Website design for solicitors: A firm website that
passes its own compliance.
Most of what makes a law firm website hard is regulatory, not visual. That part is a checklist, and it is the part agencies get wrong.
Compliance·Practice areas·Enquiries·Accessibility
The job
What makes website design for law firms different is not the design, it is the regulator. The SRA Transparency Rules say what must be published and where. The digital badge has to appear. Complaints information has to be findable, not filed. Get those wrong and the problem is not conversion, it is your regulator.
The rest is the ordinary job: say what you do, in the words clients use rather than the words the profession uses, and make it easy to get in touch with somebody who can actually help.
Solicitor website design: what's included: The whole list, nothing extra.
Every one of these is in the price. If a job needs something that is not here, it is in the written scope before you say yes, not on the invoice after.
The Transparency Rules, met
Price and service information published where the rules say, for the work the rules cover, with the SRA digital badge in place and complaints information reachable from every page rather than buried.
Practice areas people can find
A page per area of work, named the way a client would say it rather than the way the firm files it. Somebody looking for a solicitor searches for their problem, not for the legal term for it.
Enquiries handled properly
Forms that capture what a fee earner needs to triage, that say what happens next and how long it takes, and that do not promise confidentiality the form cannot provide. Where a firm needs clients to see case progress or exchange documents securely, that is a client portal rather than a website, and I build those too.
People, not stock photography
Fee earner profiles that say what each person does and how to reach them. Clients choose a solicitor rather than a law firm, and a page of anonymous smiles does not help them do it.
Documents anyone can read
The client care letter, price lists and guides as accessible pages or tagged PDFs, checked against WCAG 2.2 AA. Law firms publish more documents than most businesses, and a scanned one is invisible to search and unusable to a screen reader.
Found when it matters
The search basics on every practice area, and the local work if the firm takes most of its clients from one area, which most high street solicitors do.
Sitemap and page structure
What pages exist, how they relate, and what each one is for. This is where SEO is won or lost, before a line of code.
Design, if there is none
I will design it: a site that looks considered and does the job. If the brand underneath it needs doing too, that is its own piece of work and it has its own page.
Build
From your design or mine, on a platform that suits the team who will keep it running rather than the one I enjoy most.
Real content in
Your words and pictures loaded and laid out, not lorem ipsum with a note to fill it later. If an existing site is being replaced, moving it across is its own job: see website migration.
Accessibility and performance
Keyboard, focus order, contrast and labels checked, not assumed. Core Web Vitals measured on real pages, then fixed.
Launch and handover
A checklist worked through line by line, then documentation and a walkthrough with whoever picks it up.
Sounds like you if
“We have been quoted before and never seen what we were paying for.”
One page
A single scrolling page, £600. A launch, a test, or a business that needs to exist online by Friday.
Five pages
Home, about, services, one more, contact, £1,200. The standard small business site.
On WordPress
The same five pages on WordPress, £1,600. More to build, and more you can change yourself afterwards.
A shop
An online shop starts at £2,000: five content pages, up to twenty-five products, payments, shipping, tax and the policies.
Changes afterwards
£75 an hour, billed after they are done, or a monthly plan if there are enough of them to be worth fixing the price.
What is never extra
The sitemap, the redirects, the accessibility pass and the handover. They are part of the build, not a line added at the end.
Hosting and the certificate
A WordPress site on a managed host on my account, with the security certificate kept renewed, for £50 a month. The domain stays registered in your name.
Updated every month
WordPress, the theme and the plugins brought up to date, then the pages that matter checked by hand.
A backup every day
A fresh backup every day, and another before any update runs, so any change can be undone.
Changes when you need them
A reply within twelve working hours saying what it needs and how long it will take, before any of it is started. £75 an hour, or on a plan.
The note on the 1st
What was updated, what was changed and how many hours were used, next to the invoice.
Leaving, and what you take
A month's notice after the first three months, then a full backup and help moving it, free. The domain is already yours.
Sounds like you if
“The last person built it and then we never heard from them again.”
How a solicitor website runs: From hello to handover.
Step 1
12 hours max
I reply
Working hours, unless I am on holiday and have said so.
Step 2
Day 0
Scope call
30 minutes. Which practice areas the firm actually wants work in, who signs things off, and what the current site is failing at.
Step 3
+2 days
Scope, with the rules in it
What gets built, what it costs and when it lands, alongside what the Transparency Rules require of your firm. Before design rather than after.
Step 4
Every week
Something live
A law firm website you can open and send round the partners, not a screenshot in a deck.
Step 5
End
Handover
Documented and walked through, so updating a fee or a fee earner profile does not need me.
This is for you
Website design for solicitors: is it for you?: A solicitor website is for you
if any of these sound familiar.
- A high street or specialist firm
- Your current site predates the Transparency Rules
- Fee earners cannot update their own profiles
- Enquiries arrive too thin to act on
It is not, if
- You want guaranteed rankings
- You want case studies naming clients
Not sure which side you are on? Say so on the call. If I am not the right person, you get the name of someone who is.
What a solicitor website costs
Every price on the page,
before you call.
You should not have to sit through a call to find out whether you can afford me.
Solicitor website questions: Questions I get every time.
The honest answers. If yours is not here, it is the first thing we cover.
Ask me yours01 Do you build websites for law firms and barristers?
Yes. A law firm website and a solicitor website are the same job under a different name, and chambers work is the same again with a different structure: barristers, practice areas, clerks and direct access. The SRA rules apply to solicitors; the Bar Standards Board has its own, and I build to whichever governs you.
02 What does website design for law firms need that other sites do not?
The SRA Transparency Rules, principally: publishing price and service information for the work they cover, in a place a client can find without asking, plus the SRA digital badge and complaints information. Beyond that it is the ordinary job done carefully, with the added constraint that everything published is regulated communication.
03 Do you know the SRA rules?
I know what they require of a website and I build to that. Website development for law firms is ordinary development with one unusual constraint, which is that everything published is regulated communication. I am not a compliance adviser and will not sign anything off: the firm approves the wording, and your COLP is the person who says it is right. What I do is make sure there is nowhere for a requirement to go missing.
04 Can we update our own price lists?
Yes, and you should be able to, because they have to stay current. Fees, people and practice areas are all editable without a developer, and the handover shows whoever does it how.
05 Will it work on a phone?
Yes, and it matters more here than most places. A lot of first contact with a solicitor happens on a phone, often urgently, and solicitor website design that needs pinching and zooming to find a number loses that enquiry to the next firm.
06 How much does it cost?
The same as any build on the same platform: the prices are published by platform on the websites pages. What adds to it is the number of practice areas and people, since those are pages, and the accessibility work on existing documents if there are a lot of them.
07 Can clients log in to see their matter?
Yes, and that is a client portal rather than a website: a signed-in area where somebody sees progress, messages and documents without them going by email. It is a separate job with its own page and it is scoped rather than fixed-price, because what it has to do differs by firm. It is not a replacement for your case management system, it is the client-facing side of one.
08 Can you move our existing site?
Yes, and if it has been up for years it is worth doing properly rather than starting again. Moving it without losing what it already ranks for is its own job and has its own page.
09 How do we pay?
One of two ways, and the written scope says which. A build is a deposit, paid by card when you agree the scope, which starts the work, then the balance when it is finished, or monthly by Direct Debit where the price allows. Other work is paid as each stage is accepted. No VAT is charged.
Usually goes with: Websites for solicitors
and website redesign.
Most firms arriving here have a site rather than no site, and the question is what to keep. A redesign starts by working out which pages are already earning their place, which for a law firm is usually two or three practice areas doing all the work.
See website redesignOr one of the other three
Is this your
firm's website?
Tell me which practice areas matter and what the current site is failing at. Thirty minutes, no pitch, and you leave knowing whether I am the right person to build it.
- Within 12 hoursA reply
- Within 2 working daysA written scope and a price
- OrThe name of someone who fits better