A law firm's website must do three things simultaneously: communicate authority and credibility in seconds, generate qualified enquiries from prospective clients, and comply with the advertising rules of your bar association. We build websites that achieve all three.
The Brief
A law firm website serves a distinct commercial purpose: converting a prospective client who is searching for legal help into a consultation booking or qualified enquiry. To do this effectively, it must establish immediate authority (attorney credentials, practice area expertise, verified third-party credentials like Avvo ratings), present a clear consultation pathway (a frictionless contact form or direct booking link on every page), and load fast enough that mobile visitors — who represent the majority of legal service searches — stay on the page long enough to contact the firm. In the US, all content must comply with ABA Model Rule 7.1, which prohibits false or misleading attorney advertising, and with the specific advertising rules of the state bar(s) where the firm practises. In the UK, content must comply with SRA Handbook Chapter 8 transparency standards. Hawd Design builds law firm websites from €4,900, with Rule 7.1-aware copy review, attorney biography architecture, Avvo/SuperLawyers badge integration, LegalService schema markup, and ADA/WCAG 2.1 AA compliance as standard.
Common Mistakes
Most law firm websites fail for one of three predictable reasons. Here is what they are — and how we fix them.
Most law firm websites state what they do but fail to demonstrate why a prospective client should trust them to do it. A homepage that says "We handle personal injury cases" communicates nothing about the firm's experience, track record, or comparative advantage.
A homepage that shows the lead attorney's bar admission year, links to a $4.8M verdict case result (with proper disclaimer), displays a verified 9.6 Avvo rating, and lists AV Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell status — that creates the immediate credibility signal that converts a visitor into an enquiry.
Prospective legal clients are often in distress — facing a deadline, a dispute, or a crisis. The conversion trigger is brief and emotional. If a visitor has to navigate three pages to find a contact form, or if the mobile version buries the phone number below a long biography, the enquiry goes to the next firm in the search results.
Every Hawd Design law firm build puts a consultation CTA in the navigation bar, at the bottom of every attorney biography, at the end of every practice area page, and in a fixed header element visible throughout.
Lawyers are among the most targeted professionals for bar association advertising complaints. A phrase as seemingly innocuous as "the best divorce attorneys in Texas" on a law firm's homepage can trigger a bar inquiry. Most web designers do not know what ABA Rule 7.1 requires, let alone the overlay rules of individual state bars.
We review all copy produced for law firm clients against the applicable advertising rules before publication and flag content for attorney sign-off.
What We Build
Every page type on a law firm website has a specific commercial role. We build each one to maximise its contribution to qualified enquiries.
A law firm homepage must establish trust within three seconds of page load. The information architecture we use:
The attorney biography page is typically the second-most-visited page on a law firm website. Required elements include:
Practice area pages are the primary organic search landing pages. A prospective client searching for "personal injury attorney Chicago" will typically land here, not on the homepage. Our structure:
For a law firm, the contact page is a revenue page. We treat it accordingly:
Advertising Rules
We build websites to satisfy the applicable bar association advertising rules as baseline and recommend that all advertising-facing copy be reviewed by your compliance officer or general counsel before the site goes live.
ABA Model Rule 7.1 is the baseline. The rule prohibits false or misleading communications about a lawyer or their services. Specific applications in practice include:
UK solicitors are governed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The SRA's transparency rules require that law firm websites:
For UK firms offering regulated services in price-transparency categories, we structure the pricing pages to meet SRA requirements, including the required cost breakdowns and service descriptions.
Law Firm SEO
Legal is among the most competitive and most expensive organic search niches. The SEO strategy for most law firms does not chase broad head terms — it targets lower-competition, higher-intent queries where the competition is weaker and the prospective client's need is more specific.
"Employment discrimination attorney in [specific suburb]" or "conveyancing solicitor [specific town]" — lower competition, highly specific search intent. These queries convert at dramatically higher rates than broad head terms.
Structuring practice area pages with specific questions that appear in the "People Also Ask" box for legal queries — high-visibility snippets that established law firms' generic pages typically do not target. FAQPage schema on every practice area page.
Author schema, LinkedIn linkage, bar association profile links, and Avvo/SuperLawyers linking — signals to Google that the content is produced by genuine, verified legal experts. Critical for ranking in legal YMYL queries.
Google Business Profile optimisation for firms serving a specific geographic market — the local 3-pack appears prominently in Google results for local legal service queries. Often the highest-impact SEO action for a local practice.
A central practice area page supported by cluster articles targeting specific sub-questions: "how to file a small claims case in [state]," "what damages can I recover in a car accident claim in [state]" — high-intent, low-competition content that builds topical authority over time.
LegalService schema on every practice area page signals to Google that the page represents a legal service offering, improving visibility in legal-specific rich results and Google Business Profile integration. Implemented alongside Organization, LocalBusiness, and Person schema.
Law Firm SEO Retainer
Content strategy, practice area page optimisation, FAQPage schema, and local SEO management. From €1,500/month.
Investment
All packages include ABA Rule 7.1-aware copy review, ADA/WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, and LegalService schema markup. Save 40% vs. Western European agencies.
Starter
Best for: sole practitioners, boutique firms (2–5 attorneys), single practice area focus.
From €4,900 — the complete foundation for a law firm with one primary practice area.
Business
Best for: mid-size firms with multiple practice areas and multiple attorneys.
Everything in Starter, plus a full multi-attorney, multi-practice-area website built to rank and convert.
Enterprise
Best for: large firms with complex content architecture, multiple offices, multilingual requirements, or client portal integration needs.
Scoped individually after a paid Discovery Phase (€1,200, credited against project).
Full details on included deliverables, timelines, and payment terms → View Pricing Page
FAQ
Yes. We offer legal copywriting as an add-on service. Our copywriters are briefed on Rule 7.1 and the applicable state bar advertising rules, and produce draft biographies that are accurate in professional tone, structured for SEO (targeting attorney name + practice area + location queries), and compliant with advertising standards. All copy is reviewed by the attorney for accuracy before publication — we flag any content that requires bar compliance sign-off before it goes live.
Yes. We have built multilingual law firm websites in English, German, and Arabic. For DACH-region law firms serving international clients, a multilingual site significantly expands the addressable enquiry pool. For US firms serving Spanish-speaking, Arabic-speaking, or other language communities, we scope the multilingual architecture in discovery. All multilingual builds include correct hreflang implementation to prevent duplicate content issues.
Yes. We integrate Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, Clio Grow, and similar appointment booking platforms, allowing prospective clients to book a consultation directly from any page on the site. For firms using practice management software like Clio or MyCase, we can scope CRM form integration so consultation enquiries flow directly into the case management system.
AV Preeminent is the highest Martindale-Hubbell rating for legal ability and ethical standards. It should be displayed prominently — typically in the attorney biography header, in the firm's trust signal row on the homepage, and in the footer. The Martindale-Hubbell badge should link to the verified profile page. We implement this as part of the attorney biography architecture and can include it in the Organisation schema's award property.
ABA Model Rule 7.1 prohibits lawyers from making false or misleading communications about themselves or their services. Applied to law firm websites, attorney bios may not use unverified superlatives ("best," "most experienced," "top-rated" without verification); case results and testimonials must include disclaimers; claims of specialisation must reflect actual credentials; and required "Attorney Advertising" notices must be displayed where state bar rules require them. State bar advertising rules overlay the ABA model rules and vary significantly — California, Florida, New York, and Texas each have distinct requirements.
Yes. Law firm websites are disproportionately targeted by ADA accessibility litigation — partly because law firms are expected to understand legal obligations and partly because their online presence is a direct revenue asset. Under Title III of the ADA, commercial legal services websites must be accessible to users with disabilities to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. Hawd Design builds all law firm websites to WCAG 2.1 AA as a baseline, including accessible forms, screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and colour contrast compliance. Learn more about our ADA compliance service.
LegalService schema is a structured data type defined by Schema.org that explicitly identifies a web page as describing a legal service. Implementing LegalService schema on practice area pages signals to Google that the page represents a legal service offering, which can improve visibility in legal-specific rich results and Google Business Profile integration. It should be implemented alongside Organization schema, LocalBusiness schema for geographically local practices, and Person schema for individual attorney biographies. FAQPage schema on practice area pages targets the "People Also Ask" panels that appear prominently in Google results for legal queries.
Law firm testimonials and case results must be handled carefully to comply with advertising rules. US firms must include state bar-required disclaimers ("Past results do not guarantee similar outcomes") displayed in proximity to any case result claims. Some state bars (notably Florida, New Jersey) have additional specific rules governing client testimonials on attorney websites. UK firms are governed by SRA transparency rules, which require accuracy and clarity in all service descriptions. We recommend that all testimonial and case result copy be reviewed by the firm's compliance contact before publication.
From the Blog
Deep-dive articles on law firm web design, compliance, and SEO from our editorial team.
Send us your current website URL and describe your practice areas and target markets. We'll review your current site for compliance, conversion, and SEO opportunities — and send you a written assessment within 2 business days.
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Tell us about your firm, your practice areas, and your target markets. We'll respond within 4 business hours with an initial assessment and a proposed approach.
We'll review your current site for compliance, conversion, and SEO opportunities — and send you a written assessment within 2 business days.