Startup Law Firm Website Design
Setting up your own firm? Launch with a website that looks established and compliant. We design and build websites for new law firms across the UK, often alongside a logo, so the first client who looks you up finds a regulated, credible firm with a named solicitor and clear prices rather than a bare page.
A New Firm Has to Look Regulated and Ready From Day One
Most new firms are started by solicitors who have built a following at someone else's practice and want to do the work their own way. The first clients come from people who already know you, but every one of them will look the new firm up before instructing it. If they find a half-finished page with no badge, no prices and no photograph, the trust you have spent years building takes a knock.
A new firm's website also has to be compliant from the first day it is live. Once the SRA authorises the firm you must display the digital badge and your SRA number, publish a complaints procedure, and, if you advertise any listed service, publish price and service information too. None of that needs a big site. Six well-planned pages that meet the rules and present you properly will do more than twenty generic ones.
We have built websites for solicitors and law firms, including a London practice designed around the SRA's transparency requirements, and we work with new firms entirely online from the first call to launch. If you need a logo as well, we design it alongside the site so your letterhead, client care letters and email signature match from the start. Startup law firm websites begin at £2,400, with the price fixed before work starts.
What to Have in Place Before Your Website Launches
- SRA authorisation, COLP, COFA and insurance. In England and Wales a new firm must be authorised by the SRA before it trades, with a COLP and a COFA appointed and professional indemnity insurance on the SRA's minimum terms. The digital badge follows authorisation.
- Your complaints procedure and price information. Write the complaints procedure the rules require, including the Legal Ombudsman and SRA routes, and the price and service information for any listed service you will advertise, so the site is compliant on launch day.
- A firm name and a domain you own. The SRA has rules on firm names, which must not mislead, so check them alongside Companies House before you commit, then register the .co.uk domain in the firm's name. Our guide to choosing a domain name explains the traps.
- A logo that stands up next to the SRA badge. Your mark will appear beside the SRA badge and accreditation logos on every page and client care letter, so it must hold its own against them. Settle the logo first and the website inherits its colours and type.
- A Google Business Profile and directory listings. Set up a Google Business Profile with the right categories and your practice areas, and claim your Law Society Find a Solicitor and ReviewSolicitors listings, with the same name, number and description as the website.
- Photographs and your first proof. A professional photograph of you and anyone joining you, your qualifications and year of admission, and the kinds of matter you have handled, without naming clients. Ask early clients for a Google or ReviewSolicitors review when their matter closes.
Our startup website checklist covers the general groundwork every new business needs, from the domain name to analytics, and the website design brief template helps you describe the project so we can quote accurately. Not yet trading? Our guide to how to start a law firm covers the registrations, set-up and first customers in more detail. If you have never worked with a website designer before, our guide to the role explains who does what between design and development.
The Pages a New Law Firm Needs on Day One
- Home. What the firm does, who you are, where you are and how to get in touch in the first screen, with the SRA badge and your accreditations below.
- Practice areas. One page for each area you will take on from day one, typically two or three, each explaining the process, the likely cost and how to start.
- Price and service information. Required if you advertise a listed service such as conveyancing, probate or employment tribunal claims. A clear page per service, in the format the SRA expects, linked from the practice area.
- About and your profile. Your qualifications, admission, the experience that led you to set up and the clients you want to act for. A new firm is instructed on the strength of its solicitor.
- Complaints and regulatory information. The complaints procedure, the Legal Ombudsman and SRA routes, your SRA number and the legal entity details, written in plain English and linked from every page's footer.
- Contact. Phone, email, a short enquiry form that asks only what you need to open a file, your address and hours, and a privacy notice covering what people send.
Launch with the pages you have real content for and add the rest as the business grows. Our guide to writing website copy for a startup gives you a formula for the home page and every page after it.
Built to Grow With the Business
The first site should be the foundation of the second, not a stopgap you replace when the first associate joins. As the firm grows, the same website can gain:
- More practice area pages and sub-pages as you take on new matters, with price and service information where the rules require it.
- A conveyancing quote calculator that itemises fees and disbursements for a purchase, sale or remortgage.
- Profiles for each solicitor and paralegal as the team grows, added through an admin dashboard without a designer.
- A secure client area for case updates and document exchange, linked to your case management system.
If you expect to need any of these, tell us at the start and we will plan for them, even if they are not part of the first build. The startup web design page explains how we build on a foundation that extends rather than needing a rebuild.
A Logo and Brand for a New Law Firm
Law firm branding has a default: navy, a serif wordmark, perhaps a pair of scales. It signals seriousness, but it also makes new firms indistinguishable from the ones they left. A new practice can be modern and still look like a safe pair of hands, with a confident wordmark, a restrained palette and typography that reads well on a client care letter and a phone screen alike.
We design logos alongside websites so the mark, colours and type are settled once and then carried through the site, letterhead and email signatures. A firm that looks consistent from its first letter to its website is trusted sooner. Our guide to startup logos and branding sets out the decisions to make first, and our logo design service explains how the work runs alongside the website.
What a Startup Website Costs and How Long It Takes
A startup website for a law firm costs from £2,400 for a custom-designed site of up to around ten pages, which covers the launch pages, transparency and complaints pages included. If you want to add solicitors and update fees yourself, the website with an admin dashboard starts from £3,900. A logo is quoted alongside the website, hosting is from £20 a month, and you pay a 50% deposit with the remaining 50% on completion.
Most websites take three to six weeks from brief to launch once the content is ready, but for a new firm the longer wait is usually SRA authorisation. The sensible plan is to design and build the site while the application is being processed, with the badge, SRA number and price pages ready to switch on, so the website goes live on the day the firm can trade.
What New Business Owners Say
"Digitalpod have achieved really strong rankings for my law firm. We are all very pleased with the results and have definitely seen an increase in the number of clients that we have over the last few months which I am sure is down to the search engine optimisation."
"Matthew has provided an excellent service to Axiom Stone Solicitors during the course of our working relationship with him- from initial inception/design of our new website through to ongoing maintenance and SEO for the firm. The results have been remarkable and it has been extremely useful to receive his quarterly reports to evidence the increased traffic to our site. Matthew provides excellent customer care and attention to detail and we would have no hesitate in recommending him and the services he provides to others."
"Patient, knowledgeable, thoroughly professional and highly competitive. Mathew is a pleasure to do business with, his advice and suggestions were timely and well delivered and a real skill in understanding what I was hoping to achieve and delivering it."
Startup Solicitors Website Questions
Can the website go live before our SRA authorisation comes through?
Not as a law firm's website, because you cannot hold the firm out as practising until it is authorised, and the digital badge only exists once it is. Instead we design, build and test the whole site during the application period, with your profile, practice areas, complaints procedure and price pages ready, then launch it on the day authorisation arrives.
Do we have to publish prices on day one?
If you advertise any of the services the SRA Transparency Rules list, such as conveyancing, probate or unfair dismissal claims, then yes, the price and service information must be on the website from the start. If you only offer services outside the list, the price pages are optional, but publishing a clear guide to your fees still helps a new firm compete.
Can a sole practitioner's website look like an established firm?
Yes, and it should. The SRA requires publicity to be accurate and not misleading, so you cannot imply partners or offices you do not have, but a well-designed site with a proper photograph, a confident profile, clear practice area pages and the badge in place reads as a serious firm. What makes a firm look small is a template site, stock photography and no prices.
Should a new firm add a conveyancing calculator at launch?
Usually not at launch. The transparency rules require the price information anyway, and a clear price page with a short quote request form does the job while volumes are low and is within the starting price. A calculator that itemises fees and disbursements for a given purchase price is quoted individually and usually means the admin dashboard package, from £3,900, so add it once enquiries justify it.
How do we handle enquiries securely on a small firm's website?
Keep the form short: name, contact details, the type of matter and a free text box. The page is served over an encrypted connection, enquiries go to a named inbox or your case management system, and a privacy notice explains how long you keep what people send. Do not take documents through the contact form. A secure client area can be added later for that.
More answers in our FAQ and on the startup web design page. Already trading with a website that needs replacing? See solicitors website design for established businesses.
Startup Blog: Guides for New Businesses
Other Sectors We Work With
Launching a different kind of business? We have written startup website guides for these sectors too.
Launch Your Law Firm With a Website That Looks Established
Tell us about the business you are starting, when you want to launch and whether you need a logo as well, or book a call to talk it through. We reply personally with a clear, fixed price, and everything runs online wherever you are in the UK.