Law firms

People usually look for a lawyer at a hard moment, and the site's first job is to show quickly whether this firm handles their kind of matter. A solo attorney or a small firm in Los Angeles does not need a large site for that: a clear page for each practice area in the words clients use, and one obvious next step.

That next step is an intake form or a consultation calendar. The form should gather what the attorney would want to hear on a first call, so the inquiry arrives as a real summary instead of a one-line message.

Each inquiry should be logged with its practice area and where it came from, and the names intake collects should stay searchable for the firm's conflict checks. Once a matter opens, its documents and key dates belong on one record, part of which the client sees through the portal.

Invoices and retainer requests go out from the matter they belong to, and each payment is recorded against its invoice in the account the firm names. The firm confirms its own professional obligations, and the build does what the firm decides where its tools allow it; the written plan says where they do not.

Small firms usually run their matters in practice management software and take card payments through a service made for law firms. The site connects to those tools where they allow outside connections, and it leaves alone the parts that already work. You will likely recognize a few of the names below; they are common in small practices, and naming them is not a recommendation.

A template site builder is a fair start for a new practice: pick a theme and fill in the pages. It gets harder when intake needs different questions for each practice area, or when clients need a portal the builder cannot host. A custom site starts from how the firm takes on a matter.

Picture a solo immigration attorney who works with one paralegal. Inquiries arrive by phone and through a basic contact form, and clients send their documents as photos in long email threads.

The first step could be a Starter site, $6,400: a clear page for each kind of case the practice takes, and an intake form that reaches the attorney by email.

A client portal with a document checklist for each case, together with online invoices and card payments, is the app tier at $34,000, since a portal and payments are what that tier covers. The portal can wait until the intake questions have settled; the site does not have to.

Case File, the concept below, was drawn for this page. Its screens trace a matter from the first intake form to a paid invoice, with the client's portal in between. Treat it as a picture of the idea: it is not a product, and no real firm or client stands behind anything on it.