A law firm website is a site that tells a visitor in a few seconds who you are, which areas of law you handle, where, and how to book a first consultation, while showing the information your regulator requires. On 25 of the most-reviewed law firm websites in Milan, Rome and Naples, 10 had no tap-to-call phone number on mobile and only 5 named the bar they belong to on the home page (Visilay survey of Italian firms, 9 November 2026).
Building a firm's website looks like the easy part.
A domain, a photo of the partners, an "our services" page.
Then the enquiries keep coming from the Google profile and from referrals, not from the site.
The mistakes we find are nearly always the same:
- one page for twelve practice areas, which answers no real search;
- a phone number written as plain text, which you cannot call with one tap;
- the required regulatory details left out;
- a site built once and never updated (in 3 of our 25 cases the copyright line stops at 2020 or earlier).
Ranking is covered in our guide to law firm SEO. This guide is about what has to be on the site before you try to rank it, and what it costs.
Why listen to us?
We have no law firm client whose numbers we can publish. We have a close case: Contesini Consulenze, two energy advice offices near Mantua in Italy, whose website made visitors give up on the form.
We rebuilt the page for mobile and set up tracking before any campaign: 299 enquiries at €7.20 each, and 68% became real sales opportunities between September 2023 and March 2024 (the Contesini case).
In this guide:
- what 25 law firm websites get wrong, and what the rules require;
- pages, features and costs;
- what ChatGPT reads when someone asks it for a lawyer.
Let's start with the data.
What we found on 25 law firm websites (10 without tap-to-call)
Method first. On 9 November 2026 we pulled, with DataForSEO, the Google Maps listings in the "lawyer" category within 3 km of the centre of Milan, Rome and Naples: per city, the 10 with the most reviews and a website. We removed two listings that were not law firms, and three sites did not respond: that leaves 25 home pages (32 to 856 reviews each), downloaded as a smartphone receives them. These are Italian firms; we have not repeated the test in the UK.
| What we checked on the home page | Sites out of 25 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tap-to-call phone number ("tel:" link) | 15 | 60% |
| Link to a privacy notice | 21 | 84% |
| VAT number readable in the code | 11 | 44% |
| Local business structured data | 11 | 44% |
| LegalService or Attorney structured data | 6 | 24% |
| Bar association named in the text | 5 | 20% |
| "Free" advice or consultation promised | 3 | 12% |
| Copyright line stuck at 2020 or earlier | 3 | 12% |
| WordPress branch released in 2016 or 2020 | 2 | 8% |
| http version not redirecting to https | 1 | 4% |
| Not adapted to mobile (no meta viewport) | 1 | 4% |
The figure that matters most: ten firms out of 25 write their phone number as plain text, so on a phone it has to be copied and pasted.
The second is about the rules. Only 5 home pages out of 25 say which bar the lawyer belongs to, and on 14 we found no VAT number, which Italian law wants on the home page itself.
Then maintenance: two sites run on WordPress branches from 2016 and 2020 (their own code says so), one still answers on http, one is not adapted to mobile.
A handful of cases? Yes, but on firms with dozens of reviews: the client finds them on Maps, opens the site and stops there.
What a law firm website must show in England and Wales (four rules, one footer)
A website of an SRA-regulated firm must show the SRA number and the SRA digital badge in a prominent place, the complaints procedure, and price and service information for certain services. These come from the SRA Transparency Rules, in force since 11 April 2025 in their current version, plus the GDPR for forms:
- Rule 4.1: an authorised body must "display in a prominent place on its website" its SRA number and the SRA digital badge (SRA Transparency Rules). The badge became mandatory on 25 November 2019 and only works on websites registered in mySRA (SRA, clickable logo);
- Rules 1.3 to 1.6: for services such as residential conveyancing, uncontested probate, immigration (excluding asylum), employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal and debt recovery up to £100,000, you publish total or average cost, the basis of charges, what is included and excluded, and key stages and timescales, "clear and accessible and in a prominent place on your website";
- Rule 2.1: publish your complaints procedure, including how to complain to the Legal Ombudsman and the SRA;
- Article 13 of the GDPR (retained in UK law as the UK GDPR): when a form collects data, the privacy information is due "at the time when personal data are obtained" (regulation text).
In practice this comes down to a well-built footer (firm name, SRA number, badge, complaints link) and a prices page that is "clearly signposted and easy for visitors to find", in the words of the SRA guidance on price and service transparency.
Do firms actually comply?
Most say they do. A year after the rules first came in, the SRA reported that 68% of firms surveyed published the required information, 92% displayed the badge and 80% published their complaints procedure; before 2018 only 18% published any prices online (SRA, 2020). These are firms' own answers, but they show where the bar now sits.
In Italy the equivalents are articles 17 and 35 of the lawyers' code of conduct: title, firm name and bar on every communication, no comparisons, no client names. In both countries the line is the same: no "best solicitor in town" and no comparisons with other firms.
The pages a law firm website needs (six, and one for every practice area that pays)
A law firm website needs six kinds of page: home, one page per practice area, people, costs and first consultation, contact and office, legal information. Everything else is optional.
- Home: at the top, main practice area, town, tap-to-call number and a button to book the first consultation.
- One page for every practice area that pays. People search for the area with the place, and Google answers with pages, not with an "our services" list.
- People: a real photo, year of admission, practice areas, accreditations if you have them.
- Costs and first consultation: in England and Wales this is where the Transparency Rules information lives for the services they cover.
- Contact and office: address written exactly as on the Google profile, map, opening hours.
- Legal information: SRA details, complaints, privacy, cookies.
And the blog?
Useful if it covers the problems your clients actually have, not case summaries: the numbers are in our guide to law firm marketing. How to link the pages together is in website architecture.
The features that turn a visit into an enquiry (and the one most sites forget)
Four features count: tap-to-call, a short form, online booking of the first consultation and enquiry tracking.
- Tap-to-call at the top and the bottom. Missing on 10 of our 25 sites, and it is one line of code.
- A short form: name, phone or email, practice area, two lines of text. The GDPR asks for data that are "adequate, relevant and limited" (Article 5), and a worried person does not write an essay.
- Online booking: a calendar with free slots removes three emails. In the US only 14% of firms let clients book a consultation online (ABA, 2022 Legal Technology Survey).
- Call and form tracking: the feature most sites forget. Without it you cannot tell which practice area brings clients and which only brings visits.
Does a three-lawyer firm really need tracking?
Yes. It is what told Contesini that 68% of 299 enquiries were real opportunities. If enquiries go missing, start with our guide to the website that does not generate leads. The site comes before campaigns, but on its own it brings nobody: next come Google Ads on your highest-value practice area and a plan for lead generation for lawyers.
Can clients call your firm with one tap?
Ten of the 25 most-reviewed firms we checked cannot be called with one tap, and twenty do not name their bar on the home page. Let's check what your firm's website is missing, page by page.
Book a strategy callHow much a law firm website costs (public price lists and what they leave out)
A law firm website costs from around €800 for a basic brochure site to €15,000 for a site with many practice areas and features, according to the price lists published by the agencies on page one of Google Italy (checked on 9 November 2026). We have not found comparable public price lists from UK agencies on page one.
- EezyWeb (Italy): brochure site "a partire da € 1000" (from €1,000), dynamic site from €1,500, with marketing from €2,000;
- Leonardo Spada (Italy): €800-1,500 for basic sites, €5,000-15,000 for complex ones, delivered in 1-3 months;
- Lawzana (website builder, US market): $49 to $129 a month on subscription.
So €800 is enough?
It depends on what is inside. None of the three says whether it includes the copy for the practice area pages, the regulatory footer or tracking. And the real cost arrives in year two: hosting, renewals, updates. The two sites stuck on WordPress from 2016 and 2020 show what happens when nobody pays for them. The three-year maths is in how much a website costs.
Before you sign a quote, ask four questions:
- who writes the practice area pages, and who checks them against your regulator's rules?
- are the SRA number, badge and complaints page included?
- are calls and forms tracked from day one?
- who updates the CMS and plugins, and what does it cost per year?
The technical choices that cost you later are in how to build an SEO-friendly website; how we work is on our web development page.
What ChatGPT reads when someone asks for a lawyer in your town (one test, five firms)
An AI assistant recommending a lawyer mostly reads two things: the firm's Google profile and the page on its website that describes the practice area.
On 9 November 2026 we asked ChatGPT, with web search on (through DataForSEO), in Italian: "can you recommend an employment lawyer in Rome?". It answered with five firms, all with Google ratings between 4.7 and 4.9 and 59 to 322 reviews. For each one it described the practice area in the words of the firm's own site (of one: "states that it acts exclusively for employees"), and for one the link went to the page on employment law in Rome, not to the home page.
It is one answer, not a sample. But it shows what makes a site quotable: a page that says plainly the area of law, the town and who you act for, and name, address and phone identical on the site and the Google profile. LegalService or Attorney structured data help too, and only one site in four in our survey had them. Nobody can promise a citation (more in our guide to local visibility in AI answers).
Law firm website FAQs
It depends: in England and Wales, yes for the services listed in the SRA Transparency Rules (such as residential conveyancing, uncontested probate and some employment and immigration matters), with cost, what is included and timescales. For other services it is not required, but it answers the question clients ask before they call.
In a prominent place on your website, under Rule 4.1 of the Transparency Rules. The SRA page on the badge does not name a specific page; placing it in the footer makes it appear on every page. It has been mandatory since 25 November 2019.
Yes, for every area that brings in work. People search for the area of law with the town, and in our ChatGPT test one firm was linked through its practice area page rather than its home page. Areas you rarely handle can stay on a shared page.
Law firm website in brief (and a test for tonight)
One page for every practice area that pays.
Tap-to-call, short form, bookable first consultation.
SRA number, badge and complaints in the footer; prices where the rules require them.
No superlatives, no comparisons.
Tracking from day one.
Before you ask for a quote, try a thirty-second test: open your site on your phone and try to call the firm with one tap. Then ask ChatGPT for a lawyer in your area of law and your town, and read how it describes the others. If your site does not say the same things just as clearly, the brief has written itself.
Speak soon!
