Website Design for Solicitors and Law Firms: SRA Rules, Practice Area Pages and Getting Enquiries That Fit
Website design for solicitors and law firms: SRA transparency rules, the digital badge, practice area pages, enquiry handling and what to build first.
A good solicitor website does two jobs. It meets the SRA's publishing requirements, including the transparency rules on price and service information, and it turns the right kind of visitor into a well qualified enquiry. Most law firm sites manage the first job badly and the second one barely at all.
This guide covers what the regulations actually ask of your website, how to structure practice area pages, how to handle enquiries and conflicts, and the technical choices we would make for a high street or regional firm.
Key takeaways
- The SRA Transparency Rules require price and service information for certain areas of law, published clearly on your website.
- All SRA regulated firms with a website must display the SRA clearing badge and their complaints procedure.
- Each practice area deserves its own page written for clients, not for other lawyers.
- Enquiry forms should collect enough to triage without asking for confidential detail up front.
- A fast, accessible, well maintained WordPress build suits most firms better than a bespoke platform.
What the SRA expects on your website
The SRA Transparency Rules came into force in December 2018. They apply to firms regulated by the SRA, and they split into two groups of obligations.
The first applies to everyone. If you have a website, you must publish your complaints procedure, including how and when a complaint can be taken to the Legal Ombudsman, and you must display the SRA digital badge. The badge is a small piece of code supplied by the SRA, not an image you upload, and it confirms to visitors that you are regulated. It needs to sit somewhere prominent, usually the footer of every page.
The second group covers specific services offered to individuals and, in some cases, businesses. For these, you must publish cost information and a description of the service. The list includes:
- residential conveyancing (sale and purchase, freehold and leasehold)
- uncontested probate
- motoring offences dealt with summarily
- immigration applications (excluding asylum)
- employment tribunal claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal
- debt recovery up to a set claim value
- licensing applications for business premises
For each one, the rules expect the total cost or average cost (or a range), the basis of your charges, likely disbursements, whether VAT applies, the key stages, typical timescales, and the experience and qualifications of the people doing the work. Always check the current wording on the SRA's own site before you publish, because the guidance is updated from time to time.
Turning compliance pages into useful pages
Plenty of firms satisfy the rules with a single PDF linked from the footer. It passes, but it wastes the opportunity. A person searching for conveyancing costs is exactly the person you want to reach.
We prefer to build the price and service information into the practice area page itself, as a clear section with a table. A conveyancing page might have a section headed "Our fees for a residential purchase" with the fee basis, a list of typical disbursements (search fees, Land Registry fee, SDLT if applicable), and a note on what can push the fee up, such as a leasehold property, a new build or an unregistered title.
Then explain the stages in plain English: instruction, searches, enquiries, exchange, completion, registration. Give honest timescales. Name the people who will handle the matter and what their qualifications are. That content meets the rules and also answers the questions that stop people picking up the phone.
Keep a dated note of when each figure was last reviewed. If you change your fees, the website has to change on the same day, so whoever updates it needs to be able to do so without calling a developer.
Practice area pages that win the right work
Every area of law you want work in needs its own page. A single "Services" page listing family, wills, conveyancing and employment will not rank for any of them, and it does not reassure anyone.
A good practice area page usually covers:
- who the service is for, in the client's own terms ("getting divorced" rather than "matrimonial proceedings")
- the common situations you help with
- how the process works and how long it tends to take
- how fees work, including the transparency information where it applies
- who in the team handles it, with a link to their profile
- a short, specific call to action
Split broad areas where the searches are different. "Lasting power of attorney" and "will writing" attract different people with different urgency, and they deserve separate pages. Our guide to service page design goes into layout in more detail.
Avoid writing for other lawyers. Case citations and statutory references have a place in a blog article, but a practice page should read like a calm conversation at a first appointment.
Team profiles carry more weight than you think
People instruct a person, not a logo. Profiles are often the second most visited part of a law firm site after the home page, so treat them as proper pages rather than a grid of headshots.
Each profile should include a recent professional photo, role, admission year, accreditations (Law Society Conveyancing Quality Scheme, Resolution membership, STEP and so on), the areas they handle, and a short paragraph in their own voice. Add a direct phone number or email where the firm is comfortable with it.
This also helps search. Clear, consistent information about who your people are and what they are qualified to do is the kind of evidence Google looks for on legal topics, which it treats as sensitive. Our article on E-E-A-T explains why that matters.
Enquiry forms, confidentiality and conflicts
Law firm forms need more thought than most. You want enough detail to route the enquiry to the right person, but you do not want a stranger typing the full story of their divorce or criminal charge into a website form before you have even run a conflict check.
What we usually build:
- a short form with name, contact details, area of law (a dropdown), how they would like to be contacted, and the name of the other party for conflict checking where relevant
- a free text box with a gentle note asking for a brief summary only
- a clear statement that submitting the form does not create a solicitor and client relationship
- routing so a family enquiry goes to the family team inbox, not a general address
Store submissions carefully. Under UK GDPR, form entries are personal data, and in some areas of law they will be special category data. Do not leave years of enquiries sitting in the WordPress database. Either send them to your case management system and delete the local copy, or set a short retention period. The ICO's guidance for organisations is the place to check your obligations.
If you want enquiries to go straight into a pipeline with follow up reminders, a small custom CRM or integration with your existing practice management software is often worth more than any design change.
Design choices that suit legal clients
Law firm sites tend to fall into two traps: stock photos of gavels and scales, or a corporate look so cold it could be anyone. Neither helps.
Real photography of your office, your team and your town does more than any visual flourish. Keep the palette calm, the type large enough to read comfortably, and the menus organised around what clients need ("Personal", "Business", "Our people", "Fees", "Contact").
Many of your clients will be older, stressed, or reading on a phone in a waiting room. That makes accessibility a practical concern as well as a duty under the Equality Act. Good contrast, visible focus states, readable forms with proper labels and no text baked into images cover most of it. The WCAG guidelines are the reference point.
Animation should be minimal. A gentle fade is fine. Anything that moves while someone is reading about probate is not.
Local search for high street firms
Most private client and residential work is local. Someone in Lichfield looking for a will solicitor wants a firm they can visit. That means your Google Business Profile, your reviews and your office pages carry real weight.
If you have more than one office, give each its own page with the address, opening hours, parking notes, a map and the people based there. Do not create thin pages for towns where you have no office. Our local SEO guide covers the profile and review side in full.
Bear in mind that the SRA has rules about publicity, so testimonials and review widgets must be accurate and not misleading. Showing a feed from an independent review platform is usually safer than hand picked quotes.
Platform, hosting and upkeep
For most firms with up to a few dozen fee earners, WordPress with a lightweight custom theme is the sensible choice. Staff can update fees, profiles and news without help, and there is no licence lock in. We would avoid heavy page builders here because they make fee tables and profiles harder to keep consistent across the site.
Hosting should be UK based, with daily backups and an SSL certificate that renews automatically. Updates and security checks need doing monthly at a minimum. Law firms are a regular target for email and website compromise, so two factor login and a short list of admin users are not optional.
If you are weighing up a fresh build, our website design service page explains how we approach projects like this, and our guide to writing a website brief will help you get your requirements in order before you speak to anyone.
Frequently asked questions
Do solicitors have to show prices on their website?
Only for the services listed in the SRA Transparency Rules, such as residential conveyancing, uncontested probate and certain employment and immigration matters. For those, you must publish cost information and service details. For other areas of law, publishing prices is optional.
Where should the SRA digital badge go on a law firm website?
The SRA expects it to be displayed prominently on your website, and most firms put it in the footer so it appears on every page. It must be the live badge code supplied by the SRA, not a static image.
Can a law firm use client reviews on its website?
Yes, as long as they are genuine and not misleading. Many firms embed a feed from an independent review platform rather than selecting quotes by hand, which makes it easier to show they are accurate.
Is WordPress secure enough for a solicitor's website?
It can be, provided it is kept updated, uses a small number of well maintained plugins, has two factor login and sits on good hosting with backups. Keep confidential client data out of the website itself and send enquiries to your case management system instead.
How often should a law firm update its fee information?
Whenever your fees change, and you should review it at least every few months even if they have not. Record the review date so you can show the information was kept current.
Planning a new website for your firm
If your current site meets the rules on paper but brings in the wrong enquiries, or none at all, we can help you rebuild it around your practice areas and your people. Get in touch for an initial chat, or request a quote with your list of offices and practice areas.
