Most law firm websites are written for other lawyers. They open with the year the firm was founded, list practice areas in the order the partners prefer, and put the phone number under a stock photo of a courthouse.
The person actually reading the site is different. They were served papers this morning. A business partner stopped returning calls. A child is involved. They are on a phone, it is late, and they are deciding in about eight seconds whether your firm is one they can trust with the worst week of their life.
This is the checklist we use when we build for firms. It is not exhaustive and it is not legal advice. It is what we have learned matters, in roughly the order it matters.
1. The advertising rules your state bar enforces
Every state regulates attorney advertising, and a website is advertising. The rules differ enough that we never copy disclaimers from one firm to another. Before design starts, we ask the firm to confirm its jurisdiction’s requirements, then build them into the templates so they cannot be deleted by accident when someone edits a page.
- Labeling. Some states require the words “Attorney Advertising” on the site; New York is the familiar example. If yours does, it belongs in the footer of every page.
- Results language. “Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome,” or your state’s equivalent, near any verdicts, settlements, or case descriptions.
- Specialization claims. “Specialist” and “expert” are restricted in many states unless the attorney holds a recognized certification. We write “focuses on” or “practices in” unless the certification exists.
- Responsible attorney and office address. Several states require the name of a lawyer responsible for the content and a physical office address.
- Testimonials. Banned in some states, disclaimed in others, unrestricted in a few. Confirm before publishing a single quote.
- Firm names. “& Associates” with no associates is a problem in most jurisdictions.
2. Practice-area pages that answer one question each
A practice-area page has one job: confirm to a specific person with a specific problem that this firm handles it, and tell them what happens next. A page titled “Litigation” that lists fourteen sub-specialties does not do that.
We write each page around the question someone actually types. “Can I be fired for filing a workers’ comp claim in California?” is a page. “Employment Law” is a category. The category exists for navigation; the question pages exist for people and for search.
Every page ends the same way: what the first conversation looks like, what it costs or that it is free, and how to start. No page should end with a photo and silence.
3. Attorney bios a referring lawyer can vet in two minutes
Two audiences read bios. Prospective clients want to know whether this person will take them seriously. Referring attorneys want to know whether this person is competent enough to trust with their client and their reputation.
For RTGR Law Firm in Oakland, referrals were central to the practice, so the team page had to work as a due-diligence tool. We built individual bio pages for every attorney with extended biographies, downloadable resumes, and direct email links. We also removed and standardized the varied photo backgrounds so the roster read as one firm rather than a collection of headshots from different decades.
- Bar admissions and courts, spelled out.
- Representative matters, with results language as your state requires.
- A downloadable resume or CV for referrals and press.
- Direct contact for attorney-to-attorney communication, not a generic form.
- A photo in the same light and against the same background as the rest of the team.
4. Intake without friction, and without creating a client you did not agree to take
The contact form is where most law firm websites lose the matter before it starts. Either it asks for twelve fields and the visitor gives up, or it asks for two and the firm receives “call me” with a wrong number.
The right form asks for what the firm needs to triage: name, best way to reach you, the general nature of the matter, and for deadline-driven practices, any date the person is aware of. The rest belongs in the first phone call.
Two things sit next to that form. First, a plain statement that submitting it does not create an attorney-client relationship and that the person should not send confidential details until the firm has agreed to represent them. Second, a realistic response window, stated only if it is true.
- HTTPS everywhere and a clear answer to where submissions are stored and for how long.
- Route by practice area so a family-law inquiry lands with the family-law team, not a shared inbox checked on Fridays.
- A phone number with a person behind it during business hours. Many people in crisis will not fill out a form.
- The confidentiality notice is not fine print. It protects the person as much as the firm.
5. A separate door for referring attorneys
If a meaningful share of your work comes from other lawyers, they need their own path. A referring attorney wants to submit a matter quickly, attach documents, and know it reached the right person.
RTGR’s referral portal is the clearest example we have built. Referring attorneys submit case details, upload supporting documents, and can include video files through a single online form. Submissions route directly to the appropriate RTGR attorney for review. The portal became the centerpiece of the redesign because it turned the website from a brochure into a working part of the practice.
6. Reviews and schema, done honestly
Structured data lets search engines display firm details directly in results. For law firms the relevant types are LegalService for the firm and Attorney for individuals, with name, address, phone, hours, and areas served. Invisible to visitors, useful to search.
Reviews are trickier. Google permits review rich results only for reviews collected on your own site, not copied from Google or Avvo. And your bar’s testimonial rules apply to a review widget exactly as they apply to a quote in a brochure.
Our recommendation: keep the Google Business Profile accurate and answer reviews there, link to it from the site, and publish on-site testimonials only where your state allows them, with the disclaimer it requires.
7. Accessibility and the demand-letter problem
Law firms are a regular target of ADA website demand letters, which is an uncomfortable position for a firm to be in. The fix is also good practice: real text rather than text in images, 4.5:1 contrast for body copy, labeled form fields, keyboard navigation, alt text on meaningful images, and tagged PDFs rather than scans.
8. Security and the boring foundation
A firm’s site is a target because the inbox behind it is valuable. HTTPS, a maintained WordPress core and plugin set, a web application firewall, daily off-site backups, two-factor authentication on every admin account, and someone whose job it is to notice when something breaks. This is the part of the checklist no one wants to talk about at the pitch meeting and everyone wants to have done when something goes wrong.
9. What to leave out
Gavels, scales, and columns. Stock photos of handshakes. Latin. A blog last updated in 2021. Auto-playing video. A chat widget that asks for the details of the matter. Each of these makes the site feel like it belongs to every other firm.
Case study: RTGR Law Firm
A modernized firm site with a secure referral portal and standardized attorney bios.
The website is the first consultation most clients will have with your firm. It should feel like the office you would want them to walk into: calm, clear, and staffed by someone who already understands why they are there.
If yours is not doing that, we can help. We have built for defense firms, solo practitioners, and legal organizations, and we handle the technical parts so you can stay with your clients.
How we help Law Firms & Legal Organizations →
This article is general information for firm owners and not legal advice. Attorney advertising rules vary by jurisdiction; confirm your requirements with your state bar or ethics counsel before publishing.