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Guide

What a Law Firm Website Needs: A Practical Checklist for Australian Firms

A law firm website needs to answer four questions quickly: do you handle my kind of matter, who would I deal with, what happens next, and how do I get in touch. Everything else supports those answers or keeps the firm on the right side of its obligations. This checklist covers both. If you are planning a new site, our law firm website design service follows the same list.

By Sophia Turner Updated 5 min read

The pages almost every firm needs

A home page that says what you do

The first screen should name the firm, the main kinds of work and the places you practise, in plain words. Visitors arriving from a referral want to confirm they have the right firm; visitors arriving from search want to know whether to keep reading. A clear headline, a short supporting sentence and a phone number or enquiry button cover both.

One page per kind of matter

Practice area pages do most of the work. Each should explain the process in steps, give honest timing ranges, list documents to gather, describe how the firm charges for that work and link to the lawyers who handle it. Avoid splitting one topic into near-identical pages for every search phrase. Google's spam policies treat pages "created to rank for specific, similar search queries" that funnel users elsewhere as doorway abuse [1].

Lawyer profiles

Clients want to know who they will deal with. Profiles should give each lawyer's role, practice focus, admission details and current memberships, with a real photograph. Accreditation wording needs care: Rule 36.2 restricts "accredited specialist" and its derivatives to lawyers accredited by the relevant professional association [2].

Contact and office details

A contact page with phone, email, address, hours and an enquiry form. If you have several offices, a page for each with directions, parking and building access notes.

About the firm

Who the firm is, how it works with clients, its values if they are specific enough to mean something, and any community or pro bono work you want to mention.

Fees approach

You do not have to publish prices, but readers look for some sense of how charging works. A page explaining fixed fees, hourly rates, estimates and when costs agreements are provided helps people take the next step.

A privacy policy, website terms and a cookie notice if you use cookies beyond those strictly needed. These are short, but they need to be accurate.

Advertising rules that shape the copy

Rule 36.1 requires that advertising, marketing and promotion not be false, misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive, offensive, or prohibited by law [2]. The Australian Consumer Law applies on top of that [3]. On a website the risky spots are superlatives, implied outcomes, fee statements without their conditions, and specialist wording. Our advertising rules guide works through them page by page.

Some work types have extra limits. In Queensland, personal injury advertising is limited to name, contact details and areas of practice, with fuller statements, including no-win-no-fee conditions, allowed only on the firm's own website [4]. The Legal Services Commission's guideline expects restricted content to be limited to existing clients or genuine enquirers, for example behind an enquiry step [10]. See the personal injury advertising guide.

Enquiry forms and privacy

Keep enquiry forms short: name, contact details, the kind of matter, the other party's name if you need it for a conflict check, and a brief description. Ask people not to include confidential details until the firm has confirmed it can act.

Whether the Privacy Act applies to your firm depends partly on turnover. The OAIC says a small business is one with an annual turnover of $3 million or less, though some businesses are covered regardless of turnover [5]. Either way, a short collection notice beside the form, saying who collects the details, why and where the privacy policy is, is good practice. Our privacy and enquiry forms guide covers the detail.

Accessibility

The Australian Human Rights Commission's guidelines on digital access, issued under the Disability Discrimination Act, advise organisations to meet the latest published version of WCAG [6]. That is WCAG 2.2 [7]. For a typical firm site, the important checks are colour contrast, headings in a logical order, labels on every form field, keyboard access to every control and text alternatives for meaningful images. See accessibility and the DDA.

Technical basics

ItemWhat good looks like
SecurityHTTPS on every page, current software, two-factor sign-in for editors
SpeedCore Web Vitals "good": LCP within 2.5 s, INP 200 ms or less, CLS 0.1 or less [8]
MobileText readable without zooming, buttons large enough to tap, no sideways scrolling
SearchUnique titles and descriptions, an XML sitemap, Google Search Console verified
Business ProfileName, address and phone matching the site; no extra keywords in the business name [9]
BackupsAutomatic and stored away from the main server

Things that are optional

  • A blog or news section. Useful if someone will keep it going with genuinely helpful articles. A news page last updated three years ago does more harm than none.
  • Live chat. Only if someone will answer it during the hours it shows as available.
  • Client portals. Usually provided by practice management software; link to it rather than rebuilding it.
  • Video. A short introduction from a principal can help, if it is captioned.

A quick self-check

  1. Can a stranger tell what the firm does within five seconds of landing?
  2. Does every practice area the firm handles have a page, and none it does not?
  3. Is every profile current, including accreditations?
  4. Does the enquiry form explain what happens to the details?
  5. Would every claim on the site survive a careful read against Rule 36?
  6. Can the whole site be used with a keyboard alone?

Questions people ask

How many pages does a small law firm website need?

Often between ten and thirty: home, one page per practice area, a profile per lawyer, about, contact, fees approach and the legal pages. The right number follows from the work you do, not a target.

Do we need a privacy policy if the Privacy Act does not cover us?

If the small business exemption applies, the APPs may not bind you, but clients still expect to know how their details are handled. A short, accurate policy is good practice.

Should a law firm website have testimonials?

It can, with care. Reviews must be genuine and not edited to mislead, and some state rules restrict certain content for personal injury work. Check our reviews guide before publishing any.

Sources

Checked on 29 October 2026. Labels show what kind of source each one is.

  1. Platform documentation Spam Policies for Google Web Search, Google Search Central.
  2. Legislation Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules 2015, NSW Legislation. Rule 36 (current version; unchanged by the 1 July 2026 amendments).
  3. Professional body 36. Advertising, Queensland Law Society.
  4. Professional body What are the rules about advertising for personal injury work?, Queensland Law Society.
  5. Regulator Small business, OAIC.
  6. Regulator Guidelines on equal access to digital goods and services, Australian Human Rights Commission. April 2025.
  7. Standards body Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C.
  8. Platform documentation Web Vitals, web.dev (Google).
  9. Platform documentation Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Google Business Profile Help.
  10. Regulator PIPA regulatory guideline, Legal Services Commission Queensland. Published 16 March 2022.

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