A law firm website is not just marketing collateral; it is attorney advertising, and it sits under state professional conduct rules that most web studios have never read. It is also a public accommodation's online presence, which brings accessibility obligations, and a competitive search asset in one of the most expensive query markets there is. Those three pressures pull in different directions, and the studio you hire will resolve them whether or not you asked it to. This page sets out what a firm site has to do, which published rules shape it, and what to verify before signing. It is general information, not legal advice; your state bar's rules control.
What the site has to accomplish
A firm site does four jobs. It has to be found, which means practice area pages aimed at the questions prospective clients actually type rather than at the firm's internal org chart. It has to establish credibility fast, because a visitor comparing three firms is deciding on signals within seconds: named attorneys with real biographies, a real address, case detail specific enough to be checkable. It has to make contact easy and unambiguous, with a clear next step and a response process behind it that actually answers. And it has to be maintainable, because practice areas change, attorneys move and stale content damages credibility faster than an old design does. A studio that leads with visual direction and never asks which practice areas drive revenue is designing the wrong artefact. Ask which pages the design is optimised for before you look at a single mockup.
The advertising rules the design sits inside
State professional conduct rules treat a firm website as a communication concerning a lawyer's services. Rules modelled on Rule 7.2, such as North Carolina's, permit a lawyer to communicate information about their services through any media and to pay the reasonable costs of advertisements or communications permitted by the rule, along with the usual charges of an intermediary organisation. They prohibit compensating, giving or promising anything of value to a person for recommending the lawyer's services, with narrow exceptions including nominal gifts as an expression of appreciation that are neither intended nor reasonably expected to be compensation. Lead generators may be paid for leads where the generator does not recommend the lawyer and the payment complies with fee-division rules, and a lawyer must not pay a lead generator that states, implies or creates a reasonable impression that it is recommending the lawyer. Any communication made under the rule must include the name and contact information of at least one lawyer or law firm responsible for its content. Those requirements are design decisions as much as legal ones: they determine what the footer must carry, how directory badges may be presented, and how testimonials and results are framed. Rules vary by state and this is not legal advice; check your own bar's adopted version.
Accessibility is part of the brief
The Department of Justice's web guidance states that Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by businesses open to the public, and applies that to the goods and services those businesses offer online. It does not currently impose a single technical standard on private businesses; the guidance says businesses can choose how they ensure what they provide online is accessible, and points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the Section 508 standards as helpful references. It names concrete barriers that design choices create: poor colour contrast such as light grey text on a light background, images without text alternatives, videos without captions, and websites that cannot be navigated without a mouse. Every one of those is a decision made during design and expensive to unpick after launch. Ask the studio which reference standard it designs to, how contrast is checked, and whether keyboard navigation is tested before handover; then put the answers into the acceptance criteria rather than the pitch deck.
What to verify before hiring the studio
Judge a studio on published evidence rather than on its portfolio's visual polish. Look for firm sites it built that you can visit today, a named team, a real address and a price breakdown that separates design, build, content and launch, because content is the line most often assumed to be the client's job halfway through a project that quoted it as included. On technical quality, Google's page experience guidance gives a buyer six checks to put into acceptance criteria: good Core Web Vitals, secure serving, content that displays well on mobile devices, advertising that does not overwhelm the main content, no intrusive interstitials, and main content clearly distinguishable from secondary elements. Google is candid that there is no single page experience signal and that relevance comes first, so treat these as hygiene rather than a ranking purchase. On budget, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports median pay for web developers and digital designers of $95,380 per year as of 2024, with 214,900 jobs and a projected 7% change over 2024 to 2034; that is the benchmark an in-house alternative has to clear. Finally, ask who reviews the finished copy against your state's advertising rules, and make sure the answer is someone at the firm.
Questions people ask about website design for attorneys
Do attorney advertising rules apply to a firm website?
Yes. State conduct rules treat a website as a communication concerning a lawyer's services. Rules modelled on Rule 7.2 restrict paying for recommendations and require the name and contact information of a responsible lawyer or firm on the communication. Rules vary by state; check your own bar's version.
Can we pay a directory or lead generator for enquiries?
Rules modelled on Rule 7.2 permit paying for leads where the generator does not recommend the lawyer and the arrangement complies with fee-division rules, and prohibit paying a generator that implies it is recommending you. The details differ by state, so treat this as general information and confirm locally.
Does a law firm website have to be accessible?
ADA Title III prohibits businesses open to the public from discriminating against people with disabilities, and the Department of Justice applies that to what they provide online. No single technical standard is mandated for private businesses today, but WCAG and Section 508 are the references the guidance points to.
Will a redesign improve our rankings?
Not by itself. Google says there is no single page experience signal and that relevance comes first, though experience matters when competing pages are similarly useful. A redesign that keeps redirects intact and improves content can help; one that discards existing URLs usually costs visibility.