Law Firm Website Design: Intake First, Brochure Second

A law firm website has one job that a restaurant website does not: it has to survive being read by someone deciding whether to hand you a problem that is currently ruining their year. Most firm sites are built as brochures. The ones that work are built as intake.

What actually separates the good ones

Not the photography, and not the scales-of-justice hero. Four things, in rough order of how much they change the outcome.

1. Intake that routes, instead of an inbox

The single most common failure in firm websites is a contact form that drops into a shared mailbox somebody triages by hand. A potential client with a time-sensitive matter does not wait. If the form already knows the matter type, it can reach the attorney who can actually take it, and the response time stops depending on who is at their desk.

This is the same problem a multi-provider medical practice has, and it has the same solution: route on what the person already told you.

2. Practice-area pages that answer the question

Somebody searching a specific problem is not looking for your firm's history. They want to know whether their situation is the kind of thing you handle, roughly what happens next, and what it costs to find out. A practice-area page that answers those three questions outperforms one that lists credentials, because the credentials only matter after the reader believes you handle their problem.

3. Attorney advertising rules, handled on purpose

Attorney advertising is regulated by each state's bar, and the rules are specific: what you may call yourself, whether you may claim to be a specialist, what a testimonial or case result must carry alongside it, and what has to be labeled as advertising. The ABA Model Rules are the template most states adapt, and Rule 7.1 sets the floor: a lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services.

Source: ABA Model Rule 7.1, Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services. Your own state's rule governs and may differ. Verified 2026-09-04.

The practical consequence for a website: case results and client testimonials are the two places firms most often drift over the line, and a template vendor will not know your state's rule. Someone has to read the copy against it before launch, and again when it changes.

4. Accessibility, because the ADA reaches websites

The Department of Justice's stated position is that the ADA's requirements apply to the goods and services a public accommodation offers, including those offered on the web, and its guidance points at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as the technical standard.

Sources: DOJ, "Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA" and W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Verified 2026-09-04.

Buy a platform, or build one?

Most firms should buy. The legal-specific website platforms handle practice-area templates, basic intake, and hosting for a predictable monthly, and rebuilding that from scratch is money spent to arrive where you started. The case for building is narrower and more specific: your intake process is genuinely different, the platform cannot route the way your firm assigns matters, or you have outgrown what it reports.

The honest test is not the licence fee. It is what the current setup costs you in matters that never reached an attorney, measured against what changing it would cost. If that first number is small, buy the platform and spend the difference on the practice-area pages.

Where we stand on this

NovraScale has not built a website for a law firm, and this page is not going to imply otherwise. What we have built is intake and routing for regulated practices where a missed inquiry has consequences, including two mental-health practices whose intake routes each inquiry to the right clinician rather than a shared inbox. The mechanics of that problem transfer. The bar rules do not, and we would build to your firm's requirements and your counsel's direction rather than interpret them for you.

NovraScale is not a law firm and does not provide legal services or legal advice. This is general information about how published rules read, written for a business audience. It is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney licensed in your state, and your state bar's rules govern your firm's advertising.

Law firm website design FAQ

What makes a law firm website effective?

Intake that routes each inquiry to the attorney who can take it rather than to a shared inbox, practice-area pages that answer whether you handle the reader's specific problem and what happens next, advertising copy reviewed against your state bar's rules before launch, and accessibility built to WCAG rather than retrofitted.

Do bar rules apply to a law firm website?

Yes. A firm website is a communication about the lawyer's services, and each state's rules govern what it may claim. ABA Model Rule 7.1, which most states adapt, prohibits false or misleading communications about a lawyer or the lawyer's services. Case results and testimonials are the two areas where firm sites most often drift, and your state's rule governs rather than the model.

Does a law firm website need to be accessible?

The Department of Justice's stated position is that the ADA applies to the services a public accommodation offers online, and its guidance points at WCAG as the technical standard to build against. Treat accessibility as a launch requirement rather than a remediation project.