Websites & local marketing for law firms in New York
People who need a lawyer are usually stressed and in a hurry. We build a site that answers their first questions, shows who they’ll actually work with and makes it easy to ask for a consultation.
Someone holding an eviction notice, starting a divorce or hurt at work isn’t browsing for fun. They search “tenant lawyer Bronx” or “what to do after a car accident in NY,” open three or four firms in new tabs and decide fast. They’re looking for the one firm that clearly handles their kind of problem and seems easy to reach.
They check that you handle their exact kind of matter, not just “general practice.”
They read attorney bios to see who they’d talk to, and which languages your team speaks.
They look for how fees work: a free consultation, a flat fee, contingency or hourly.
Many reach out after hours from a phone and expect a reply by the next morning.
Business owners look for articles and experience that show you know their industry.
They read reviews, and some look you up in the state’s attorney directory.
Your website must-haves
A page for each practice area
Personal injury, landlord-tenant, immigration, estate planning: each area gets a page that explains the problem in plain words, what you do and what happens next. People search by their problem, so the pages should be built that way too.
Attorney profiles that sound like people
A photo, admissions, education, languages and a few sentences on how each lawyer works with clients. Keep claims factual: “focuses on” is fine, while “certified specialist” needs the certifying organization named.
A short consultation request
Name, phone or email, the type of matter and one line about it. Long forms scare people off. We add a note that sending the form doesn’t make anyone a client, and we don’t ask for confidential details up front.
Contact details on every page
Phone, office address and hours on every page, with the firm’s name. New York’s rule asks for responsible contact information, and a worried visitor needs it anyway.
Fee basics
A plain line on how you charge and whether the first consultation is free. You don’t need a price list, just enough that people aren’t afraid to call.
Answers to first questions
Short guides like what to bring to a consultation or what to do in the first days after an accident. They help real people, and they’re the pages search engines and AI tools like to cite.
Your languages, up front
If your team speaks Spanish, Chinese, Russian or Haitian Creole, say so near the top, and consider key pages in those languages. In New York, that can decide who gets the call.
Getting found by people who need you
Legal searches in New York are crowded, and the map results take many of the calls. Your Business Profile, your practice pages and your reviews work as one. We tune all three, starting with the matters that bring the clients you want.
Use your real firm name on Google. Adding words like “Best Injury Lawyer NYC” to the name breaks Google’s rules and can get the profile suspended.
Pick the primary category that matches your main practice, like “Personal injury attorney” or “Immigration attorney.”
Only list offices where you meet clients during business hours; an unstaffed virtual office doesn’t qualify for a Google profile.
Lawyers who meet clients can have their own practitioner profiles, kept consistent with the firm’s profile.
Build pages around the courts, boroughs and matters you really handle, not dozens of thin city pages.
Answer common legal questions clearly, so AI answer tools can quote and link to your pages.
Ads that make sense
Legal clicks are some of the most expensive on Google, so waste hurts. We start narrow: one or two practice areas, a tight area and call tracking, so you can see which ads bring signed clients and not just calls.
Local Services Ads for the practice areas Google lists, like family, immigration, criminal or personal injury, where they’re open in your area. You pay per lead, after Google’s screening of your firm.
Google search ads for specific matters, with filters that keep out searches you don’t take, like job seekers and students.
Ad text written to New York’s rules: nothing misleading, no promised outcomes, no unearned “certified” claims.
Ad accounts and lead records that belong to your firm, not to us.
AI that helps with intake
A missed call can be a missed client. AI can answer, ask a few intake questions and get the right lawyer a summary quickly, without ever giving legal advice.
A website assistant labeled as AI that explains your practice areas and how fees work, books consultations and says plainly that it can’t give legal advice.
After-hours phone answering that takes the caller’s name, number and type of matter, then alerts the lawyer on call.
Instant follow-up on web inquiries with a link to book, so the person doesn’t move on to the next firm.
Intake that collects the names of other parties, so your team can run a conflict check before the consultation.
Rules to respect
New York rewrote its lawyer advertising rules effective June 1, 2026. Rule 7.1 now covers every communication about your services, and none of it can be false or misleading.
The old required “Attorney Advertising” label and the fixed prior-results sentence are no longer in the rule. Many firms keep “Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome” anyway, since the rule’s comments say a disclaimer can keep results and reviews from misleading.
Every communication must name at least one lawyer or firm responsible for it, with contact information that includes a phone number or an office address.
Saying a lawyer focuses on or specializes in an area is allowed when true. Claiming to be a certified specialist requires certification from an approved organization, named on the page.
Firm names, trade names and domain names can’t mislead, for example by suggesting a link to a government agency.
Lawyers admitted in other states should check those states’ rules as well; they don’t all match New York’s.
Not legal advice. This summarizes the New York Rules of Professional Conduct as amended June 1, 2026. Your firm’s own lawyers decide what goes on the site, and nothing goes live without their sign-off.
Common law firm website mistakes
A home page full of “aggressive, experienced, dedicated” that never says what kinds of cases you take.
Big case-result numbers with no context about the facts behind them.
A fifteen-field intake form that asks for the whole story before saying hello.
Attorney bios with no photos, or the same courthouse stock image on every page.
Calls that roll to voicemail after 5 p.m. with no promise of a callback.
Blog posts written for other lawyers instead of for the people who hire you.
Does a New York law firm website still need “Attorney Advertising” on it?
Not under Rule 7.1 as amended June 1, 2026; that labeling requirement was removed. The site still can’t be false or misleading, and it must show who is responsible for it and how to reach them. Your firm can keep the old label if it prefers.
Can we show case results and client reviews on our website?
Yes, if they’re true and presented so they don’t create false expectations. Context about the facts and a short disclaimer help. Reviews must be real; writing them yourself or paying for them is off-limits under federal rules too.
Who approves what goes on our law firm’s site?
You do. Every page goes to the lawyer you choose for sign-off before it’s published. We write in plain language and flag anything that might read as a promise.
Are Local Services Ads worth it for lawyers?
They can be, for practice areas Google lists in your area. You pay per lead instead of per click, which suits firms that answer the phone fast. We set them up in your firm’s name and track which leads become clients.
Can a chatbot on a law firm website give legal advice?
It shouldn’t, and the ones we build won’t. It answers practical questions about your firm, collects contact details and books consultations, and it tells people clearly that it’s an AI assistant, not a lawyer.
Do we need pages in other languages?
If you serve clients in Spanish, Chinese, Russian or another language, yes: at least the main practice pages and the contact page. People in a legal mess want to read about it in the language they think in.
How does a law firm show up in AI answers like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews?
Clear pages that answer real questions, a consistent firm profile across the web and genuine reviews all help. AI tools tend to cite pages written for people. No one can promise a placement, and we won’t.
Get a free website review
Send us your website address. We’ll look at it the way your customers do and tell you, in plain English, what to fix first.
