The article
Someone searching for a lawyer is often having a bad week: an arrest, a car accident, a divorce, a lawsuit, a deal that went wrong. They need to know, quickly, whether you take this kind of matter where they live, who would handle it and how to talk to someone today.
I have spent 18 years in software development, and the team I have built since 2017 has 70+ specialists and 150+ delivered projects. Law firm sites are one line of our web development services, alongside sites for other industries. What follows is how I would approach law firm website design for a solo attorney or a small firm, and what each part costs with us.
What a potential client decides on your site
- Do you handle my matter? Named the way clients name it: "car accident", "DUI", "custody", "wrongful termination", not "tort litigation".
- In my state, county or court? Where you are admitted and where you appear.
- Who will handle it? The attorney, with a photo, admissions and the matters they take.
- What does it cost to start? A free or paid consultation, a contingency fee, a flat fee, hourly work with a retainer: say which applies to which matter.
- How fast can I talk to someone? The phone, the hours, who answers after hours and which languages your office speaks.
The home page should answer all five within a screen or two on a phone.
The pages a law firm site needs
- Home: the matters you take, where, and the fastest way to reach you.
- A page per practice area, plus a page per specific matter you want more of: "DUI defense" apart from "criminal defense". Each explains what you handle, how the process runs, what to bring to the consultation and what clients ask.
- Attorney profiles: bar admissions, education, years in practice, matters handled, languages and a real photo.
- Fees and consultations: how each kind of matter is billed and what the first meeting costs.
- Areas served: counties and courts, with each office's address and parking.
- Reviews and results, once your bar's rules are checked.
- Contact and intake, the privacy policy and any disclaimer your bar requires.
A solo practice or a small firm fits within the 20-page limit of our $499 site; a firm with fifteen practice areas and three offices needs a larger site, priced before work starts.
Intake: the phone, the form and the consultation
- The phone first. A number you can tap on every page, the hours beside it, and a plain line about who answers after hours.
- A short intake form. Name, phone or email, practice area, county, a few sentences, and the names of the other parties so you can run a conflict check before the call. Ask your ethics counsel what the form should say about confidentiality and about whether a message creates an attorney-client relationship; we put that note above the button.
- No lost inquiries. Ask anyone quoting your law firm website development what happens when the email fails. On Buhgalteria na doloni, an accounting firm's site we built, each request is stored before it is forwarded by email and Telegram, so nothing depends on one mailbox.
- Consultation booking, plus $500. On Somatic Reset, a custom booking site we built, the owner sets weekly hours, buffers between sessions and a minimum notice in the admin; for an attorney, such rules mean no consultation booked ten minutes from now and a break between two consultations, and before work starts we confirm which of them your booking gets.
- Paid consultations and retainers, plus $500 for payments. Before we connect a payment provider, ask your bar or your accountant whether fees and retainers paid online belong in your operating account or your trust account.
- A client portal for documents and messages is a web application, starting at $5,000 for the first version. If your case management software already has a portal, the site links to it.
How people search for a lawyer
Searches pair a matter with a place: "car accident lawyer Miami", "DUI attorney near me", "divorce lawyer Broward". Referrals often end in a search for a name.
- A search for "DUI attorney" is best answered by a page about DUI defense, not by a list of twenty practice areas.
- City pages work when they say something true about that city: the courthouse, the county's process, your office there. Twenty copies with the city name swapped do not.
- Your Google Business Profile and the site show the same name, address, phone and hours.
Trust, and the questions that belong to your bar
Visitors trust what they can verify: admissions they can look up on the state bar's site, real photos, years in practice, languages, articles and memberships. If accessibility is a legal concern for the firm, auditing and fixing the site is our separate ADA website compliance service.
What a law firm's site may say is a question for your bar, not for law firm web designers, us included. Before launch, ask your state bar or your ethics counsel:
- whether pages need an "attorney advertising" label or a disclaimer;
- whether case results and client reviews may appear, and with what wording;
- whether you may call yourself a specialist or an expert;
- which office address and responsible attorney the site must name.
We place the approved wording as text where it belongs, and you can change it in the admin.
Mistakes I see in law firm website design
In October 2026 I measured the comparable pages Google showed me for "law firm website design"; one of the five refused my browser. Of the other four, none discusses disclaimers or a state bar's advertising rules, none puts a price on the page, and only one mentions case results.
Firms' own sites repeat the same mistakes:
- Gavels, columns and scales of justice instead of the attorneys.
- "Aggressive representation" with nothing specific behind it.
- Results and reviews published before anyone checked the bar's rules.
- The domain and the site held by a marketing vendor.
Check your site tonight
| What | Why it matters | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Tap to call | A person after an arrest or an accident calls from a phone | Tap your number on your own site, on a phone |
| A test inquiry | An unanswered message on Friday night is a client lost | Send one through your form at 9 pm on a Friday; see who replies, and when |
| The intake form | It should collect what the first call and a conflict check need, nothing more | Read every field and the note above the button |
| Attorney profiles | Clients hire a person, not a logo | Check each attorney's admissions, matters and photo |
| Domain and analytics | If a vendor holds them, it holds your address and years of search data | Your registrar account shows the registrant; Google Analytics shows your role under Admin |
Which package fits, and who holds the file
- The $499 website for a solo attorney or a small firm: up to 20 pages, an admin for every word, basic SEO, Google Analytics and https on your domain. That article spells out what the price includes and what it does not.
- Consultation booking adds $500, and so do payments.
- A second language or an integration with your case management software is priced before work starts.
- A design no other firm has, or a site past 20 pages, is a custom website, hourly or by milestones after an estimate.
Support is $29 a month, billed annually ($348): hosting, fixes, content changes, backups and updates, with a reply within 3 business days. If your intake cannot wait that long when something breaks, our other support plans respond the same day, weekends included. More on website maintenance.
Lawyers ask who holds the file. In website development for attorneys, the file is the domain, the code and the analytics, and with us all three stay with the firm. You register and pay for the domain yourself. After payment and delivery the code and the design are the firm's, packed in an archive any developer can deploy. Analytics and Search Console sit in the firm's Google account, or move there the day you leave.
Twenty-six verified Clutch reviews put us at 5.0 (September 2026). Start with your practice areas and the counties you serve: the first call is free, and all our prices are on the pricing page. Two neighboring trades have pages of their own: insurance agency and accounting firm websites.
