What makes law firm websites different from other professional services?

Three things. First, the bar association rules — each jurisdiction has marketing rules that govern what you can say and how (Law Society of Ontario, ABA Model Rule 7.1, French Conseil National des Barreaux). Second, client confidentiality must be designed in from the contact form forward. Third, the buyer is rarely the visitor — referrals from other lawyers and prior clients drive most engagements, and the site's job is to confirm rather than convince.

Do you handle bar-rules compliance review?

We design content templates that fit common rule patterns and we flag claims that need legal review. Final compliance sign-off is yours — we don't substitute for your firm's marketing partner or general counsel. We've worked with rules in Ontario, Quebec, several US state bars, Germany (RVG/BORA), France, and Ukraine.

How long does a law firm website take?

8–14 weeks for a typical small firm or boutique (2–15 attorneys). 14–22 weeks for a mid-sized firm with multiple practice groups and an international footprint. The variation is mostly in the practice-area page count and the depth of attorney bios.

Can you build the client portal for secure document exchange?

Yes — we've built portals on top of Clio, Smokeball, MyCase, PracticePanther, and custom on AWS for firms with bespoke workflows. Or we can integrate with your existing case-management system's portal.

How does AI search affect law firm marketing?

Significantly and rapidly. Prospective clients are asking ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity 'best [practice area] lawyer in [city]' instead of Googling. Firms structured for AI citation are showing up; the rest are invisible. We work on this explicitly — see /promotion-in-ai-search-and-llm-systems.

Law firm website development

What a law firm website is actually for

The audience is split. About 60% of visitors are referrals — they were sent by another lawyer, a former client, or a search that already had a name attached. They're confirming that you exist, that you look serious, and that you handle the matter type they need. The other 40% are unrepresented prospects looking for counsel, where the website does have to convince.

In both cases the job is the same: project authority and lower the friction to make first contact. A law firm website that overpromises, oversells, or looks like a small-business template kills more engagements than it creates.

Marketing MIX, an international marketing studio with Ukrainian roots, headquartered in Ottawa and working across Canada, Ukraine, Germany, and France, has shipped law firm websites across multiple jurisdictions. We work in coordination with each firm's marketing partner or general counsel — content review is theirs, technical execution is ours.

What every law firm website we ship includes

Practice-area architecture

One hub page per practice area (litigation, M&A, employment, IP, tax, real estate, etc.).
Sub-pages for sub-specialties with substance, not just keyword pages.
Cross-references between adjacent practice areas.
LegalService schema and BreadcrumbList on every hub.

Attorney bios that read like a respected publication

Full credentials: law school, year of call, jurisdictions, professional memberships, languages.
Notable matters (anonymized where confidentiality requires).
Publications, speaking engagements, awards.
Person schema with jobTitle: Attorney and full sameAs links.
Direct contact (email + assistant) on every bio page.

Insights / publications section

Long-form articles authored by attorneys, not by a marketing writer with a tab open.
Date-of-publication clearly displayed; last-reviewed date for evergreen content.
Categorization by practice area and topic.
Article schema with full author markup.

Conflict-aware intake

Contact forms that capture enough to run a basic conflict check without violating confidentiality.
Disclaimer text that meets the relevant bar rules.
No live chat by default (creates conflict-management problems); optional encrypted client portal instead.
Optional booking integration with Clio Grow or LawPay Scheduling.

Client portal (when in scope)

MFA-required login.
Secure document exchange.
Matter status visibility.
Billing transparency (subject to your case management system's capabilities).

Compliance baseline

Bar-rules-aware copy templates per jurisdiction.
GDPR / PIPEDA-compliant data handling.
Cookie consent management.
Encrypted transit and at-rest.
WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility.

SEO and AI search for law firms

Local SEO is critical and AI-search visibility is becoming critical. The work:

| Lever | What it covers | Impact | |---|---|---| | Google Business Profile | Categories, services, hours, photos, reviews, posts | High | | Practice-area landing pages | "[Practice] lawyer [city]" rankings | High | | Attorney pages | Branded search + AI citation when prospects search by name | Medium | | Authoritative content (insights, FAQs) | Topical authority + LLM citation | Rising | | Citation consistency (Martindale, Avvo, Lawyers.com, Justia, regional directories) | Local SEO + AI trust signals | Medium | | Reviews on Google, Avvo, Lawyers.com | Conversion + AI inclusion | High | | Schema markup (LegalService, Attorney via Person, FAQPage, Review) | Rich results + LLM ingestion | Medium |

We cover the AI-search side in depth at /promotion-in-ai-search-and-llm-systems.

Practice areas we've built sites for

Corporate / M&A. Commercial litigation. Employment and labor. Tax. International tax (including the kind of work that overlaps with our sister firm Crystal Tax). IP and technology. Real estate. Construction. Insurance. Banking and finance. Securities. Immigration. Family. Estate planning and wills. Trusts. Criminal defense. White-collar defense. Personal injury (with the specific bar-rules considerations that area carries). Class action. Government and regulatory.

Pricing

A clearly scoped audit starts at €1,800. Ongoing retainers start at €2,400 per month. Larger projects are quoted after scope is agreed.

What we don't do

Run lead-generation campaigns with guaranteed counts. Legal lead-gen with guaranteed numbers is almost always either bar-rule-violating or low-quality.
Build websites that imply outcomes contrary to bar rules.
Use stock photos of "lawyer in a suit shaking hands." Your photography needs to be real.
Lock you into a CMS that requires our team to update a date.

For other regulated-industry websites: /development-of-the-medical-center-website and /dental-website-development. For the SEO that runs alongside: /seo-promotion. For AI-search visibility: /promotion-in-ai-search-and-llm-systems.

Written by the Marketing MIX professional-services team. Last reviewed: 2026-05-13.

Law firm websites that command the rate you charge