Law firm branding agency: the boundary between brand and build
A branding agency and a search supplier are different purchases. We do not do naming, identity or print, and a design studio will do all three better than we will. We build the site the identity lands on, at £2,400, £4,200 or £6,900. Of 40 legal-marketing suppliers read in full on 3 August 2026, 12 published a price.
- Build prices
- Firm Site £2,400, Firm Site+ £4,200, Authority Build £6,900
- Price Transparency Pack
- £890 on its own, ten working days
- Retainers and term
- £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term
- Suppliers publishing a price
- 12 of 40 suppliers, read in full on 3 August 2026; 1 offered no minimum term
- Price questions in demand
- 15 of the 62 questions buyers ask on these searches are price questions
- London immigration demand
- 2,900 searches a month at around £18.75 a click, measured 3 August 2026
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What does a branding agency do that we do not?
Most of what the word covers, and this is the useful thing to establish before anybody quotes.
| The work | Who should do it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Naming, and the shortlist behind it | A naming or branding practice | It is a research and legal exercise as much as a creative one |
| Logo and visual identity | A design studio | Typography and mark-making are a craft, held by people who do only that |
| Brand guidelines, colour and type system | A design studio | It is the document everything else is built against |
| Print, stationery, signage | A design studio with print production | Print has its own suppliers, proofs and failure modes |
| Tone of voice as a written standard | Either | Depends on whether it is written for designers or for fee earners |
| The website the identity lands on | Us | It is a build, and it has to answer search queries as well as look right |
| Practice-area pages that get found | Us | Structure and demand data, not aesthetics |
| Published price and service information | Us | It is the page most firms are missing and the one buyers arrive on |
The first four rows are not work we are declining to quote for because it is unprofitable. They are work we would do worse.
Where is the boundary between branding and website work?
At the point where the decision has been made and something has to be built.
A design studio's output is a decision and a set of assets: a name, a mark, a palette, a type system, a document that says how they are used. Our input is that document. We build the site against it, write the pages that answer what people actually search for, and make sure the result is findable rather than only correct.
That order matters more than it sounds. A site built before the identity exists is rebuilt. An identity delivered with no site to land on sits in a folder, which is the more common of the two failures because the identity is the exciting purchase.
We do not advise on whether a trading name is open to a regulated practice, and we do not do trademark searching. Both belong with the firm and its own advisers.
Why will a design studio beat us on naming, identity and print?
Because those are separate crafts and we do not hold them.
A design studio employs people who spend their whole working week on typography, mark-making and print production. They have drawn hundreds of marks, they know which ones survive being embroidered on a fleece and printed at 8mm on a business card, and they have a relationship with a printer who tells them when a specification will not work. We hold none of that. If we drew your logo it would be adequate, and adequate is a strange thing to buy from anybody when a specialist charges for the same item and delivers a better one.
The damaging admission, stated plainly: a firm whose actual problem is that the identity looks dated should spend its money with a design studio and come to us afterwards, or not at all. We would rather say that here than discover it in month three.
What does a law firm's brand get judged on before the typeface?
Three things, and a person choosing a solicitor reaches all of them before they notice the letterhead.
Somebody who has never instructed a firm cannot assess legal work in advance. What they can assess is whether the firm named the person who would do the work, whether it said what the work costs, and whether it answered the question they arrived with. Those three are the brand at the point of decision, and none of them is a design output.
The middle one is also the one the rules ask for. The SRA Transparency Rules have been in force since 6 December 2018 and require price and service information for specified work types, checked 3 August 2026. We build the pages the rules ask for. Whether a firm meets its obligations is a judgement for the firm and its COLP, and no supplier can certify it.
Should a law firm buy branding or the website first?
Whichever one is actually broken, which is usually not the one being discussed.
- If the name is changing, identity comes first and the site follows it. Building a site that will be rebranded in four months is spending the budget twice. The merger case, where the name is being forced rather than chosen, is on branding a law firm.
- If the name is staying and the site is the problem, come to us first. A new identity applied to a site that answers nothing is a better-looking version of the same result.
- If neither is obviously broken, buy the smaller thing: the Price Transparency Pack at £890 finishes in ten working days and answers the most common question a prospective client has, which no identity project does.
What does a law firm site cost, and what is excluded?
Published and fixed: £2,400 for the Firm Site, £4,200 for Firm Site+, £6,900 for the Authority Build, and £890 for the Price Transparency Pack on its own. Retainers are £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term, and £700 comes off a build taken with six months of retainer. We charge by scope and time, never per enquiry, case or matter: LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees in prescribed legal business including personal injury, and it binds the paying firm as well as the party being paid.
Excluded, and not negotiable: naming. Logo and identity design. Brand guidelines. Print, stationery and signage. Trademark searching or registration. Any view on whether a trading name is open to a regulated practice.
Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, 12 published a price at all, 5 of those showed only a range, 8 claimed a guarantee of some kind, and 1 offered work with no minimum term. 15 of the 62 questions buyers ask on these searches are price questions, and branding is where the gap is widest, because identity work is the easiest thing in this market to quote by feel. Four suppliers a firm researching this is likely to meet:
| Supplier | Published a price |
|---|---|
| mltdigital.co.uk | No |
| deckerdesign.com | No |
| contra.agency | No |
| digitalagencynetwork.com | Yes |
We record whether a price appeared on the page, never what it was, and nothing in our benchmark records whether any of them does design work.
What is legal search demand worth in your city?
In London, 2,900 people a month search for immigration, and Google charges around £18.75 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities, measured 3 August 2026.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages the rules ask for are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
No call required. Our own prices are on that page.
What should I read next on law firm branding?
If the identity is being forced by a merger rather than chosen: branding a law firm.
On what to do with the site once the identity exists: marketing plan for a law firm, lawyer marketing plan and marketing strategy for law firm.
On the pages themselves: lawyer content marketing and, for injury work specifically, personal injury lawyer marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Do you design logos or brand identities for law firms?
No. We do not do naming, logo or identity design, brand guidelines, print or signage, and a design studio will do all of them better than we would. We build the site the identity lands on and the pages that make it findable.
What is the difference between a branding agency and a website supplier?
A branding agency produces a decision and a set of assets — a name, a mark, a palette, a type system and the document governing them. A website supplier takes that document as input and builds against it. The second cannot properly precede the first.
Should a law firm rebrand before or after rebuilding its website?
Identity first if the name is changing, because a site built before it will be rebuilt within months. Site first if the name is staying and the site is the problem, because a new identity on a site that answers nothing is a better-looking version of the same result.
What does a client actually judge a law firm's brand on?
Whether the firm named the person who would do the work, said what it costs, and answered the question they arrived with. Somebody who has never instructed a firm cannot assess legal work in advance, so those three stand in for it, and none is a design output.
What does the work cost?
The Firm Site is £2,400, Firm Site+ £4,200 and the Authority Build £6,900, with the Price Transparency Pack at £890 over ten working days. Retainers are £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term, and £700 comes off a build taken with six months of retainer.
Do you advise on whether a trading name can be used?
No. Trademark searching, registration and whether a name is open to a regulated practice all belong with the firm and its own advisers, and we would decline the question rather than answer it badly.