Featured · Web & UX
Commissioning a law firm website without losing a year
A law firm website project rarely fails because the design was wrong. It fails because the brief was vague, the content never arrived, the launch broke the rankings the old site had built, and nobody established who owned what until the relationship ended.
All four are avoidable at the commissioning stage, which is the cheapest hour anyone will spend on the project and routinely the one skipped in favour of looking at portfolios.
What to specify before anyone quotes
Quotes for a website are incomparable unless the scope is fixed, and the items below are where the variance actually hides.
The page list. Exactly which pages, including one per practice area you want work in — this single item explains most quote-to-quote variation.
Who writes the content, and by when. Content is the reason most projects run late, and a firm that has not decided this is agreeing to a date it will miss.
Whether the firm can edit pages afterwards without the developer. If not, you are buying an ongoing dependency along with the site.
Performance targets, stated as numbers rather than as fast, and tested on a mid-range phone rather than an office connection.
Accessibility, as a stated standard rather than an aspiration.
Migration and redirects from the existing site, named as a deliverable — this is the item most often assumed and least often included.
Who owns the design files, the code, the domain and the hosting account at the end.
Content is worth dwelling on because it is where projects die. A build waiting on twelve practice-area pages that three partners have promised to write is a build that will sit for a quarter.
Decide early whether you are writing it, buying it, or launching with fewer pages written properly. All three are workable; assuming it will materialise is not.
How these projects go wrong
The pattern is consistent enough that most of it can be prevented in the contract.
A design signed off by committee, which produces a home page everybody tolerated and nobody argued for.
Endless revision rounds with no limit specified, which converts a fixed fee into a stalemate.
Launching without redirects, so every ranking URL the old site had returns a 404 and the traffic goes with it.
Discovering after launch that adding a page requires a developer and a purchase order.
A site that scores well on a laptop and poorly on the phones most visitors actually use.
And the ownership one: finding at the end of the relationship that the domain, the hosting or the analytics history sits in somebody else's account.
Running the project and launching safely
The launch week is where a good project can still lose a year of accumulated search visibility, so it gets its own attention.
Fix the page list and the revision rounds in writing before work starts.
Appoint one person to approve design, with partners consulted on accuracy rather than aesthetics.
Write or commission the content in parallel with the build, not after it.
Before launch, export the full list of existing URLs and map every one to its new destination.
Test the redirects on a staging site, then again within an hour of going live, and watch for a fortnight afterwards.
Verify performance and accessibility against the numbers you specified, on real devices, before you accept the work.
Confirm the firm holds the domain, hosting, analytics and search console accounts in its own name at handover.
Then keep measuring enquiries per hundred visitors by practice area, because a prettier site that converts worse is a common and expensive outcome.
The redirect map is the single highest-stakes deliverable in any rebuild. A site that looks better and lost the rankings of every page it replaced has cost the firm considerably more than the invoice.
FAQs
What should be specified before getting website quotes?
The exact page list including one per practice area, who writes the content and by when, whether the firm can edit pages afterwards, performance and accessibility as numbers, migration and redirects as a named deliverable, and who owns the code, design files, domain and hosting at the end.
Why do law firm website projects run late?
Content, nearly always. A build waiting on practice-area pages that partners have promised to write will sit for a quarter. Decide early whether you are writing it, buying it, or launching with fewer pages done properly.
What is the biggest risk at launch?
Missing redirects. Every ranking URL on the old site needs mapping to its new destination, tested on staging and again within an hour of going live. A rebuild that loses the rankings of every page it replaced costs far more than the invoice.
Should we be able to edit the site ourselves?
Yes, for ordinary content. If adding a practice-area page requires a developer and a purchase order, you have bought an ongoing dependency alongside the site, and the content plan will stall against it every quarter.
What should we own at handover?
The domain, the hosting account, the analytics and search console properties, the content, and — depending on what you paid for — the design files and code. Confirm these are in the firm's own name at handover rather than discovering otherwise when the relationship ends.
End Note
A website project is a procurement exercise wearing a creative costume. The design conversation is the enjoyable part and almost never the part that determines whether the thing works.
Fix the page list, settle the content, name the redirects as a deliverable, specify performance in numbers, and confirm ownership at handover. Then judge the new site on enquiries per hundred visitors rather than on how it looks.
Key Takeaways
Fix the page list and revision rounds before anyone quotes.
Content is why projects run late — decide who writes it on day one.
The redirect map is the highest-stakes deliverable in any rebuild.
Specify performance and accessibility as numbers, tested on real phones.
Own the domain, hosting, analytics and search console in the firm's name.
