A managing partner asked me last month to review his new website before launch. The design was beautiful. The copy was sharp. The testimonials section was going to get him a Florida Bar grievance filed within thirty days. I sent him my notes and he scrapped the page that morning.
The honest answer
How do you build a website for a law firm? Most guides will tell you to pick a platform first. That’s wrong. You start with your state bar’s advertising rules, then pick the platform that lets you comply with them, then build the architecture around your practice areas. Skip the bar rules and you can have the prettiest website in your city and still get reported to the bar by a competitor in the first quarter. Source: Jorge Argota, 10 years in legal marketing, Miami.
What I see on almost every law firm website I audit
I get pulled into pre-launch reviews and rebuilds maybe a dozen times a year, sometimes more. The same four patterns show up so often that I now run the same checklist on every audit before I look at anything else. None of these are exotic; all four kill conversion or expose the firm to a grievance, and most of them take a morning to fix.
Pattern 01
Testimonials that violate Bar Rule 4-7.2
Five-star outcome ratings, “John won my case” language, dollar amounts. The most common single issue, and the one most likely to draw a competitor’s grievance complaint.
Pattern 02
No bar admission number on attorney bios
Most firms list the JD school and admission year, but skip the actual bar number. It’s a baseline trust signal under most state bar rules and a direct expertise input for Google.
Pattern 03
Mobile loads slower than 3.5 seconds
Either oversized hero images, no caching plugin, or a builder that injects 80 CSS files. Kills conversion (claimants leave) and rankings.
Pattern 04
Contact form missing TCPA consent
No checkbox on the intake form authorizing the firm to call or text. A separate compliance exposure beyond bar rules, and the cheapest single fix on this list.
Why I’m not putting numbers on these: the firms that come to me are already a self-selected sample (firms that suspected something was wrong), so percentages would mislead. Field observation, not a peer-reviewed study; just the patterns that keep showing up on my desk.
Step 1. Read your state bar’s website rules
Every state bar treats your firm website as advertising, which means it falls under the rules that govern attorney advertising, and those rules vary state by state. The page that got my client almost-reported was a glowing testimonial that said “John won my case” with a five-star rating, and Florida Bar Rule 4-7.2 doesn’t allow testimonials that imply outcomes, full stop.
I’m going to focus on Florida because that’s my market, but here’s what the rule looks like across the five biggest legal markets so you can spot the pattern; the prohibited categories are similar, the wording is different, and the enforcement risk is real.
State
The rule
What’s restricted
What kills you fastest
Florida
Rule 4-7.2
Adopted 2014, updated 2024
No testimonials implying outcome, no comparative superiority claims (“the best,” “Florida’s top”), past results require disclaimer, no specific dollar predictions.
Outcome-implying testimonials
New York
Rule 7.1
22 NYCRR 1200
No false or misleading communication, paid testimonials must disclose the payment, must keep advertising copies on file for 3 years, no “specialist” claims without certification.
Undisclosed paid testimonials
California
Rule 7.2
CRPC 7.1 & 7.2
No solicitation by real-time electronic contact unless former client, must include law firm name and office location, no fee-splitting language with non-lawyers.
Live-chat solicitation forms
Texas
DR 7.04
Bar Disciplinary Rule
Filing of advertisements may be required, board certification claims need TBLS disclaimer, dramatized actor portrayals must be labeled, fee statements must include scope.
Unlabeled actor portrayals
Illinois
Rule 7.2
ILCS § 7.2
Must include name of attorney responsible for content, no payments for recommendations except permitted referral fees, communications must not be misleading about results.
Missing responsible-attorney name
If you remember nothing else: testimonials, comparative superiority claims (“Florida’s best,” “the top PI lawyer in Tampa”), and specific outcome predictions are restricted in almost every state. If your draft homepage has any of those, fix it before the platform decision.
“The five most beautiful law firm websites I’ve audited were also the five most likely to get the partner reported. Pretty doesn’t pass the bar.”
Jorge Argota · April 2026
Step 2. Pick the platform that fits your firm
Most guides recommend WordPress because that’s what the agency selling the guide builds on. The honest answer is that the right platform depends on your firm size, your market tier, and whether you actually plan to compete on Google or just want a professional presence for referrals. Here’s the matrix I walk partners through.
Platform
Best for
SEO ceiling
Monthly cost
WordPress
+ Elementor or Bricks
Firms in Tier 1 or Tier 2 metros that plan to compete on Google. Anyone publishing more than two blog posts per month. Anyone with practice areas across multiple cities.
Highest
$50–$300
Webflow
Design-led builder
Boutique firms doing a brand-forward rebuild. M&A and corporate firms whose clients judge by aesthetic. Not great for fast publishing or 50+ page sites.
High
$39–$149
Clio Grow
Legal-specific
Solo and small firms already using Clio for case management. Native intake integration eliminates the data silo between your site and your CRM, which is genuinely valuable.
Medium
$199+
Squarespace
Quick launch
Solo attorneys with referral-only practices who need a professional presence without competing on Google. The design quality out of the box is genuinely good.
Low–Med
$23–$65
Wix
Cheapest option
Honestly, don’t. The SEO ceiling is too low for any market with real competition, and migrating off Wix later costs more than starting somewhere else now.
Low
$17–$35
My honest recommendation: if you’re in Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville, or any other metro where you actually want Google traffic, WordPress is the only answer that will hold up in three years. If you’re a referral-only practice in a small town, Squarespace is fine and you’ll save yourself $10,000.
Step 3. Build the site architecture before you build the site
Site architecture is the part most firms skip and most agencies do wrong. Google evaluates your firm’s topical authority by how the pages connect to each other, not by how many pages you have, which is why a 30-page site organized correctly outranks a 300-page site organized as a pile.
The architecture that ranks
Homepage
├── Practice Area: Personal Injury ← main service page
│ ├── Car Accidents in [City] ← sub-service
│ ├── Truck Accidents in [City]
│ ├── Slip & Fall in [City]
│ └── Wrongful Death in [City]
├── Practice Area: Family Law ← main service page
│ ├── Divorce in [City]
│ ├── Child Custody in [City]
│ └── Adoption in [City]
├── About & Attorney Bios ← trust pages
├── Case Results
├── Client Testimonials
├── Blog & Resources
└── Contact & Free Consultation
The rule: every practice area page should be one click from the homepage; every sub-practice (like “Car Accidents in Tampa”) should be one click from its parent practice area; never deeper than two clicks from the homepage. Every sub-practice page links back to its parent and to the related city page. That’s the whole system.
Step 4. The 8 pages every firm site needs
Every firm site I’ve built since 2016 has these eight page types, and every site I’ve audited that was missing more than two of them was leaking cases. The trick isn’t having the pages. It’s making each one earn its keep.
01
Homepage
Above the fold; who you help, where, what outcome you pursue. Primary phone and form CTA. Trust signals (years in practice, bar admissions). Mobile load under 2.5 seconds, no exceptions.
02
Attorney bio pages
One page per attorney. Bar admission number, state, year admitted, headshot (real, not stock). Published articles, speaking engagements, certifications. This is your single most powerful trust signal.
03
Practice area pages
One per service offered (Personal Injury, Family Law, etc.). Client-focused language, not legal jargon. Reference your local courts. Settlement ranges where bar rules permit. Skip the textbook definitions.
04
Sub-practice pages
“Car Accidents in Tampa,” “Wrongful Death in Hillsborough County.” This is where you actually rank, because the competition for “personal injury Tampa” is brutal but “wrongful death in Hillsborough County” still has room.
05
Case results
Anonymized as your bar requires. This page is your single biggest non-commodity asset; competitors literally cannot copy your results. Tag by practice area, jurisdiction, and year so it works as a filterable index.
06
Testimonials
Bar-compliant framing only; no outcome-implying language, no five-star outcome ratings. Wrap in Review schema. Add the disclaimer that past results don’t guarantee future outcomes; this is required in most states.
07
Blog & resources
This is your topical authority engine. Build it from the questions claimants actually ask on intake calls, not from keyword tools. Two posts a month is plenty if each one is genuinely useful and tied to a practice area.
08
Contact & consultation
TCPA-compliant intake form with explicit consent checkbox. Phone, email, and form options. Office address with embedded map. The required “no attorney-client relationship” disclaimer below the form.
If you’re in a competitive metro
A solo lawyer in Naples building a referral practice and a 40-attorney PI firm in Manhattan need different sites because the competitive landscape is genuinely different. Here’s how the architecture, costs, and content mix actually shift across the five biggest legal markets.
New York City
Tier 1 · Extreme
Densest legal market in the country at 9.6 lawyers per 1,000 residents. Borough-level targeting matters more than citywide; “personal injury lawyer Manhattan” and “personal injury lawyer Brooklyn” are functionally separate markets.
Build cost: $40K–$80K
Architecture: Borough-level sub-practice pages (5 boroughs × major case types)
Compliance: NY Rule 7.1 + 22 NYCRR 1200 advertising filing
Los Angeles
Tier 1 · Extreme
4,753 square miles of metro area means geographic targeting is essential. A Long Beach firm and a Glendale firm are competing in different microclimates. Bilingual Spanish content is structural, not optional, and entertainment law gets its own schema considerations.
Build cost: $35K–$70K
Architecture: Hyperlocal pages by neighborhood + bilingual mirror
Compliance: CA Rule 7.2 + bilingual disclaimer requirements
Chicago
Tier 1 · High
Saturated PI and criminal defense, but corporate and B2B legal is comparatively under-served on the content side. The win condition is hyper-specific practice area depth, not breadth; a firm with 12 deep DUI pages outranks one with 80 generic criminal defense pages.
Build cost: $25K–$55K
Architecture: Vertical depth over horizontal breadth
Compliance: IL Rule 7.2 + responsible-attorney attribution
Miami
Tier 2 · High growth
70% of Miami-Dade County speaks a non-English language at home, mostly Spanish. An English-only firm site is leaving roughly two-thirds of the market on the table. Florida Bar Rule 4-7.2 applies to the Spanish copy with the same teeth as the English; testimonials in Spanish still can’t imply outcomes.
Build cost: $18K–$45K
Architecture: Bilingual mirror; native Spanish copy, not machine translation
Compliance: FL Rule 4-7.2 in both languages
Tampa
Tier 4 · Open
First-mover content advantage still exists in 2026. Most firms in Hillsborough County still publish generic practice area pages with no county-specific procedure or local courthouse references. The window is open right now and the budget needed is roughly half what NYC requires for the same competitive position.
Build cost: $8K–$25K
Architecture: County-level (Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco) with local court references
Compliance: FL Rule 4-7.2 + Florida Bar advertising filing
If your market isn’t listed: the rule of thumb holds; double the cost in NYC, LA, or DC; cut it in half in any sub-500K population metro; bilingual sites cost roughly 1.5x because the content has to be written natively in both languages, not run through Google Translate.
Who shouldn’t build a custom site at all
Not every firm needs a custom-built website, and I’d rather tell you that now than take a $30K project I know won’t pay you back. Here are the cases where I send partners somewhere simpler.
If 90% of your cases come from word of mouth and bar referrals, your website is functionally a business card with credentials. Nobody is going to find you on Google because nobody is going to type your specialty into Google to find you in the first place. Spend $30 a month, look professional, and put the $20,000 you would have spent into something that actually moves your practice.
A WordPress site without a content cadence is a dead asset that you’re paying $200 a month to maintain. The whole reason to be on WordPress is the ability to publish, rank, and compound traffic over time. If the partners in your firm won’t sit on a Zoom call once a month to review draft posts, you’re better off on Squarespace because at least you won’t feel guilty looking at the empty blog.
A beautiful website pointed at a broken intake is the worst possible investment. Firms responding to inquiries within 5 minutes convert 400% better than firms responding within 30 minutes. If your intake person is part-time or your phones ring to voicemail after 5pm, fix that first. The leads from a working website will just go to your competitor with the better intake otherwise.
Designers don’t know bar advertising rules and most agency project managers don’t either. If you’re not sure what’s allowed in your state, pay an ethics attorney to do a 2-hour review of your draft copy before the design team builds it. The fee is roughly $500 to $1,500 and it’s the cheapest insurance against a grievance you’ll ever buy. I include this in my own builds, but if you’re DIY-ing the project, do it separately.
“A beautiful website pointed at broken intake is the worst possible investment in legal marketing. Fix the phones first.”
FAQ
Questions partners ask before signing the contract.
How do you build a website for a law firm?+
Building a law firm website starts with your state bar’s advertising compliance rules, not your platform. Florida Rule 4-7.2, New York Rule 7.1, and California Rule 7.2 each restrict what you can publish on a firm site, including testimonial language and results-implying statements. Once compliance is mapped, the seven decisions are: domain and hosting, platform (WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, or Clio Grow), site architecture, required pages, schema markup, mobile speed, and intake integration.
How much does a law firm website cost?+
A solo attorney website on Squarespace or Wix runs $25 to $65 monthly with no developer required. A small firm WordPress site with custom design runs $5,000 to $15,000 upfront plus $50 to $300 monthly hosting. A competitive personal injury firm site for a Tier 1 metro like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago typically costs $25,000 to $80,000 to build and $1,500 to $5,000 monthly to maintain. The investment scales with the market tier and SEO ambition.
What pages should a law firm website have?+
A law firm website needs at minimum: homepage with practice area summary, dedicated attorney bio pages with bar admission numbers, individual practice area pages (one per service offered), case results page with anonymized outcomes, client testimonials with bar-compliant framing, a blog or resource center, contact and consultation page with a TCPA-compliant intake form, and required disclaimer pages for advertising compliance.
Which platform is best for a law firm website?+
WordPress is the strongest platform for any law firm serious about Google rankings because the schema markup, content control, and SEO ceiling are unmatched. Webflow is the best alternative for design-forward boutique firms. Clio Grow works for solo and small firms wanting integrated client intake. Squarespace and Wix are sufficient for referral-only practices but the SEO ceiling is too low to compete in any major metro.
How long does it take to build a law firm website?+
A solo attorney can launch a basic Squarespace or Clio Grow site in 2 to 4 weeks. A small firm WordPress build with custom design and 8 to 12 practice area pages takes 8 to 14 weeks from kickoff to launch. A larger firm site with 30 to 60 pages, full schema implementation, and content built from intake calls runs 12 to 20 weeks. Rebuilds usually take 6 to 10 weeks because the content already exists.
Does a law firm website need to be ADA compliant?+
Yes. Law firm websites are subject to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. Federal courts have ruled repeatedly that public-facing business websites including law firm sites must be accessible to users with disabilities. Common compliance requirements include alt text on all images, keyboard navigation support, color contrast above 4.5:1, and screen-reader-compatible forms. Overlay tools that promise instant compliance generally do not satisfy the standard.
Free pre-launch review
Send me your draft site before you launch it
If you’re 30 days from launch and you want a second pair of eyes on bar compliance, mobile speed, and the eight pages above, send me the staging URL and I’ll review it. The review takes me about 90 minutes and I’ll send back written notes the same week. No pitch, no contract, no obligation to hire me afterward.
Best fit: Florida PI, med mal, criminal defense, or family law firms 30 days or less from launching a new site or rebuild.
Response within 1 business day · No pitch deck · No contracts
If something’s broken
“I’d rather you find the bar compliance issue from me on Tuesday than from the bar grievance committee in March. The two-hour review is genuinely free.”
— Jorge
Nothing on this page is legal advice or a substitute for review by an ethics attorney admitted in your state. State bar advertising rules vary and change; always confirm current requirements with your state bar before publishing website content. ADA compliance standards evolve through federal court rulings; consult an accessibility specialist for current requirements. The cost ranges, timelines, and platform recommendations reflect 2026 market conditions and the author’s experience with Florida law firms.
