10 Best Practices for Exceptional Law Firm Website Design

​Your law firm’s website is often the first impression a potential client has of your practice, and most visitors make a judgment within seconds of landing on your page. They expect a site that looks modern, is easy to navigate, and clearly communicates what your firm offers. If the experience feels outdated or confusing, many users will click away before they even learn how your practice can help.

What does it take to create a site that keeps visitors engaged and earns the trust of potential clients? Let’s explore the fundamental best practices that should always govern website design for law firms.

​Website Design for Law Firms

​1. Keep Things Simple

How your website looks matters, but legal consumers rarely choose an attorney based on visuals alone. Overly complex design elements can overwhelm visitors and distract them from the actions you want them to take. From a UX standpoint, simplicity is essential. Limit your color palette to a few consistent tones, use clear and legible fonts, and include graphics only when they support the user’s understanding or encourage meaningful engagement. Simplicity does not mean limiting functionality. It means delivering a smooth, intuitive experience by focusing on what is essential and removing anything that creates unnecessary friction.

​2. Plan a Visual Hierarchy

​Building on the principle of simplicity, it’s important to organize your website so visitors naturally move toward the most important information first. Your goal is to guide users toward a desired action in a way that feels intuitive and unobtrusive. Start by developing buyer personas that define your target audience and shed light on their preferences and behaviors. Map their typical user journey to understand key touch points and information needs. With that foundation, create a visual hierarchy that distinguishes primary, secondary, and tertiary elements, using layout, typography, color, and size to direct attention where it matters most.

​3. Keep Everything Consistent

Consistency across your firm’s web content is essential. Your color palette, graphics, fonts, and tone should all reflect the brand standards you’ve established. This doesn’t mean every page needs the same layout. In fact, using different templates for different types of pages, such as your homepage, blog posts, practice area pages, and attorney bios, is considered a best practice in website design for law firms. The key is to apply those templates consistently, so visitors immediately understand the type of page they’re on and how to find the information they need. A consistent design reinforces your brand, creates a polished professional experience, and makes your site easier for users to navigate.

​4. Plan Intuitive Navigation

​You need to help visitors find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Ideally, a user should land on your site and understand their next step without having to search for it. Keep your navigation simple so people can move from point A to point B with minimal effort. Include navigation links in the footer, use breadcrumbs to show a user’s location within the site, and add a search bar at the top so visitors can quickly locate specific information. As a general rule, avoid making people dig too deeply for key content; keeping important pages within three clicks is a solid benchmark.

​5. Make Your Site Responsive

​About 95% of internet users browse on a mobile device, and nearly half of all web traffic now comes from mobile. This makes responsive design an essential part of your website strategy. Users are quick to leave a page if it doesn’t display correctly, so your site must perform well across a wide range of screen sizes and devices. Responsive design will require investments in a highly flexible structure that automatically resizes and reshuffles content, but it’s worth it to reach a large percentage of your users.

6. Don’t Let the Visuals Slow You Down

Slow load times frustrate visitors, increase bounce rates, and ultimately undermine your ability to convert prospects. Keep your design streamlined, avoid unnecessary animations or oversized graphics, and make sure all images are properly compressed and optimized for the web. Regularly test site speed across mobile and desktop devices and address any bottlenecks. Even a few extra seconds can determine whether a potential client stays engaged or clicks away.

​7. Prioritize Accessibility

​You must ensure that every visitor can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with your content, regardless of physical or cognitive limitations. Accessibility is both a legal requirement in many jurisdictions and a core principle of creating an inclusive and user-friendly digital experience. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) outline four key standards: websites must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. You can learn more about these guidelines in this post.

​8. Stick to Conventions

Most people use the internet every day and have developed clear expectations for how websites should work. Elements like the main navigation at the top of the page and a clickable logo in the upper left corner are conventions users rely on without thinking. Details such as hover states on links and consistent button styles also help visitors feel oriented and confident as they move through your site. Ignoring these familiar patterns forces people to work harder to find what they need, which results in a poor user experience.

​9. Convey a Level of Trust

Credibility facilitates a positive user experience. Be clear and direct about your services from the start, rather than making visitors dig through multiple pages to understand what your firm actually offers. When appropriate, consider displaying some pricing or fee information. This helps filter out users who are not the right fit and reinforces a sense of transparency that clients value.

​10. Conduct User Testing

Your website ultimately needs to deliver a great experience for the people who use it, and the best way to understand how well it performs is through user testing. Testing will allow you to identify usability issues, gather feedback, and confirm that your site meets the needs and expectations of your target audience. It is important to get input from real users rather than relying on yourself or your internal team, who may be too close to the project to see its gaps. Tools like Website Grader, Crazy Egg, Loop11, and HotJar can make this process easier and provide valuable insights into how visitors interact with your site.

Takeaway

Compelling design should be present in the overall structure of your website, and in each individual page. Taken together, these best practices offer a helpful framework to guide your next website design, redesign, or re-launch. If you need more guidance, our team is here to help. Reach out to us today; we’d be delighted to discuss your needs.