Law Firm Website Design: Scope and Acceptance Checklist
A law firm web design project should begin with the decisions your managing partners need to make: what is failing, which work will address it, and how the firm will accept the result. Repairing an enquiry path, restructuring practice information, and rebuilding the website involve different costs and responsibilities.
I’m Mandeep, founder of Sprout Sage Solutions. I review the public website and discuss the firm’s priorities before proposing work. My fees are quoted privately against an agreed scope. This guide helps partners and administrators prepare that scope and compare proposals.
Request a law firm website scope review
Decide between repair, restructure, and rebuild
Start with evidence from the existing site. Can prospective clients find the service they need? Does the information reflect your current firm? Can they call or send an enquiry successfully? Does the enquiry reach the person responsible for responding?
| Option | When to consider it | What to clarify |
|---|---|---|
| Repair | The structure remains useful, but specific defects interrupt enquiries or maintenance. | Confirmed defects, affected pages, access needed, and checks proving each fix works. |
| Restructure | Services, attorney information, or navigation no longer match the firm’s work. | Content changes, page relationships, URL changes, and who approves the information. |
| Rebuild | The platform or design creates wider obstacles that targeted work cannot reasonably resolve. | Migration requirements, integrations, launch dependencies, maintenance, and transition costs. |
Ask the provider to explain why the proposed option fits the evidence. A rebuild can address substantial limitations, but its business case should identify what improves and how that improvement will be checked. Compare alternatives against the same firm priorities.
Establish the information the firm will approve
List the practice areas and matters your firm accepts, the attorneys responsible, and the jurisdictions and locations you actually serve. Confirm office details, consultation arrangements, and the contact route for each location. Your content should help visitors understand whether and how to approach your firm.
Attorney biographies should contain accurate, approved credentials and current responsibilities. Appoint a firm reviewer for substantive practice information and claims about experience, recognition, or outcomes. Agree how the firm will approve images, testimonials, and any case-related material before publication.
Choose pages according to useful visitor information and the firm’s actual services. Google’s people-first content guidance encourages reliable information and accurate authorship. That supports an informed review process rather than an arbitrary minimum page count.
Compare proposals with a written scope table
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How visible are you in local search?
Answer 5 quick questions. Get your score + the top fixes, free.
1. Is your Google Business Profile claimed and fully complete?
2. Do you have 25+ recent reviews?
3. Do you rank in the top-3 map pack for your service?
4. Does your site have dedicated city/service pages?
5. Do you respond to new leads in under 5 minutes?
Use these fields to identify the included work and the person who must supply or approve it. Ask providers to distinguish project delivery from ongoing support.
| Scope area | Decision to record |
|---|---|
| Content and navigation | Pages retained, revised, added, or removed; information supplier and firm reviewer. |
| Enquiry journey | Calls, forms, routing, acknowledgements, and intake ownership. |
| Design and accessibility | Layouts, mobile use, keyboard operation, readable content, and agreed checks. |
| Integrations | Booking, CRM, email, tracking, licenses, and supplier dependencies. |
| Migration | Content transfer, URL mapping, redirects, backups, and launch responsibilities. |
| Commercial terms | Private fees, exclusions, revision allowance, approvals, and additional-work process. |
| Ongoing care | Hosting, updates, monitoring, content changes, support, and response arrangements. |
| Ownership and handover | Accounts, files, permissions, documentation, notice, and transition obligations. |
Identify dependencies on existing suppliers before agreeing a launch date. A proposal should explain who handles unavailable access, delayed content approval, and integration changes. Those decisions prevent a website project from stalling between the firm and its suppliers.
Make the enquiry path part of acceptance
A form that appears to submit successfully may still fail to deliver its message. Agree an end-to-end check: submit a test enquiry, confirm receipt in the approved destination, check its contents, and verify the response owner can act on it. Test any visitor acknowledgement separately.
The first-contact form should collect the information your intake team needs for the agreed next step. Decide with the firm which fields belong there and how visitors are told what happens next. Additional case information can follow through the firm’s approved intake process.
Test calling and form completion on representative phones and browsers. Check that tap targets are usable, labels remain visible, error messages explain the correction, and navigation works with a keyboard. Confirm that office contacts and consultation routes stay clear across the pages where visitors need them.
Protect useful URLs during a restructure or migration
Inventory important existing URLs before changing them. Map retained content to its destination, check internal links, and agree appropriate redirects for moved pages. Verify that the intended live pages are accessible and that temporary staging restrictions have been handled correctly.
Google’s site-move guidance describes URL mapping, redirects, and monitoring during a move. Rankings can fluctuate while Google processes changes. A launch checklist should track the work completed and issues found rather than promise uninterrupted search performance.
Agree checks before the firm signs off
Write acceptance criteria before implementation. Include approved content, working calls and enquiry delivery, mobile completion, agreed integrations, URL checks, and access to the live system. Record defects with an owner and a resolution process.
Distinguish delivery acceptance from business outcomes. The firm can verify that a contact route works at launch; evaluating qualified enquiries and retained matters requires intake records over time. Define received, qualified, booked, attended, and retained stages separately, with source uncertainty recorded.
For the wider ongoing engagement, see my law firm marketing service. The law firm SEO scope and budget guide explains how to compare recurring work and reporting responsibilities.
Keep account ownership and maintenance explicit
Confirm firm-controlled ownership of the domain and relevant website, analytics, and local-profile accounts. Document hosting arrangements, provider permissions, license renewal responsibilities, and the files or exports the firm receives.
Agree who handles updates, backups, security monitoring, content corrections, and supplier changes after launch. Record what support includes, what requires a separate project, and how changes are approved. Notice and handover terms should identify documentation, access removal, transition assistance, and any associated charges.
Request a private website scope review
Share your public website, role, priority services, real offices, and the problem prompting the review. I can discuss whether repair, restructuring, or rebuilding deserves investigation and what the firm must supply or approve. Fees and delivery commitments belong in a private written proposal.
