Most law firm websites are written for other lawyers. They lead with the firm, list practice areas as nouns, and describe procedure in the vocabulary of the court rather than of the person in trouble. The reader is usually frightened, uninformed about the process, and comparing two or three firms in a single sitting, and the page that wins is the one that answers the question they actually typed. Good web writing for law firms is therefore less about persuasion and more about explanation: what happens next, how long it takes, what it costs, and what the reader should do today. This guide covers what a strong legal page contains, who should write it, the ethical constraints on the claims it may make, and how to vet a writer on work you can read.
What a page that converts actually contains
Start with the situation, not the firm. A page aimed at someone whose employer has just terminated them should open by naming that situation in plain language, then explain the sequence: what happens first, what the deadlines are, what evidence matters, and what the realistic range of outcomes looks like. Cost belongs on the page, at least as a structure, because a reader who cannot tell whether the arrangement is hourly, contingency or flat fee will leave and ask someone who says. Include the practical detail lawyers skip because it is obvious to them: what to bring to a first meeting, how long a typical matter runs, who they will actually speak to. Then close with a single, specific next step. Pages that end with a generic contact form convert worse than pages that say what happens when you submit it and how quickly someone replies. Length should follow the question rather than a word count, and every claim on the page should be one the firm could substantiate if asked.
Who should write it, and what that costs
There are three workable models. A specialist legal writer who is not a lawyer, with attorney review before publication, is the most common and usually the best value: the writer produces clear prose at pace and the attorney corrects substance. A practising or former attorney writing directly produces the most authoritative copy and costs the most per page, which makes it right for cornerstone practice area pages and overkill for a long tail of situational questions. A general content agency with no legal experience is the cheapest and the riskiest, because legal copy that is merely fluent will state the law slightly wrong in ways a reader will not notice and a regulator might. Price tracks research depth, jurisdictional specificity and how much attorney time the review consumes. Ask any provider how attorney review is scheduled and who pays for the round trips, since review bottlenecks, not writing speed, are what stall most legal content programmes.
The constraints on what the page may claim
Every state bar regulates lawyer advertising, and the constraints bite hardest on exactly the claims marketers reach for first: past results, comparative superlatives such as best or leading, specialisation or expert language where formal certification exists, and client testimonials. Requirements differ by jurisdiction, and several states demand specific disclaimers alongside results or testimonials. Confirm your own state's rules before commissioning rather than after publication, and give the writer those rules as part of the brief. Separately, if the page carries endorsements or reviews, the Federal Trade Commission's endorsement guidance applies to how they are presented and to any material connection between the endorser and the firm. The safest posture is also the most persuasive one: describe process and experience concretely instead of asserting superiority, since a page that explains what happens in a deposition builds more confidence than one that calls the firm aggressive.
How to vet a legal writer on work you can read
Ask for three published pages in your practice area and read them as a client would, not as a lawyer. Do they answer the question in the first two paragraphs, or do they warm up with a history of the statute? Is the reading level appropriate for someone under stress? Is there a single sentence that could not be substantiated? Then commission one paid test page before any retainer, with a real brief and a real deadline, and put it through your normal attorney review so you can measure the number of correction rounds it takes. That number is the real cost signal. Judge the output against Google's guidance on people-first content, which asks whether a page is written to help a person or to rank, since legal is a category where thin, near-duplicate pages across dozens of cities are common and are treated accordingly. Where a firm is buying writing as part of a wider search programme, agree who decides which pages get written, because writing capacity spent on the wrong queries is the most common waste in legal content.
Questions people ask about web writing for law firms
How long should a practice area page be?
Long enough to answer the question completely and no longer. A straightforward situational question may need a few hundred words; a cornerstone practice area page that has to cover process, timelines, costs and outcomes will run much longer. Word count targets produce padding, which is the most visible marker of content written for a search engine.
Should attorneys write their own web pages?
They should own the substance and review every page, but drafting is rarely the best use of billable time and legal training tends to produce prose aimed at colleagues. The most efficient arrangement is a briefing call, a writer's draft, and a tight review round with a fixed turnaround so pages do not sit in a queue for weeks.
Is artificial intelligence writing acceptable for legal pages?
As a drafting aid under attorney review, it can save time. Published without substantive review it is a liability, because it will state law confidently and sometimes wrongly, and it produces the generic phrasing that makes a firm indistinguishable from every competitor. Whatever the tool, the page must be accurate, specific and reviewed.
Do I need separate pages for every city I serve?
Only where you genuinely practise and can write something specific about that jurisdiction, such as the courts involved or local procedure. Duplicating one page across thirty cities with the name swapped is the pattern search engines discount most reliably, and it does nothing for a reader either.