Websites for personal injury law firms

Personal injury is the hardest search market in the United States and the most heavily regulated form of marketing we work on. Both facts push in the same direction: the site has to carry the things that persuade, which are results and testimonials, and carry them in a way that satisfies a regulator who has opinions about both.

Case results are the proof and the risk

Settlements and verdicts are what a prospective client is looking for, and they are what bar rules scrutinise most closely. The pattern that holds up across jurisdictions is specific rather than vague: say what the case was, what the result was, and carry the disclaimer the state requires in a place somebody actually reads it.

New York's requirement is explicit, that an advertisement referring to past results must state that prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and the guidance treats prominence as part of the requirement, which rules out eight point type at the bottom of a footer. Florida's rule 4-7.13 produces the disclaimer most people recognise, about the hiring of a lawyer being an important decision that should not be based solely upon advertisements. Those two are examples rather than a checklist: your own jurisdiction's rules of professional conduct govern, and a multi-state firm inherits the strictest version of every rule it touches.

Build the disclaimer as a component, not as copy

The build consequence is the same one we apply to any regulated vertical. A disclaimer written into page copy gets copied inconsistently and forgotten on the next page. A disclaimer that is a component, placed per page and per result block, is applied once and audited in one place. When a rule changes, or the firm opens in a second state, it is one edit.

The same applies to testimonials. Several states require a disclaimer alongside a client testimonial specifically, separate from the one that accompanies case results, and treat a comparison between lawyers as requiring factual substantiation. A testimonial component that carries its own disclaimer is the difference between a rule applied everywhere and a rule applied where somebody remembered.

Where the winnable traffic is

Paid search in this vertical is priced beyond what most firms can sustain, which pushes the value to the places the big spenders are weakest. Three work consistently. Narrow case types, written properly, where the national advertisers have a thin page and a local firm has actual experience. The specific intersection of jurisdiction and injury, which matches how people actually search when something has happened to them. And answers to procedural questions, the ones people ask before they are ready to call anybody, which is also the content AI answers reach for.

Intake is the conversion, and it is usually the weakest part

A personal injury enquiry is time sensitive in a way most verticals are not, both because evidence decays and because the person is being contacted by competitors within the hour. A form that emails an inbox checked twice a day loses cases that the marketing already paid for. The site should put the enquiry in front of a human immediately, and the intake page should ask for the minimum that lets somebody call back.

What a build here actually includes

Every build is scoped to the practice, but on this kind of site these are the parts that are not optional.

• A disclaimer component placed per page and per results block, rather than copy repeated by hand
• Case results with the case type, the result and the required language attached to each entry
• Testimonials carrying their own disclaimer where the jurisdiction requires one
• Practice area pages for the case types the firm actually takes, not the full catalogue
• Attorney profiles with bar admissions by state, which is both a trust signal and often a requirement
• Intake that reaches a person quickly, with the fewest fields that still allow a call back

What we keep seeing go wrong

None of these are hypothetical. They are the things that turn up again and again on sites in this vertical, and most of them are cheap to avoid and expensive to undo.

• Case results with no disclaimer, or with one in unreadable type at the foot of the page
• Copying a competitor's disclaimer, which is a different state's rule
• A multi-state firm applying one state's rules to every page
• Superlatives such as best or top, which several bars treat as unverifiable claims
• Practice area pages for case types the firm refers out, which wins enquiries it cannot take
• An intake form that emails an inbox nobody watches, in a vertical measured in hours

Questions we get asked first

What disclaimer does a law firm website need?

It depends on the state, which is the honest answer. New York requires an advertisement referencing past results to say prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, prominently. Florida's rule 4-7.13 requires the familiar language about the hiring of a lawyer being an important decision. Your own rules of professional conduct govern, and a firm admitted in several states inherits the strictest version.

Can we publish settlement amounts?

In most jurisdictions yes, with the required disclaimer and without implying a typical outcome. Some states add conditions about describing the case and the fees and costs deducted. This is a question for the firm's ethics counsel rather than its web agency, and we build the page so the answer is easy to apply.

Is a website considered attorney advertising?

Every state bar we have worked against treats it that way. That includes the biography pages, the case results, the testimonials and in many states the social profiles that link to them.

Where should a firm spend if paid search is unaffordable?

Narrow case types written with real expertise, the jurisdiction and injury intersection, and procedural questions people ask before they are ready to hire. Those are also the pages AI answers quote, which is a route the largest advertisers have not bought.

How fast does intake need to be?

Faster than any other vertical we work in. The person enquiring is usually contacting several firms, and evidence decays. Minutes matter, which makes the routing of the form more important than its design.