Short answer: a law firm website launch checklist has three phases. Before launch, freeze content, clear the bar-rule items, build a redirect map and test forms on staging. On launch day, switch DNS, remove the search-engine block, test every redirect and send a real lead to yourself; in the first week, watch Search Console, indexing and lead delivery daily. The full checklist is directly below, followed by the detail on the items law firms most often get wrong.
The checklist at a glance
Items marked [Law firm] are the ones a general web agency will not know to do. Copy this into your project tracker and assign each line to a named person.
Two weeks before launch
- All copy final; site searched for “lorem”, “placeholder”, “TBD” and “coming soon”
- [Law firm] Each attorney has approved their own bio: name, title, bar admissions, education
- [Law firm] One page for every practice area you want cases in
- Firm name, address and phone identical in footer, contact page, schema, Google Business Profile and bar listing
- [Law firm] Advertising-rule pass: responsible lawyer named, required labels, results and testimonial disclaimers, no unqualified “specialist” claims
- Website disclaimer, privacy policy and terms pages live and linked
- [Law firm] Redirect map built from old sitemap, Search Console and Analytics, kept in a sheet the firm owns
- Hosting and domain registered in the firm’s name, firm holds the logins
- SSL installed and set to auto-renew
- Unique title tag and meta description on every page
- LegalService or Attorney schema validated in the Rich Results Test
- Images compressed, alt text present
- Basic accessibility check: keyboard navigation, color contrast, form labels, captions on video
- Every page read on a real phone on mobile data, plus one pass in Safari, Chrome and Edge
- Forms tested on staging, including thank-you page and notification email
- Analytics and key events configured on staging
Launch day
- Full backup of the old site taken and restore tested
- DNS TTL lowered 24 hours ahead, then domain pointed at the new site
- “Discourage search engines” unticked; robots.txt read by a human; no stray noindex tags
- https forced; www and non-www resolve to one version
- [Law firm] Every row of the redirect map tested: 301 to the right page, no chains, no 404s
- [Law firm] Test lead sent from a phone: form, email notification, stored copy, phone number, chat and booking all verified
- GA4 receiving data in Realtime; form, call and booking key events firing once each
- Search Console verified, new sitemap submitted; Change of Address tool used if the domain changed
- Google Business Profile website link updated
First seven days
- Days 1 and 2: Search Console “Not found (404)” report checked; missed redirects added
- Days 2 to 4: homepage and top practice pages run through URL Inspection
- Daily: every lead logged by a person and compared with the same period on the old site
- Day 7: branded and top practice-area searches checked
- Day 7: mobile speed tested on the live site, not staging
- Day 7: bar directory, Avvo, Justia, LinkedIn and email signatures updated to new URLs
- Day 7: test lead repeated from a phone
Before you start: one owner, one launch day
Assign one person at the firm who owns the launch and can say yes or no. The agency executes most of the list; the firm owns it, because the advertising-rule items are the responsibility of a lawyer whatever the contract says. Launch on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning, never on a Friday, before a holiday or during a trial, so that both the firm and the developer are available for two working days afterwards.
Before launch: the law-firm items in detail
The advertising-rule pass
A law firm website is a lawyer advertisement, so the launch review is a compliance review. Rules vary by jurisdiction, but these items come up in most of them:
- A responsible lawyer. ABA Model Rule 7.2(d) requires every advertisement to include the name and contact information of at least one lawyer or firm responsible for its content. Many states follow it.
- Labels and addresses where required. New York, for example, requires the “Attorney Advertising” label under Rule 7.1(f) and the principal office address under Rule 7.1(h). Check every state where a named attorney is admitted, not just where the office is.
- Results and testimonials. Model Rule 7.1 prohibits misleading communications, and its comments warn that past results can create unjustified expectations. Several states require a specific disclaimer next to results or reviews. Put it on the page where the claim appears.
- Specialization. Model Rule 7.2(c) bars stating or implying certification as a specialist unless the lawyer is certified by an approved body and the body is named. Some states restrict “specialize” and “expert” more broadly, and copywriters reach for those words constantly.
- Filing. A few states require lawyer advertising to be filed or reviewed. Check whether yours covers websites before launch rather than after.
Our attorney advertising rules by state guide lists each jurisdiction’s requirements, and your bar’s ethics hotline is the place to confirm anything unclear.
The redirect map
If you are replacing a live site, the redirect map decides whether you keep your rankings. Every old URL that changes needs a permanent 301 redirect to its closest new equivalent.
- Export every old URL from three sources: the old sitemap, Search Console’s Pages report, and twelve months of GA4 landing pages. The lists will not match; use all of them.
- Map each URL that has impressions, sessions or links to a specific new page: old practice page to new practice page, old bio to new bio.
- Never send everything to the homepage. Google’s site move guidance asks for one-to-one mapping, and mass redirects to an irrelevant page tend to be treated as soft 404s.
- Keep the map in a spreadsheet the firm owns. You will need it at the next redesign.
The full method, including URLs with no equivalent on the new site, is in how to redesign a lawyer website without losing rankings.
Technical and accessibility foundations
Hosting and the domain should be in the firm’s name with the firm holding the logins; if the agency owns either, you have a dependency you will regret. Confirm SSL auto-renews. Block the staging site from search engines and write down that it must be unblocked at launch, because sites go live with WordPress’s “Discourage search engines” box still ticked more often than any other mistake.
Accessibility belongs in the pre-launch pass too. The Department of Justice’s guidance on web accessibility and the ADA says the ADA’s requirements for businesses open to the public apply to what they offer on the web, and law offices are public accommodations. Tab through the site with a keyboard, check text contrast, confirm every form field has a label, and caption any video.
Launch day: the checks that cannot wait
Verify the redirects with the real list
Test every row in the map, not a sample. A crawler in list mode does it in minutes: paste the old URLs, run it, and confirm each returns a 301 to the mapped page and the destination returns 200. Look for three failures: redirect chains, redirects to pages that themselves redirect (often a trailing-slash mismatch), and old URLs that were missed entirely.
Send a lead to yourself
From a phone on mobile data, not the office network, fill in the intake form with a realistic enquiry. Then confirm:
- The notification arrived within minutes at an address someone at the firm actually monitors, and not in spam.
- A copy of the submission is stored somewhere the firm can see, so a lost email is not a lost client.
- The phone number rings where you think it does, and the tap-to-call link opens the dialler.
- Any chat or booking tool delivers to a real person.
- Any response time the site promises is one the firm can keep.
An enquiry that reaches nobody is more than a marketing problem. Information from a prospective client is protected under Model Rule 1.18, and a form that sends it to an unmonitored or former employee’s mailbox is a confidentiality exposure as well as a lost case.
Measurement
Open GA4 Realtime and click around the live site to confirm your visit appears. Submit a form and tap the phone link, and check that each fires its key event once. The first week’s data is your baseline, so it has to be right from day one; our guide to law firm conversion tracking covers the setup. If the domain changed, use Search Console’s Change of Address tool after the redirects are live.
The first week: where launch problems surface
The week after launch is when a missed redirect or a leftover noindex shows up, and when it is still cheap to fix. Check the Search Console 404 report on days one and two and redirect anything that had traffic. Run URL Inspection on the homepage and top practice pages; if they are not indexed after a week, look for a noindex tag carried over from staging. Log every lead by hand and compare with the old site’s numbers for the same period. On day seven, search for the firm’s name and its top practice terms, test mobile speed on the live site (staging is often faster because analytics and chat scripts are not loaded yet), and update every external link you control: bar directory, Avvo, Justia, LinkedIn and email signatures.
The three launches that go wrong most often
Rankings drop in month two. The site looks fine and the phone gets quieter weeks later. The cause is almost always redirects: old URLs sent to the homepage, or a map built from the sitemap alone that missed the blog posts and location pages that were earning traffic. Filter Search Console’s Performance report to the old URLs to see which pages lost impressions, and fix those redirects first.
Nobody can find the site. A search for the firm’s own name shows the old cached listing, then nothing. The staging noindex is still on. It is a one-click fix that costs indexing every day it goes unnoticed, so check it on launch day and again on day three.
Leads stop arriving. The form was tested on staging with the developer’s address. On the live site the notification goes elsewhere, or the sending domain is not authenticated and messages land in spam. A quiet week is easy to explain away, which is why the phone test is on the list twice.
Launching soon? Run the live or staging URL through our free website compliance scan before go-live. If you are still deciding whether to rebuild at all, start with the law firm website redesign guide, and if you want the launch handled end to end, our legal web designers work through this checklist on every build.
Frequently asked questions
What should I check before launching a law firm website?
Final approved copy and bios, the bar-rule items (responsible lawyer, required labels, disclaimers next to results and testimonials, no unqualified specialist claims), a complete redirect map, hosting and domain in the firm’s name, SSL, unique titles, schema, accessibility basics, and working forms and tracking on staging.
Will my rankings drop when I launch a new website?
A small, temporary wobble in the first few weeks is normal while Google recrawls the site. A sustained drop is not, and it usually traces to missing or wrong redirects, a leftover noindex, or content cut from the new site. All three are preventable with the items above.
How long does a law firm website launch take?
The switch itself takes under an hour. The work is in the two weeks of preparation before it and the week of monitoring after, so plan about three weeks from content freeze to “launch complete”, after the build itself is finished.
Do I need to tell my state bar when I launch a new website?
A few states require lawyer advertising to be filed or reviewed, and in some a website counts. Most do not. Check your own state’s rule before launch; the state-by-state guide is the place to start and your bar’s ethics hotline is the place to confirm.
What should I check first if leads drop after launch?
In order: submit a test form from your phone and confirm delivery; check the Search Console 404 report for missed redirects; run URL Inspection on your top practice page; and confirm the phone number on the site rings at reception. Those four checks find the cause in most cases.
