What does law firm website design involve for a New Zealand practice?
Law firm website design is the planning, writing structure, build and search set-up of a site whose purpose is to turn a worried stranger into a booked first appointment with the right lawyer. For a New Zealand practice it also means fitting the site around professional obligations your lawyers already carry.
Most people arrive at a law firm's site at an uncomfortable moment. A tenancy is ending, a marriage has broken down, an employer has called a disciplinary meeting, a visa is about to expire, or they have just had an offer accepted on a house. They want three answers fast: does this practice do my kind of matter, roughly what will it cost, and how do I get in touch without feeling judged.
So the work splits into four layers. First, information architecture: one page per practice area, one page per lawyer, and a clear route to contact. Second, tools: a conveyancing estimator, an intake form that supports conflict checks, and a booking link. Third, trust: lawyer profiles tied to the public register, a plain client care page, and a privacy statement that matches what the forms collect. Fourth, discoverability: Google Business Profile, town pages and structure that search engines and AI assistants can read.
What law firm website design is not: we do not write legal advice, choose which matters you take, or tell you what the Rules require. Your lawyers own the legal content. We own the build, the speed, the forms and the search plumbing.
What pages should a law firm website have?
A small New Zealand practice usually needs eight to fifteen pages at launch: home, one page per practice area, a team page with individual profiles, fees and client care, contact with intake, privacy, and a short about page. Larger or multi-town practices add town pages and a resources section.
The home page should state in one line what you do and where, for example “Property, family and employment lawyers for Wairarapa households and businesses”. Under that sits a short list of practice areas linking to their own pages, the lawyers' faces and names, and one obvious way to start an enquiry.
- Home: who you help, where, and a single call to action
- Practice-area pages: one per area of law you want enquiries for
- Our lawyers: an index linking to individual profiles
- Fees and client care: how you charge and how to raise a concern
- Enquire: the intake form, phone number, office hours and map
- Privacy: what the forms collect and why
- Town pages (optional): for practices serving several communities
- Resources (optional): short explainers your lawyers are happy to publish
In law firm website design, resist the urge to launch with forty pages of thin content. Ten well-written pages beat forty generic ones, both for readers and for Google. If you want a bigger footprint later, our SEO work for NZ businesses can add pages in planned batches.
Practice-area pages for conveyancing, family, employment and immigration law
Each area of law attracts a different person with a different emotional state, so each deserves its own page with its own questions answered. A single “Our services” page listing everything tends to rank for nothing.
We structure each practice-area page the same way underneath, then write the words differently for each audience: what the matter usually involves, when to call a lawyer, what the first meeting looks like, what to bring, how fees are approached, and who in the practice handles it. Your lawyers supply or correct every legal point.
Conveyancing
Buyers and sellers want certainty on cost and timing. This page links straight to the estimator, explains what happens between signing and settlement in plain words your lawyers approve, and lists what documents to have ready.
Family law
Readers are often stressed and cautious about being seen. We keep the tone calm, avoid stock photos of arguing couples, add a quick-exit button if you want one, and keep the intake form short.
Employment law
Employees and employers both search. We split the page into two clear paths so a business owner and a dismissed worker each see the section meant for them, and the conflict check catches cases where the other side is already a client.
Immigration law
Many readers are offshore or speak English as a second language. Plain sentences, a note on which languages your lawyers speak, and time-zone-friendly booking matter more here than anywhere else. Licensed advisers have a separate sibling page on immigration adviser websites.
A conveyancing quote tool lets a buyer or seller choose their transaction type and instantly see your published fee and typical disbursements. It answers the first question most property clients have, and it filters out enquiries looking only for the cheapest possible figure.
The estimator is simple on the surface. The visitor picks purchase, sale, sale and purchase, refinance or transfer between spouses; adds flags such as a new build, a cross-lease, a unit title or a trust as buyer; and sees a breakdown. You control the fee bands and disbursement lines from a small table, so a partner can change figures without calling us.
Three design choices keep it honest. The result shows whether figures include GST. It lists disbursements as separate lines rather than hiding them in one number. And it carries a short line, worded by your lawyers, saying the confirmed fee will be set out in your engagement information before work begins.
If you decide to take a deposit through the site, talk to your trust account supervisor first. The Law Society's guidance on offering legal services on the internet notes that advance payments must go into a lawyer's trust account, so we would usually show your trust account payment instructions rather than wire up a card checkout. The estimator then hands the visitor straight to the intake form with their choices pre-filled.
How should a law firm intake form handle conflict checks?
A law firm intake form should ask for the enquirer's details and the names of the other parties first, and ask for the story only after your practice has confirmed it can act. That order protects the enquirer and protects you from receiving confidential information from someone whose opponent you already represent.
In practice the form has two short stages. Stage one collects the enquirer's name, contact details, the practice area, the names of any other people or organisations involved (the other spouse, the employer, the vendor, the landlord), and how they heard of you. A clear line above the submit button says, in wording your lawyers approve, not to include confidential details yet. Stage two, a longer questionnaire, is sent only after the conflict check clears.
We route each submission to the right inbox by practice area, add a reference number, and format the other-party names so your staff can paste them into your practice management system's conflict search. Where that system accepts incoming enquiries by email parsing or an API, we can connect it directly; we check its documentation during quoting rather than promising an integration up front.
- Other-party names collected before any narrative
- Visible warning not to send confidential detail yet
- Routing by practice area, with a reference number
- No file uploads on the first-stage form
- Spam protection that does not rely on puzzles a stressed person will fail
Law firm website design and the Conduct and Client Care Rules
A website cannot make a practice compliant with the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008, but good law firm website design avoids working against them. Your lawyers decide what the Rules require; we build pages that make their decisions easy to publish and keep current.
The Law Society explains that before acting, lawyers must give clients written information including the basis of fees, professional indemnity insurance, the Lawyers' Fidelity Fund, the complaints process, and the name and status of the person responsible for the work. Its guidance also notes that information can be provided electronically if it is readily accessible to the client and available for later reference. Many practices therefore keep a client care page on the site and link it from engagement emails, though whether that meets your obligations for a given retainer is a question for your practice, not for us.
The Law Society's public guidance also records that lawyers must not engage in misleading or deceptive conduct. For a website, that shapes wording choices: no invented success rates, no testimonials you have not verified, no “best lawyers in town” superlatives, and no implying a lawyer handles an area they do not. We flag risky phrases during drafting and leave the final call to a partner.
What we build
A client care page with fee basis, complaints contact and insurance information in your words, dated so readers know it is current.
What your lawyers do
Write or approve that information, decide when it is given, and confirm the site is consistent with your obligations.
How should a law firm show lawyers' profiles and practising status online?
Each lawyer should have a profile page with their full name as it appears on the register, their role, practice areas, languages and a link that lets readers confirm their practising status themselves. That link does more for trust than any adjective.
The Law Society says a practising certificate is what allows someone to describe themselves as a lawyer. It runs a Find a lawyer search by name, location and area of law, and points people checking practising status or professional details to its Public Register of Lawyers. We add a short “check my registration” line to each profile linking there, rather than copying status details onto your site where they could go stale.
Profiles also carry titles precisely. A barrister sole is described as a barrister; staff who are not lawyers, such as legal executives, law clerks or conveyancing assistants, are described by their real role. When someone leaves or stops practising, their profile comes down the same week, and we build a simple process so your office manager can do that without us.
- Full name matching the register, plus a professional photo
- Role and practice areas, no invented specialisms
- Admission year or experience, only if the lawyer wants it shown
- Languages spoken, including te reo Māori if relevant
- Link to the Law Society register for status checks
- Direct booking or enquiry link routed to that lawyer
Privacy Act 2020 and the enquiry data your law firm website collects
Your site collects personal information the moment someone submits an enquiry, so the forms and privacy statement need to line up. The Privacy Commissioner's guidance on information privacy principle 3 says people should know why information is collected, who will receive it, whether giving it is voluntary, and what happens if they do not.
We translate that into build decisions. Every form carries a short notice next to the submit button in wording your practice approves. We collect only what the first stage needs, which also suits a conflict check. Submissions go to your inbox over encrypted connections and are not kept in a website database longer than necessary. Analytics are configured without capturing form contents.
The Commissioner also states that a privacy breach causing, or likely to cause, serious harm must be notified to the Commissioner and affected people as soon as practicable. That is one reason we keep enquiry data off the web server where possible, patch plugins, and use two-factor logins for everyone with admin access. The privacy obligations remain your practice's responsibility, confirmed by your own advisers; our part is to build a site that makes those obligations easier to keep.
Local SEO for law firms in smaller New Zealand towns
In a small town, local SEO usually decides whether your practice or the one across the road appears in Google's map results. Get the Google Business Profile right, match your details everywhere, and publish one strong page per practice area that mentions the communities you actually serve.
Small-town law firm website design has to reflect a wide rural catchment. A firm in Gore may act for families in Mataura and farmers across Southland; a practice in Dannevirke may handle conveyancing for buyers from all over Tararua. We build pages that reflect that real catchment rather than stuffing in town names you rarely act in.
- Google Business Profile categories set to match your main practice areas
- Office hours, parking and accessibility notes kept identical on site and profile
- Separate profiles only for genuinely staffed branch offices
- Practice-area pages that name the surrounding districts you serve
- A polite review request process that follows your professional obligations
- LegalService structured data on the contact and home pages
If you have offices in two towns, each gets its own contact page with its own address and phone number. If one office is a meeting room you visit fortnightly, say so plainly instead of implying a full branch. Honest location data avoids profile suspensions and keeps you clear of misleading claims. For bigger city markets see our pages on Auckland web development and Christchurch web development.
Will a law firm website show up in Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT answers?
Nobody can guarantee a mention in AI Overviews or chatbot answers, but you can make your pages easy for these systems to read and quote. Clear question headings, short direct answers, named lawyers and consistent business details all help.
AI assistants tend to lift single self-contained paragraphs. A practice-area page that opens “A conveyancing lawyer handles the legal side of buying or selling property, from checking the sale agreement to settlement” gives them something quotable. We structure pages so each section starts with that kind of answer, then expands.
On the technical side we add structured data describing your practice as a LegalService, with address, opening hours and areas served, plus Person markup for lawyer profiles where it is accurate. We keep the robots file open to major search crawlers unless you tell us otherwise, and we test key pages with Google's Rich Results Test before launch.
One caution for law firm website design: AI summaries of legal topics can be wrong. Your practice-area pages should be accurate enough that, if quoted, they would not embarrass you, and they should always steer readers to book advice rather than rely on a summary.
How much does law firm website design cost in NZ?
With us, law firm website design starts from US$150 for a practice site of up to 100 pages and from US$300 for a larger SEO site with town and practice-area combinations. Custom tools such as a client portal start from US$900. Quotes from other providers vary widely, mostly because of the drivers below.
The biggest cost driver is who writes the content. If your lawyers supply draft text for each practice area, the build is quick. If you want us to structure and draft plain-language copy from interviews for your lawyers to correct, allow more time and a separate line in the quote.
- Number of practice areas and lawyer profiles
- Whether the conveyancing estimator needs one fee table or several
- Two-stage intake with routing versus a single contact form
- Moving content and redirects from an older site
- Integration with your practice management system, if it allows it
- Te reo Māori or other language versions of key pages, with translations you supply
- Ongoing monthly SEO or maintenance after the free period
After launch, two months of maintenance are included. After that, maintenance starts from US$120/mo and monthly SEO from US$150/mo; you can take either, both or neither. For a wider view of NZ pricing see our guide on website design cost in New Zealand, and for tight budgets, affordable web design options.
How to choose a law firm website design partner
Choose a law firm website design partner who asks about conflicts, client care and approvals in the first conversation, not just colours and logos. If those topics never come up, the builder is treating your practice like a café.
Ask each candidate to walk through how an enquiry travels from the form to the lawyer who handles it. Ask who owns the domain and hosting account on day one. Ask how legal wording is approved and what happens when a lawyer leaves. Ask to see how they would structure your family law page, not a finished design mock-up. The answers tell you more than a portfolio.
Green flags
Questions about your practice areas and catchment, a written itemised quote, clear ownership terms, and willingness to say what they will not do.
Amber flags
Heavy reliance on templates built for other industries, or no view on how intake forms support conflict checks.
Red flags
Promises of first-page rankings, offers to write reviews, or insistence that the domain be registered in their name.
Our own limits in law firm website design are worth stating: we do not visit offices, we do not give legal or tax advice, we are three developers rather than a large studio, and we will not publish testimonials you cannot stand behind. If those limits suit you, we are a good fit.
WordPress, a static build or custom software for a legal practice?
For most New Zealand practices, WordPress is the right choice when staff want to publish updates themselves, and a static build is right when the site changes rarely and speed and low upkeep matter most. Custom software only makes sense for portals, document upload or complex calculators.
WordPress gives your office manager a familiar editor for news, profile changes and new resources. The trade-off is upkeep: plugins need patching, and a neglected WordPress install is a security risk for a practice that handles confidential enquiries. We keep plugins few and well supported, and our WordPress development page explains the approach in more depth.
A static build, for example with Astro, produces plain files that load very fast and have little to attack. Changes go through us or through a simple content file. It suits a practice whose lawyers update their pages twice a year.
Custom work, from US$900, fits a practice that wants clients to upload documents securely, track a matter's progress, or complete a long pre-meeting questionnaire. That is a different project from a website, and we would scope it separately with your IT provider involved. For deeper software projects see our software development for NZ businesses.
Working with a team in India from New Zealand: hours, calls and payments
Working with us from New Zealand is mostly asynchronous, with overlap in your afternoon. India Standard Time sits six and a half hours behind NZ standard time and seven and a half behind daylight time, so 3 pm in Wellington is early morning in India, and changes you send before you leave the office are often done when you arrive next day.
Calls happen in that afternoon window on Google Meet, Zoom or Teams, whichever your practice prefers. Day-to-day questions go through WhatsApp, which we answer seven days a week in Indian hours. Quotes and invoices come from India in US dollars, and you pay by Wise, bank wire or PayPal. We do not have a New Zealand entity or office, and we do not advise on how the invoices are treated for tax; your accountant can confirm that.
Days 1 to 3
Kick-off call with a partner and your office manager. We agree the page list, who approves content, and set up the domain and hosting accounts in the practice's name.
Days 4 to 7
We send page structures and plain-language drafts for each practice area; your lawyers correct legal points. Design goes up on a private staging link.
Days 8 to 10
Estimator fee table, intake form and routing are built and tested with dummy enquiries sent to each inbox.
Days 11 to 14
Final approvals, redirects from any old site, Google Business Profile updates, launch, and handover of every login.
Ownership is simple: the practice owns the domain, hosting, code and content from day one. Terms beyond that are set out in your written quote and our terms.
Red flags and risks in law firm website design projects
The biggest risks in law firm website design are not technical. They are unapproved legal wording, contact forms that invite confidential detail before a conflict check, stale lawyer profiles, and a domain the practice does not control. Each is avoidable with a little process.
Unapproved wording creeps in when a designer fills gaps with plausible-sounding legal text. We mark every legal statement in drafts so a lawyer has to tick it off. Contact forms that ask “Tell us about your situation” in a big empty box invite a full account from someone whose former partner may already be your client, which is why we default to the two-stage approach.
- Testimonials or star ratings copied from elsewhere without consent or verification
- Stock photos implying staff you do not have
- “Specialist” or “expert” labels your lawyers have not agreed to
- Profiles of lawyers who left months ago
- Chat widgets that store transcripts on a third-party server nobody reviewed
- Domain or hosting registered to the web designer personally
- No backups, or backups nobody has ever restored
If you already have a site with some of these issues, a tidy-up can be quoted separately rather than a full rebuild. Send the link on WhatsApp and we will list what we see.
A worked example: law firm website design for a three-lawyer practice in Masterton
Say a hypothetical three-lawyer practice in Masterton handles conveyancing, family law, wills and estates, and some employment work for local employers. Its old site is a single page with a phone number, and most new work comes by word of mouth. Here is how we might approach it.
First, the page list: home, four practice-area pages, three lawyer profiles plus a legal executive profile, fees and client care, enquiry, privacy, and two short town pages for Carterton and Featherston because the practice regularly acts for buyers there. That sits comfortably inside the practice site plan from US$150.
Second, the estimator. The partners give us their fee bands for purchase, sale and refinance, a disbursement list, and a GST display preference. The estimator shows a starting figure with each disbursement as its own line and passes the visitor to the intake form.
Third, intake. Family enquiries go to one lawyer's inbox, employment enquiries to another, and property enquiries to a shared inbox the conveyancing team watches. Every form asks for other-party names up front.
Fourth, local search: a cleaned-up Google Business Profile, matching details across the site, and LegalService structured data. We would not predict rankings; we would set up Search Console so the partners can see which practice-area pages start earning impressions over the following months. This scenario is illustrative, not a past client.
Law firm website design checklist before you launch
Run through this list with a partner and your office manager before the site goes live. It takes about an hour and catches most of the problems that would otherwise surface in a client's first email.
- Every legal statement approved by a named lawyer, with the date
- Each lawyer's profile name matches the Law Society register, with a link to check status
- Client care page reviewed and dated
- Estimator fee table checked against current engagement letters, GST display confirmed
- Intake form collects other-party names first and shows the confidentiality warning
- Test enquiries for every practice area reached the right inbox
- Privacy notice beside each form matches what the form collects
- Google Business Profile hours, phone and address match the site exactly
- Old URLs redirected so existing links and bookmarks still work
- Mobile speed checked in PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals reviewed
- Domain, hosting and admin logins confirmed in the practice's name, with two-factor on
Good law firm website design does not stop at launch: add a quarterly reminder to review profiles and the client care page. People join and leave, fees change, and a site that was accurate on launch day can drift quickly.