Short answer: Law firm web design in Texas is a normal attorney website build with three Texas-specific jobs on top: getting the homepage through the State Bar of Texas advertising filing rules, handling “Board Certified” and results language the way Part VII of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct requires, and serving a state where over a third of residents speak a language other than English at home. Get those right, then build practice and location pages around the offices you really have in Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio or the Valley.
We work with Texas firms remotely. We have no Texas office, and we don’t need one: the local value in a Texas build is knowing the Texas rules and how search behaves in each Texas market, and that is what this page covers.
What a Texas law firm website build includes
A Texas firm site needs the same foundations as any good lawyer website design, plus a compliance pass written against Texas rules rather than a generic national checklist. In practice the build covers:
- A homepage written to be filed. In Texas the homepage is the page most likely to go to the Advertising Review Department, so it gets the tightest copy review.
- Practice pages as the backbone, one per matter type you want, naming the Texas courts and process a client will actually face.
- Location pages only for real offices, each with its own Google Business Profile.
- Spanish pages written for Texas readers, with every required disclosure carried into Spanish.
- An intake form built around Texas Rule 1.18, which Texas adopted in 2024.
- Speed and mobile performance good enough for people searching from a phone after a wreck on I-35 or I-45.
Texas advertising rules that shape the design
Texas lawyer advertising is governed by Part VII of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, which the Supreme Court of Texas rewrote in Misc. Docket No. 21-9061, effective July 1, 2021. Our Texas attorney website advertising rules guide goes deeper; here is what changes the design and copy of a site.
Filing: usually just the homepage
Rule 7.04 requires many advertisements to be filed with the State Bar’s Advertising Review Department. Rule 7.05(b) exempts information and links on a law firm website, except the contents of the homepage, unless that content is exempt under another part of Rule 7.05. The Texas Center for Legal Ethics reads it the same way: the homepage is normally the only website page that may need filing, while the whole site must still comply with Rules 7.01 and 7.02.
That has a design consequence. A homepage that sticks to the basic information Rule 7.05 exempts (names, office locations, areas of practice, Board certifications, languages spoken, contact details) may not need filing at all. A homepage carrying a slogan, a results banner or a video reel probably will. Rule 7.04 allows filing after the ad first runs, and also allows voluntary pre-approval before launch. Confirm the current deadline, fee and whether your specific homepage needs filing with the Advertising Review Department; deadlines and fees change, and the department will answer the question directly.
Campaign landing pages are the trap. A page built for paid search, living on its own URL or platform, is a separate advertisement, not “part of the website”. We covered that problem in detail in our Texas law firm website content guide.
The responsible lawyer and primary practice location
Rule 7.02(a) requires an advertisement to name a lawyer responsible for its content and identify that lawyer’s primary practice location. On a website, that usually lives in the footer so it appears on every page, including landing pages. Confirm the exact wording with the Advertising Review Department before launch.
“Board Certified” and the Texas Board of Legal Specialization
Texas runs its own certification program through the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS). Rule 7.02 lets a lawyer certified by TBLS say so, using the “Board Certified, [area] – Texas Board of Legal Specialization” form, and lets a lawyer certified by an organization TBLS has accredited make an accurate statement of that certification. Other claims of certification or memberships that imply special competence are restricted.
For design, that means three things. Put the certification in the attorney bio and schema exactly as worded, with the area of law. Don’t let a theme’s badge widget shorten it to “Certified” or “Board Certified” with no area. And don’t apply one lawyer’s certification to the whole firm in a headline. Whether an uncertified lawyer may use the word “specialist” after the 2021 rewrite is a question to put to the Advertising Review Department or your ethics counsel; until you have an answer, describe the work (“we handle only family law cases”) instead.
Past results and testimonials
The 2021 rewrite removed the old per se rule on past results. The governing standard is now Rule 7.01’s ban on false or misleading communications, including those likely to create unjustified expectations, and Comment 10 to Rule 7.01, which the Supreme Court of Texas amended in Misc. Docket No. 22-9011 (January 31, 2022) to address advertising past successes and results. In design terms: no results figure without context, no “millions recovered” banner above the fold with nothing behind it, and a results page that explains each outcome.
We could not find a Texas rule written specifically for testimonials. They are judged under the same Rule 7.01 standard, so a review that implies every client gets the same outcome is the risk. Treat testimonial pages and review widgets as advertising, keep them on pages you control, and confirm any disclaimer wording with the Advertising Review Department.
Spanish-language content
Texas has long required that a disclaimer or statement the rules require be made in each language used in the communication. Saying that the firm speaks a language does not, on its own, trigger the requirement. So a Spanish practice page needs its own Spanish disclaimers, not a link back to the English ones. If your homepage has a Spanish version and needs filing, ask the department what translation it wants with the submission. Confirm the current rule text and subsection with the department; the 2021 rewrite renumbered Part VII.
If you also practise in other states, compare your obligations in our attorney advertising rules by state guide.
Four metros, four different search markets
Texas has no single legal search market. Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio each sit in different counties, different federal districts and different competitive conditions, so a firm should design for the metro its offices are in, not for “Texas”.
Houston
Houston is Harris County and its neighbours, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria and Galveston, and the Southern District of Texas for federal matters. Injury, maritime and energy-related practices compete hard here, so a Houston site usually wins on depth: practice pages that name the real courts and process, not more pages. If you serve Fort Bend or Montgomery County clients from a Houston office, say so on the practice page rather than inventing a Sugar Land or The Woodlands office.
Dallas–Fort Worth
DFW behaves like two markets sharing one airport. Dallas County and Tarrant County have separate court systems, and searchers in Fort Worth often add “Fort Worth” to the query rather than “Dallas”. A firm with offices in both cities needs two genuine location pages and two profiles. A firm with one Dallas office should be honest that it serves Tarrant County from Dallas. Both cities sit in the Northern District of Texas, and both host divisions of the Texas Business Court, which matters if you handle commercial litigation.
Austin
Austin’s Travis County core is ringed by fast-growing Williamson and Hays counties, so many “Austin” searches come from Round Rock, Georgetown or San Marcos. Austin is also where startup, tech-employment and state-agency work is concentrated, which means business clients who research before they call. Long, specific practice pages and clear attorney bios carry more weight here than splashy homepages.
San Antonio
San Antonio is Bexar County and the Western District of Texas, with a large military community around Joint Base San Antonio and a heavily bilingual population. Family, criminal defense, injury and military-related matters such as divorce involving service members are common practice-page topics. Spanish pages here are a core part of the site, not an add-on.
The Rio Grande Valley and other bilingual markets
In the Valley (Hidalgo and Cameron counties, with McAllen, Edinburg, Harlingen and Brownsville) and in Laredo and El Paso, the default reader is often bilingual and sometimes Spanish-first. Census data puts the share of Brownsville residents age 5 and over who speak a language other than English at home at 84.4% (2019-2023), against about 35% statewide. In those markets, design the Spanish site as a full parallel site with its own navigation, intake form and phone routing to Spanish-speaking staff.
Location pages without thin city spam
With 254 counties to choose from, many Texas firm sites give in to the same temptation: dozens of “[City] Car Accident Lawyer” pages that differ only in the place name. They rarely rank, they dilute the pages that should, and under Rule 7.01 a page that implies a local office the firm doesn’t have is a misleading-communication risk.
| Situation | What to build |
|---|---|
| Staffed office in the city | A full location page with the real address, directions, the lawyers who work there and its own Google Business Profile |
| No office, but you regularly handle cases in that county | A section on the relevant practice page about how you serve clients there, or one county page with real procedural detail |
| No office and no meaningful caseload there | No page. Let the practice page rank statewide |
| Existing thin city pages with no traffic | Retire them and 301 each to the closest practice page |
If you are replacing an older site full of city pages, sort them by twelve months of Search Console data before deleting anything. Our law firm website redesign guide covers the redirect map.
Google Business Profile for each real office
Map-pack results in Houston or Dallas depend on Google Business Profile, and Google’s Business Profile guidelines allow one profile per real location and say virtual offices are not eligible. Co-working offices count only if your own staff are there during business hours. Lawyers can also hold individual practitioner profiles under the same guidelines.
The website and the profiles should match: same firm name, address and phone on the location page, in the structured data and on the profile. One profile per real office beats a dozen virtual-office listings, which risk suspension and a Rule 7.01 problem. Our Google Business Profile guide for law firms walks through the setup.
Bilingual pages done properly
A Texas Spanish site should be written in Spanish by someone who knows legal Spanish, not run through a translation plugin. Machine translation of a legal page tends to produce stiff copy, and it can mistranslate a required disclaimer.
- Use separate URLs for each language (for example /es/), with hreflang tags so Google shows the right version.
- Translate the intake form, the confirmation message and the disclaimers, not just the page body.
- Only promise Spanish service if someone at the firm actually provides it, at the times the site says.
- Write Spanish practice pages for the questions Spanish-speaking clients ask, which are not always the English questions translated.
An intake form built for Texas Rule 1.18
Texas adopted its own Rule 1.18, Duties to Prospective Client, in 2024, modelled on ABA Model Rule 1.18. Information a prospective client shares can create duties of confidentiality and, in some cases, conflicts that affect the whole firm.
A safe Texas intake form asks for contact details, the type of matter and the other parties’ names for a conflict check, and stops there. Put a short notice above the submit button, in both languages, saying that submitting the form does not create an attorney-client relationship and that the visitor should not send confidential details until the firm confirms it can help. Send submissions to a restricted inbox, not a shared marketing tool. Have your ethics counsel approve the final wording.
Follow-up matters too. Rule 7.03 restricts solicitation, and Texas also has civil and criminal barratry statutes. An automated text or chat that contacts someone who never reached out to you deserves a review before it goes live.
Speed and mobile
Many injury and criminal-defense searches happen on phones, often under stress. A Texas firm site should load quickly on a mobile connection, show a tap-to-call number and a short form without scrolling, and not hide the phone number behind a chat pop-up. Heavy video headers, stacked tracking scripts and unoptimized attorney photos are the usual causes of slow sites we see. Run your current site through our free law firm website scan to check speed alongside common compliance gaps.
Choosing a Texas law firm web designer
Whether your designer is in Houston or works remotely matters less than whether they can answer these questions:
- How will you write the homepage so it either qualifies for a Rule 7.05 exemption or is ready to file?
- How will Board Certified wording appear in bios, badges and schema?
- Who writes the Spanish pages, and how are disclaimers carried across?
- Which city pages will you build, and which offices are they tied to?
- Who owns the domain, hosting, analytics and site files after launch?
Our legal web design service works through each of these with Texas firms, remotely, from scoping to launch.
Frequently asked questions
Does a Texas law firm website have to be filed with the State Bar?
Usually only the homepage. Rule 7.05(b) exempts website information and links except the homepage, and the homepage itself is exempt if its contents fall under another Rule 7.05 exemption. Separate landing pages are their own advertisements. Confirm whether your homepage needs filing, and the current deadline and fee, with the Advertising Review Department.
Can Texas lawyers put case results on their website?
Yes, if they are not misleading. The 2021 rewrite dropped the old per se rule, and results are now judged under Rule 7.01 and its Comment 10, amended in 2022. Give each result enough context that a reader won’t assume the same outcome for their case.
How should “Board Certified” appear on a Texas lawyer’s website?
Name the area and the certifying body, for example “Board Certified, Family Law – Texas Board of Legal Specialization”, and only for the lawyer who holds it. Certification by another organization can be stated only if TBLS has accredited that organization.
Does a Texas law firm need a Spanish website?
Not by rule, but in San Antonio, the Valley, El Paso and much of Houston it is often the difference between getting the call and losing it. If you publish in Spanish, the required statements and disclaimers have to appear in Spanish too, and someone at the firm has to be able to serve those clients.
Does my web designer need to be based in Texas?
No. What matters is that they know Part VII, the filing process and how search works in your metro. We work with Texas firms remotely, and the deliverables, reviews and launch work the same way.
Official sources: State Bar of Texas Advertising Review, Texas Center for Legal Ethics and the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Legal Web Agency is a marketing agency, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Rule summaries are drawn from published sources and may not reflect the latest amendments. Confirm current requirements with the State Bar of Texas Advertising Review Department or your ethics counsel.
