Law firm website content writing: who should write it
Three people can write a law firm's website pages: a fee earner, a writer trained in law, or a general copywriter. Each fails differently. What makes any of the 3 work is the same review loop, ending with somebody who has run the matter checking every factual sentence.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
Who can actually write a law firm's website content?
One of three people, and the choice determines which failure the firm gets rather than whether it gets one.
| Who writes | What they get right | The specific failure | What it costs the firm |
|---|---|---|---|
| A fee earner | Every factual sentence is correct, and the procedure is described as it actually runs | Written for another lawyer, and rarely finished | Non-billable hours, and a half-built site |
| A writer trained in law | Accurate on the general law, structured for a reader who is not a lawyer | Knows the law, not this firm's process or its clients | Higher cost, longer to brief, still needs checking |
| A general copywriter | Readable, answers the question the searcher asked, fast | Confident sentences that are wrong on procedure | A correction visible to every client who reads it |
The right column is the one partners underweight. The failures are not equally serious: an unreadable page loses a reader, an unfinished page loses nothing because it never published, and a wrong page is a statement about the law under the firm's name.
What goes wrong when the fee earner writes it?
The writing is accurate and it does not get finished.
A fee earner asked to draft a practice-area page produces something correct, careful, and pitched at a reader who already knows what a limitation period is. It is also non-billable work sitting behind every billable thing on the desk, so page one takes three weeks and pages two through eight never arrive.
The second problem is register. A person searching at eleven at night after a collision is not reading a briefing note. 15 of the 62 questions buyers ask on these searches are price questions, counted across 40 legal-marketing suppliers read in full on 3 August 2026, and a fee earner's instinct on a fee question is to explain why it depends. That is correct in a client meeting and fatal on a web page, where another result is one tap away.
Where it works: the ten minutes at the start, not the drafting. A fee earner describing out loud what actually happens in the first two weeks of a matter is the most useful input any of the three options has.
What goes wrong when a legal-trained writer does it?
They know the law and they do not know this firm.
A writer with legal training will not misstate a general principle, which removes the worst risk on the list. What they cannot know is how this particular firm runs a matter: who does the first call, whether the file passes to a paralegal, what the firm charges for and what it absorbs, which of its own processes it is proud of. Those are the specifics that make a page read as a description of one firm rather than of a practice area.
They are also the scarcest and slowest of the three: briefing takes longer because the writer asks better questions, which is a real benefit priced as a delay.
Nothing about legal training removes the review step. A writer trained in one jurisdiction writing about another is exactly as dependent on the firm's check as anybody else, and more likely to be trusted without it.
What goes wrong when a general copywriter does it?
Fluent sentences that are wrong about procedure, and nobody in the room can tell.
This is the failure with an outside victim. A copywriter writing about time limits, costs orders or a first hearing produces something that reads well and states a step in the wrong order, or attaches a deadline to the wrong event. Everybody reviewing it who is not a lawyer approves it, because it sounds right.
Fluency is a real asset, and the reason this option keeps being chosen. AI Overviews appear on 39 of the 54 money searches in this market, measured 3 August 2026, and on 863 of 1,235 terms across the wider keyword set. Getting the answer into the first forty words in plain language is a copywriting skill, and a page that buries it gets summarized without attribution.
So the option is not wrong. It is wrong unchecked, which is how it is usually bought.
What review loop makes any of the three work?
Four steps, and the third is the one suppliers skip.
- A ten-minute brief from a fee earner, recorded. What the matter actually involves, in the order it happens, in the words a client uses. Ten minutes, not an hour — this reader bills in six-minute units and knows exactly what an hour costs.
- A draft written for the searcher, answer first, fee question addressed rather than deferred.
- A factual check, sentence by sentence, by somebody who has run this kind of matter. Not a proofread. A line-level check of every statement about law, procedure, timing or cost.
- Sign-off by a named person, recorded, so it is clear later who approved what.
Step three is the point, and why we are slower than suppliers who skip it. A damaging admission: we will not publish a page no fee earner has read, which means a build stalls whenever the firm is busy, and firms are busy. A supplier that never asks the firm for anything is producing pages nobody inside the firm has checked, and that is not speed, it is deferred risk.
Who has to check the factual sentences?
Somebody at the firm who has run the matter. There is no version of this where an outside supplier is the last reader.
We write. We do not verify law, and we say so in writing before an engagement rather than after a complaint. That boundary is not modesty — the page publishes under the firm's name and the firm carries the consequence.
The practical form is small. A single reviewer per practice area, one pass per page, and a rule that a sentence the reviewer cannot confirm gets cut rather than softened. Softening is the failure mode: a wrong sentence rewritten to be vaguer is still wrong and now says less.
What does it cost, and how long does it take?
The Practice Sprint is $1,450 and the build tier is $2,900. Fixed, published, no minimum term.
Never per inquiry, per case or per matter. Referral fees are restricted in prescribed legal business, and the restriction binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid. We charge for the work, by scope and time.
Of the 40 suppliers read on 3 August 2026, 12 published any price at all, 5 of those published only a range, 8 claimed a guarantee, and 1 offered work with no minimum term. We do not offer a guarantee, because nobody controls Google's results and saying otherwise is the first false statement in a relationship.
On timing, the constraint is the review loop, not the drafting: pages draft in days and approve in weeks, and the gap is the firm's own availability.
What this is worth where you are
In Columbus, 2,400 people a month search for personal injury representation, and Google charges around $67.82 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages a prospective client looks for are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
Where should I read next?
On the searches these pages are written for: SEO for law firm and lawyer SEO marketing.
If paid campaigns run alongside: PPC for law firm, law firm PPC agency. By city: legal SEO services Houston.
Frequently asked questions
Who should write a law firm's website content?
A fee earner, a writer trained in law, or a general copywriter. The choice decides which failure the firm gets, so the review loop matters more than the choice itself.
Can a fee earner write the website pages?
They can, and the writing will be accurate, but it is non-billable work behind every billable thing on the desk, so it usually stops after the first page. The better use of a fee earner is a recorded ten-minute brief at the start.
Is a legal-trained writer worth the extra cost?
Often, because they will not misstate a general principle. They still do not know how this firm runs a matter, and legal training does not remove the need for a factual check by someone at the firm.
What is the risk of using a general copywriter?
Fluent sentences that state a procedural step in the wrong order or attach a deadline to the wrong event, which everybody who is not a lawyer will approve because it sounds right. The option is not wrong; it is wrong unchecked.
Who checks the facts on a law firm website?
Somebody at the firm who has run that kind of matter, sentence by sentence, before publication. No outside supplier can be the last reader on a statement about law or procedure.
Do you verify the law on pages you write?
No. We write, and a named person at the firm signs off every factual sentence. That makes us slower than a supplier who never asks the firm for anything, and it is the arrangement we insist on.