We get a lot of questions from our colleagues – and some prospective clients – about why it is we get so much design work from the legal community. I thought it would be interesting to address here what it is like designing websites for lawyers, and why we enjoy it so much.

Lawyers are good people with a bad PR problem.

If you’ve ever been misunderstood and had people think they know you from just a tiny piece of information about you, you get this one. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked in 3 law firms – as an assistant and paralegal – from the gigantic to the boutique – and there’s no better way to understand that lawyers are people, too (a shocker for some), than working shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

They spend a lot of money on schooling and have the student loan burden to prove it, they have families and children who get sick, and most have a stronger sense of ethics than the population as a whole. And a work ethic. The work ethic most lawyers have would make the rest of us just want to lie down.

Rather than treating me poorly as a support staff member, most of the associates I aided would encourage me to go ahead home, while they wearily opened the file that a partner had just slapped on their desk at 6pm with an 8am deadline.

We help our client overcome perception issues with designs that don’t look like everyone else’s, and coach him through copywriting and photography choices – particularly through his “About Me” page, in order to convey his actual personality and help prospects feel comfortable hiring him.

Solos and small firms are underserved by the technical community.

Contrary to popular belief, most lawyers don’t earn six-figure salaries, and the current economic situation is making that even worse – big corporations hurting means they aren’t paying the big law firms who drive those salary perceptions.

There is a vast network of companies that has formed over the years to make money serving the legal community, in terms of technology services, marketing, case law research and more. Unfortunately, most of those companies have set their rates at a level that is out of reach for the lawyer who is practicing on her own, or who has only 2 or 3 associates.

As a consequence, many of these solopreneurs are finding themselves lost in the weeds when trying to find competent, cost-effective vendors to provide marketing services to them. We love helping them convert techno-speak to English, figuring out what they REALLY need, and providing them with the necessary hub for their marketing wheel without hefty monthly fees and restrictive contracts.

Lawyers embrace outsourcing and value specialized knowledge.

As a profession, lawyers know the value of specialization – they choose an area of the law to practice, they refer work to associates who know more about an area of the law than they do, and they employ paralegals, assistants and clerks to help them get the job done.

Therefore, you’ll rarely hear from a lawyer, “I’d code it myself, but I just don’t have time.” They’re clear on the difference between saving money (doing it yourself) and making money (doing what you’re best at). As part of that, they’re comfortable with delegating, which makes for a good partnership in a web design project. Because they charge their own clients based on their specialized knowledge, they value ours as well.

Lawyers are clear on the goal of a website – “Get Me Some Clients!”

We find that the most difficult type of clients are the “ego clients” – the ones who want a website that is all about them – and want us to find some magical way to convey “the essence of moi,” much like an interior decorator.

Lawyers are businesspeople, and as such are clear that a website is not about seeing their name in lights – it’s about getting clients in their offices. This means we get to discuss cool concepts like conversion rates and email marketing and information flow, instead of whether this shade of mauve matches their couch.

Lawyers don’t get freaked out about revisions.

Some clients think that if the first draft isn’t the perfect draft, maybe you’re not the right designer. Lawyers live in a world of revisions – revised pleadings, briefs, markups from colleagues, etc. They’re super-comfortable collaborating in an iterative fashion.

Lawyers pay their bills promptly.

There may be some exceptions to this rule, but we have not encountered them. We find that when lawyers make a purchasing decision, it’s usually not until they know they already have the funds. Bankruptcy lawyers, in particular, tend to walk their talk and run debt-free practices.

Lawyers understand the value of referrals.

Do a good job for a lawyer, and she’ll not only be a repeat client, she’ll tell everyone she knows who is looking for a similar service. They get all sorts of unsolicited marketing aimed at them as a profession, and as such, tend to lean on the referral system more heavily than others – just to screen out the white noise. Win her trust, and you win a solid referral stream of clients just like her.

Sponsored by the letters E, S, and Q.

If you think you might like to work with us, check out:

• our services page for more details about what we offer,
• find out how we work,
• read our client references, and then
• submit a website design inquiry.

Back in ’09, (read that with an old-timey squeaky voice), we did two satellite website designs for Rich Feinsilver, a bankruptcy and real estate lawyer in Long Island, New York. They were pretty simple projects with a lot of context-sensitive video integration.

When Rich got ready to revamp his flagship site, he came back to us – which is about the most gigantic compliment a client can give.

“I want all the bells and whistles,” he said. We made loud rummaging noises in our bell box and whistle closet, and designed an elegantly simple design to present his content for both practice areas, support a blog, and connect clients and prospects with Rich via social media.

We designed separate landing pages for the Long Island bankruptcy practice:

And the Long Island real estate law practice:

It’s always a pleasure to work with Rich’s Blackberry Rich!

When Florida bankruptcy lawyer Lewis Roberts, who serves Volusia and Flagler counties along Florida’s Atlantic coast, got tired of paying for expensive long-term SEO/hosting contracts and ready for real results, he contacted Rowboat Media for a new Thesis-based custom website design. We were happy to liberate him and his bank account.

Rather than using stock photography of random people looking vaguely relieved or depressed, Lewis asked us to do something “different,” that set him apart from all the templates associated with the big contract companies.

As with all of our recent designs, we created his onsite contact form with Gravity Forms, which stores messages from prospects in the database as well as forwarding them to Lewis’s email, making it convenient for him to look over all of the contacts received in one location in his WordPress content management system. We love how flexible Gravity Forms makes our design process.

And what does the esteemed gentleman himself think?

“Nothing but praise for Cynthia and everyone at Rowboat Media! She came highly recommended and did not disappoint.

I had been bouncing from one website company to another over the past few years. Everything wonderful and glamorous in the beginning, but then the service died quickly.

Cynthia only had a few short weeks to put my website together before my last contract finally ended. I was worried that I would have to ask for revisions, since I sometimes have a hard time deciding on the look and feel of my website.

Well, she did not disappoint because she nailed it on the first try. The look and feel is exactly what I was looking for – which was hard since I didn’t know what I really wanted. As soon as I saw the first draft of the website, I knew it was the final draft.

Everything was quickly put together and I was online and running without any downtime after the old website went offline.

I have already recommended Rowboat Media to other attorneys and am thinking of a website for my wife’s business.

There is no better praise for a job well done than referrals to use the same service. It speaks volumes to Cynthia’s and her team’s abilities.

Thank you!”

- Lewis Roberts – Lewis Roberts, PA – Attorneys at Law

And the bottom line – search results? After not ranking visibly for anything under his old contract, his new Thesis website is soaring up the charts only two weeks post-launch – with several page 1 Google rankings for the keyword phrases he values. I am continually stunned when I see this happen for clients – it never gets old.

Nor do the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody.

Lewis, thank you for the opportunity – we love working with you!

Last fall, the Board of Directors for the Bankruptcy Law Network contacted us for an update to their blog. With over 30 participating attorneys across the nation and over 4,000 posts, it is the most-read bankruptcy-related blog on the ‘Net.

Since their old design was starting to look a bit tired, and presented content in typical blog fashion – last post first, in a linear layout – the client wanted more of a “magazine-style” layout on Thesis that would show current articles in four different categories, point new users to basic information about bankruptcy, and feature a list of most recent posts in an accessible manner.

Also, since the subject of bankruptcy is by its very nature an unsettling one, they wanted soothing colors and a pleasing design to encourage readers to hang around and educate themselves about the process. In the footer, participating attorneys are linked via geographic location so readers can go directly to their respective websites if they’d like to pursue a bankruptcy filing.

It was a fun and challenging project, and we look forward to working with BLN further to keep the content rolling out smoothly.

Does your blog look like this?

This year, I’ve created a lot of websites for legal professionals, and almost all of them ask me to include a blog (for those who don’t know, a blog is included in my standard rate for every web design). I give all of them the same lecture – the only thing worse than no blog is a “dead” blog – so be serious about whether you will really maintain it before I put it in your site menu.

I tell them about WordPress’ fabulous delayed publication feature, which allows you to write several posts in a single sitting and schedule them to publish at a later date – you don’t have to blog weekly to have a blog post published weekly. Everyone seems really excited…but when I check back in on my clients’ websites…the blog still says, “Hello World!” – the dreaded first default post issued by WordPress.  Nothing else.

Kudos to Shakeal Masoud and Matthew Dunaway for keeping active legal blogs going – but for the rest of you…

Practice marketing guru Jay Fleischman just published a killer post on his Legal Practice Pro blog – 4 Reasons Legal Blogs Die And 5 Ways To Succeed. If you’re not reading Jay, you’re not doing everything you can to learn about marketing your practice on the Internet. Read and subscribe to Legal Practice Pro and The Untethered Lawyer. Jay tells it like it is and pulls no punches, and you’ll learn a ton of stuff you didn’t even know you needed to know about how to stand out from the crowd – but the truth is, it’s really up to you.

Happy Halloween!

When Mike Maxwell contacted us for a redesign for his law firm in Wauwatosa Wisconsin (say that 3 times real fast), he was concerned about search engine optimization, a friendly and modern look for his website, and a content management system he could really work with – he was tired of being dependent on a web design firm for small changes.

When we explained to him about the fact that we build all our sites on the WordPress content management system, he was excited – and also referred to our earlier post about being “congenitally incapable of incorporating gavels, scales, or leather-bound books into legal website designs”.  This statement spoke to Mike, as he was suffering from a couple of the aforementioned clichés himself – to wit, a gavel and an imposing Doric column:

Instead, he asked for strong, clean graphic cues to make it easy for the user to navigate his 45-page website and know how to contact him. We delivered, the client was happy, and a few nice things were said on Twitter:

@caffeinatedelf: Well done – GREAT design, Cynthia!

@hithosekeys: ::applause::

@lee_strickland: Gorgeous site!

@fiberartisan: ooh! How unlawyerly looking! Love it!!

@danrippon: Great looking site!

Thanks, Mike – it was a pleasure saving yet another website from the gavel…so to speak.

This has just been the weekend for awesome and totally unsolicited praise for Rowboat Media website designs.  The latest comes from Pixelita Designs, and features our handsome and lovely trio of Rich Feinsilver, Angela Cooper, and Michael Berman.  By coincidence, the two gentlemen are from Long Island, while Miss Angela serves clients in Mobile, Alabama – from the North Atlantic down to the Gulf Coast!  Hmmm…noticing an ocean theme here…it’s been way too long since those of us in the rowboat have heard the sound of the surf.  Digressing again…

Anyway, we thank Joni Mueller of Pixelita for her extremely kind words, and for featuring us yet again in her Thesis series.  A few weeks ago, we were also thrilled to see that we made up 20% of her 10 Pimped Out Small Biz Thesis Sites, featuring Rowboat clients Kirk Myers & Elisabeth Harrington along with delaPlex Software LLC.

Praise may not pay the bills, but it sure does keep us encouraged as we slave away on behalf of our design clients.

Thanks, Joni!

When lawyer Ryan Davies of Lake Forest, California, contacted us to makeover two of his websites, he was already using WordPress and on the free template merry-go-round. He knew this wasn’t the image he wanted to present to his upscale Orange County clientele.

Armed with his instructions to create a warm, inviting home that felt geographically appropriate to Southern California, we chose to blend traditional cues – warm, sunset colors and leather textures – with a modern-looking framework, which of course we built on Thesis.

We went with darker tones for his overall firm website:

And a lighter feel for his bankruptcy-focused website:

The client was thrilled with the look and will be adding video content.

This is the very first in our “Client Launch” series, which we’ll do our best to continue when we launch new clients (in addition to adding some of them to the Featured Projects page).  Since we’re keeping with a nautical theme here, y’all go smash a bottle of champagne on something.

Angela Cooper tried to build her own website for her solo law firm using a GoDaddy template, and quickly realized she was sinking fast – so she contacted us and we hauled her in to shore.  She had the good sense (listen up, people) to go hire a professional photographer and get some great shots, and we liked the one of her standing on a white background so much that we built her site design around it.  Then we stumbled upon the perfect 50′s style font for her firm name and – well – one thing led to another.

Since Angela covers three practice areas with her firm, we wanted to develop a structure that put those three areas right out front – and in keeping with the retro feel, we went with the “three gauges” concept.  We had fun with this design, and it has been well received on the interwebs!  Our philosophy is – if you look like all your competitors, you won’t stand out – so we work hard to create something visitors will remember.

I say this all the time on the phone, but it’s worth reiterating here (attention lawyers) – I am congenitally incapable of incorporating gavels, scales, or leather-bound books into legal website designs.  If that’s what you’re looking for and you have a currency conflagration in your wallet, go here with my blessing.  ::grin::

Unconventionally yours,