Where should law firm thought leadership live?
On the author's biography page, where the readers are, attached to the credentials that matter when a client lands there.
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The four things people actually do on a law firm website
Four things, in this order: to see what services the firm offers, to see which sectors it works in, to read the biography of the lawyer they will work with, and to find a phone number or email address. Reading articles, downloading thought leadership, podcasts and videos sit well below those four, and in some firms barely register. Persona and journey work for several law firms has produced the same answer each time, and agreeing that order makes every later website decision easier.
What do users do on a law firm website?
The same four things, in roughly the same order, every time I have run persona and user journey work for a law firm. They look at the services the firm offers, the sectors it works in, the biography of the lawyer they will be working with, and they find a phone number or email address. Articles, thought leadership downloads, podcasts and videos sit below those four, often well below. That does not make thought leadership worthless; it means the dedicated insights section is the wrong place for it. It belongs on the lawyer's biography page, where the readers are, attached to the credentials that matter when they land there.
Why does the priority order matter?
Because every website decision gets easier once it is agreed. The home page carries the four priorities, with two clear paths above the fold, services and sectors, and biographies and contact one click away. Navigation gets users to those pages in as few clicks as possible: most law firm sites take three clicks to reach a sector page, two should be the maximum and one is better. The insights section shrinks and attaches to the people who wrote the articles. The CMS has to render those four page types well on mobile. And an agency pitching its best art direction on an insights landing page has not read the brief.
What does this change on a real law firm site?
A great deal of what gets kept. The firm I was working with when I wrote this had about 17,000 indexed pages, most of them old articles, news items and event listings. After relaunch that number will be a fraction: articles by lawyers who have left are retired, articles by current lawyers move to their biography pages, event listings older than 24 months are retired, and news items that are not news go. The result is easier to navigate, crawl and maintain, and partners get more visible credentials, with their best articles next to their face and phone number. That only happens after the persona and journey work, because without it every page is someone's pet project.
How can you test your own site?
On a phone, with a timer. Time how long it takes to reach a sector landing page, to find a named lawyer's biography and to find a phone number. If any takes more than three taps, the fix is structural, and a structural fix needs a brief with the four priorities written down and agreed.
Related evidence: Managing a major website project for a national law firm. Next in this journey: Why the insights section on your law firm website probably isn’t worth what you’re spending on it.
Questions people ask
How many clicks should it take to reach a sector page?
Two at most, and one is better. Most law firm navigations currently need three.
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