reached the recipient. The notice on data processing (GDPR) is worded by the firm; we place it where it belongs and tie consent to the act of sending.
- Few fields: name, phone or email, the area the problem falls under, the time when you can be called.
- Visible note: sending the message does not mean that a legal assistance contract has been concluded.
- Encrypted transmission: the site runs over HTTPS only.
- Restricted access: enquiries go to an address chosen by the firm, not to everyone who works there.
Working with a law firm: technology, limits, stages
We use WordPress with a theme we write ourselves, which can also be worked on with Elementor Pro (a visual editor), so that a new article or a new colleague can be added from within the firm. Practice areas, lawyers and articles are content types that link to one another. We add structured data, meaning information in a format read by search engines about the firm, its address and the authors of the articles. If you also work with people from outside the country, we prepare the English version, with copy translated by a person.
What can be measured: how many enquiries come in, from which pages and for which practice areas. What cannot be promised: a particular position on Google or a number of cases. The work itself proceeds in five steps.
- We establish which types of matter you want to attract and which you turn down.
- We sketch the structure: areas, profiles, articles.
- We propose a restrained design: legible typography, plenty of space, no gavels and no scales.
- We give you the copy to read before development, not after.
- We test the form and the route each message takes, then we publish.
Frequently asked questions
Am I allowed to say on the site that I specialise in a particular area?
How you present your areas of work is governed by the profession’s rules. We word things neutrally (the areas you work in, experience described factually) and recommend that you confirm the copy with the bar association before publication.
Can I publish my fees?
Technically, a fees page or a description of how fees are calculated can be added at any time. Whether and how you do so depends on the profession’s rules and on the firm’s policy, so you check with the bar association first.
How often does the site need updating?
The technical side (WordPress, plugins, backups) is maintained periodically, and we can take that on. The legal content is reviewed whenever the relevant legislation changes, and that remains the job of the lawyers whose names are on the articles.
This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.