Website Design for Family Lawyers
Someone has found your firm at eleven at night on a phone and does not know what to ask. In the next minute they decide whether to scroll or to leave a name and a number. Website design for family lawyers is mostly about that minute: where the eye lands, how many choices there are, and whether the next step is obvious to a person who is tired and unsure.
What a firm site has to do before it looks good
A family law firm's website has a narrow job. It tells a visitor what the firm takes on, where the offices are, and how to reach the intake desk. Every picture, color and headline either supports that job or gets in its way.
Most sites we see fail in a quiet way. They carry six menu items, three phone numbers, a pop-up and a long row of practice areas in small gray type. A visitor who is already uneasy sees clutter and goes back to the search results. We design the other way around: fewer items, bigger text, and a single route to contact that appears in the same place on every page.
That route is a short form that asks for a name, an email address and a phone number. It does not ask a stranger to describe the matter. A page that invites case details collects information that a marketing site has no business holding, and it tempts a visitor to believe that writing in has started something formal. Whether and how an inquiry is answered is for the attorney and the office to settle, and every page we build is approved by the attorney before it goes live.
This is the website side of family lawyer SEO. A good page is also a page that a search engine can read, so design and search work are planned together.
Six things we build into a family law firm's website
- Layout
A calm first screen for a caller who is unsure
One headline in plain words, one line about the firm's practice areas and the contact route in sight. No slideshow, no auto-playing video, no wall of badges.
- Pages
A page for each practice area the firm takes
Divorce, custody, support, modification, prenuptial agreements and adoption each get their own page if the firm handles them. The firm picks the list, and we do not add areas it has not chosen.
- Places
County, city and office pages that tell the truth
Each office gets its own page with its own address, its map and the counties it really serves. A county page exists only where the firm genuinely takes matters.
- Phone
A site that reads well on a phone screen
Most first visits happen on a handset. Buttons are large, text does not shrink and the form fits the screen without sideways scrolling.
- Pictures
Photography of the actual office, not stock clichés
We skip gavels, scales and marble columns. If the firm has photos of its own reception, its conference room or its street entrance, those are the pictures worth showing. If it has none, a simple page without pictures beats a borrowed one.
- Access
Readable by everyone who visits the firm's site
Strong text contrast, labeled form fields, headings in order and links that say where they go. People with low vision or a screen reader are part of the audience too.
How a family law site gets planned page by page
| Page on the firm's site | What the visitor looks for | How the page is shaped |
|---|---|---|
| Home page | Whether this is a family law office and where it is | A short statement of the practice areas, the office towns and one contact route |
| Practice-area page | A page about the exact matter they have in mind | One matter per page, written in marketing terms, with the contact route repeated at the foot |
| County or city page | Proof that the office is near and serves their area | The real office address, a map and the counties the firm actually serves |
| Attorney page | Who they would be speaking with | Name, photo if the attorney agrees and wording the attorney has approved and checked against bar advertising rules |
| Contact page | A short, unthreatening way to ask for a call-back | Name, email and phone only, with a plain note to leave case details out |
From a first call to a published family law site
Walk through the intake desk's day
We ask the office manager what callers actually ask, which offices are open to new matters and which practice areas the firm wants more of. That conversation shapes the page list.
Draw the page list before any design
A plain outline of the home page, practice-area pages, office pages and contact page. The managing attorney signs off on this list so nothing is added to the menu that the firm does not offer.
Write, lay out and send for approval
Copy and layout arrive together. The attorney reads every page and changes what must change. Titles, claims and descriptions are the firm's choice and its state bar's, so we leave them to the attorney.
Launch, then measure the contact route
Before the site goes live, form tracking and call tracking are set up without capturing case details. After launch, a monthly sheet shows which pages produced calls and forms.
Ideas about a family law firm's website that cost the intake desk calls
Said across the partners' tableA family lawyer's website should look as formal and heavy as possible.
What the intake desk seesHeavy dark layouts with gold lettering read as cold to a person who is already worried. A plain, light page with generous spacing and a human tone is easier to read and easier to act on.
Said across the partners' tableMore pages of detail about every legal step make a firm look more serious.
What the intake desk seesMarketing pages should explain the firm, its offices and how to reach it. Pages that try to teach the law invite bar advertising questions and are not what a firm hires us to write.
Said across the partners' tableA contact form with many fields gives the office better leads.
What the intake desk seesEach added field is another reason to give up. Name, email and phone are enough to start a call-back, and the attorney decides what to ask once the conversation is under way.
A firm website review the office manager can run in ten minutes
- The contact route is visible on the first screen of a phone, without scrolling.
- Each office has its own page and its address matches the Maps listing.
- No page asks the visitor to describe the matter or send documents.
- Photos are of the real office, and none shows a gavel, scales or columns.
- The firm's own attorney has read every page since the last change.
- Text is large enough to read at arm's length on a handset.
Hosting, edits and how the managed website fits the plans
Organic Growth Gold ($2,495 a month) and Platinum ($3,495 a month) both include a managed website: hosting, edits and new pages are handled by us, so the firm does not need a separate web vendor or a login it never uses. Silver at $1,495 a month does not include a website, and suits a firm that already has a site it likes and wants us to work on the pages that bring in searches. The full list is on the pricing page.
If an attorney wants a page changed, the request goes through the contact form or the monthly call, and the change is made and approved before it appears. Nobody on our side edits wording about the firm's practice without the attorney reading it first.
A new site also feeds local SEO and the pages written for content marketing, so we plan them as one build instead of three.
Questions a family law firm asks about website design
Do you do website design for family lawyers who already have a site?
Yes. A firm with a site it likes can stay on Silver and have us work on the pages and listings around it. A firm that wants the site rebuilt, hosted and edited by us moves to Gold or Platinum.
Will my family law firm's site include a live chat or intake questionnaire?
We do not recommend either by default. A short form with a name, an email and a phone number is safer, and it keeps case details out of marketing tools. If the firm wants more, the attorney decides what is acceptable.
Who owns the website once it is built?
Ask this on the first call. Who holds the domain name, the hosting login and the page files is worth agreeing on before any work begins, and the firm should hear the answer in plain words and see it in writing.
Ask about a new site for your firm
Use the form to start a conversation about your offices and practice areas. Keep case facts out of it: a name, an email address and a phone number are enough.
Which family law matters should fill the calendar first?
Tell us which kinds of matters the firm wants more of, which counties or offices have consultation slots going unused, and how a new inquiry is handled at your intake desk today. Loose notes will do. Treat it as a conversation about marketing, and leave out names, case facts and anything about a child: nothing sent here starts an attorney-client relationship.
Settle the marketing before the next intake call rings
Tell us which practice areas and counties matter most to the firm. You will get a plain read on where the search work and the ads should start, and the monthly price that goes with it.
The room below is a drawing. It stands for no client, no office and no result.