Law Firm Website Design: What to Own and What to Test

A law firm website has to do one thing well: make it easy for someone who needs a lawyer today to reach you on a phone, without saying anything your bar can object to. The harder decision is how you buy it, because the contract decides what you own, and what you count decides whether it paid.

Quick answer

Run the ten-minute phone test below on your site and on one competitor's. Read your state's version of the advertising rules against your homepage, your results claims and your contact form. Register the domain yourself, in your own registrar account. Pick the route by what you would hold after three years, not by the template. Count calls, forms and booked consultations from day one, and signed cases per source in your intake system. Nothing here is legal advice; I am not a lawyer.

Does your site pass a ten-minute phone test?

Take your own phone, turn off Wi-Fi, and play someone who was just arrested, served or hurt. Time each step.

• Does the first screen show a number that dials when tapped?
• Can you reach a real person, or a clear message, outside office hours?
• Does the form fit on the screen with a thumb, and is it short enough to finish?
• Does the page you land on from a "car accident lawyer" search say car accidents, not "our practice areas"?
• If you offer online scheduling, can you book a consultation without a call?
• If you take Spanish-speaking clients, is there a Spanish page a person can find and read without a translation plugin?

Do the same on a competitor's site. A gallery of "best law firm websites" shows how a page looks on a monitor and says nothing about any of these.

What do the bar rules say about the site itself?

Each state bar sets its own rules; the ABA says its Model Rules serve as models for the ethics rules of most jurisdictions (ABA, checked 2026-10-17).

• Do not mislead. Model Rule 7.1 says a lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication, and that a communication is misleading if it contains a material misrepresentation or omits a fact needed to keep it from misleading (ABA, checked 2026-10-17).
• Results. Its comment says a truthful report of achievements may mislead if it creates an unjustified expectation of the same result for other clients, and that appropriate qualifying language may prevent that finding (ABA, checked 2026-10-17).
• Specialist. Rule 7.2(c) bars stating or implying you are a certified specialist unless an organization approved by a state authority or accredited by the ABA certified you and the communication names that organization (ABA, checked 2026-10-17).
• Who is responsible. Rule 7.2(d) says any communication made under that rule must include the name and contact information of at least one lawyer or law firm responsible for its content (same ABA page). A footer naming a responsible lawyer, with contact details, covers every page.

More in attorney advertising rules. In Canada, the Law Society of Ontario's rule 4.2-1 lets a lawyer market services only if the marketing is demonstrably true, accurate and verifiable and not misleading, and its commentary flags stating amounts recovered without noting that past results are not necessarily indicative of future results and that outcomes vary with the facts (Law Society of Ontario, checked 2026-10-17); other provinces have their own.

What should a contact form say?

A form that invites visitors to describe their problem can make a stranger believe you are already their lawyer. ABA Formal Opinion 10-457 (2010) says websites that invite inquiries may create a prospective client relationship under Model Rule 1.18, and that lawyers are "well-advised to consider that a website-generated inquiry may have come from a prospective client" (ABA Formal Opinion 10-457, checked 2026-10-17). Rule 1.18 bars a lawyer from using or revealing what a prospective client shared, even if no representation follows, except as the rules permit for a former client's information (ABA, checked 2026-10-17).

The opinion says a disclaimer works only if it is reasonably understandable, properly placed and not misleading, conspicuous enough that the reader is likely to see it before going on, and in the same language as the site, so a Spanish page needs a Spanish warning. It lists four misunderstandings a warning can prevent: that a lawyer-client relationship exists, that the message will be kept confidential, that legal advice was given, and that the lawyer can no longer act for the other side.

In practice that means a plain sentence directly above the Send button, a short form (name, phone, type of matter) and a prompt to call for anything detailed. The opinion also notes that, absent an appropriate warning, a visitor's detailed account of a matter may well disqualify the firm from the other side of it. Have your ethics counsel or state bar approve the wording.

What does the ADA guidance ask of a firm's website?

The ADA itself, at 42 U.S.C. 12181(7)(F), lists the "office of an accountant or lawyer" among public accommodations (ADA.gov, checked 2026-10-17). The Department of Justice's position is that the ADA applies to the goods and services such businesses offer on the web. Its guidance lists common barriers: poor color contrast, images without text alternatives, forms without labels, videos without captions and navigation that needs a mouse (ADA.gov, checked 2026-10-17).

The guidance calls itself informal, lets a business choose how to comply, and names WCAG (the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) among the standards that help. It also says a clean report from an automated checker does not necessarily mean everything is accessible, so ask your designer to pair one with a manual check, including a keyboard-only pass through every page.

In Ontario, the province says that since January 1, 2021, businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees must make public websites, and web content posted after January 1, 2012, meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, except live captions and pre-recorded audio descriptions (Ontario, checked 2026-10-17).

Which route should you buy: vendor platform, custom build or builder?

Squarespace exports only certain content, as a file for WordPress (Squarespace, checked 2026-10-17); Wix says a Wix site must run on Wix's servers (Wix, checked 2026-10-17).

What does a subscription site cost next to a custom build over three years?

Illustrative: every number below is made up, for a two-lawyer injury firm that does not exist, and no client supplied any of them.

Say an average signed case brings this firm $4,000 in fees. The subscription needs $15,900 / $4,000 = 3.98, so 4 signed cases over three years. The custom build needs $17,820 / $4,000 = 4.46, so 5. If 1 in 4 consultations signs, that is 16 and 20 consultations.

Use your own fee, your own signing rate from your intake data, and whatever the site really brings. The totals are close. What differs is that the custom build can stay the firm's after month 36, while the subscription depends on the vendor's contract.

Which accounts and files must be in the firm's name?

• The domain, with the firm as registrant in a registrar account it controls. A designer can get user access to make changes.
• Admin access to the hosting account and to the site itself. On a vendor platform, get a written answer on what you can take with you.
• Text, photos and attorney bios, with written rights to reuse them anywhere.
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager (the container that holds the site's tracking tags), both opened under a firm Google account, with outside help invited as users.
• Tracking phone numbers: ask who rents them, whether you may keep or move them, and what happens to them on cancellation. Without those answers, your call history by source can leave with the vendor.

Which three numbers tell you the site is working?

• Calls from the site by source. Call tracking swaps the number on the page by where the visitor came from (a Google ad, a map listing, a directory), so each call arrives tagged with its source. I have used CallRail for this.
• Form submissions and booked consultations, set as GA4 key events. Google defines a key event as an event that measures an action that is particularly important to the success of your business (Google, checked 2026-10-17).
• Signed cases per source, from the intake record in your law firm CRM.

Calls and forms are leads. Only the signed case shows which source paid, and the law firm KPIs post shows where these counts fit in a monthly review.

What should a vendor answer in writing before you pay?

1. Whose name is on the domain registration?
2. Who holds the admin login to the hosting and the site?
3. If I leave, which pages, text and photos can I take, and in what format?
4. Which phone numbers do you set up, in whose account, and can I keep them?
5. Is GA4 created in my account, with you as a user?
6. Where does the contact form send messages, and which tool stores them?
7. Who writes the form disclaimer, and who checks it against my state's rules?
8. How are changes billed, and how fast are they made?
9. What does the contract say about ending early?