Short answer: law firm website maintenance is the recurring work that keeps a site secure, accurate and able to generate calls. It covers software updates tested on staging with backups in place, uptime and security monitoring, regular tests of every form and tracked phone number, SSL and domain renewals, content accuracy reviews, broken link checks, speed checks and an advertising rule review whenever content changes.
Most firms think of maintenance as “someone clicks update once in a while.” That is the smallest part of it. The expensive failures on law firm sites are rarely hacks. They are contact forms that stopped sending email months ago, a bio for a partner who left last spring, a fee page that quotes last year’s numbers, and a domain that lapsed because the renewal card expired. None of those show up as an error message. The site looks fine. It just quietly stops working.
What law firm website maintenance actually includes
Maintenance splits into four kinds of work: keeping the software current, watching for problems, confirming that lead capture still works, and keeping the content true. A provider or an in-house person who only does the first one is doing a quarter of the job.
Core, plugin and theme updates, done safely
If your site runs on WordPress, the core software, the theme and every plugin release updates on their own schedules. Many of those updates patch security holes, which is why leaving them for a year is a real risk. But updating blindly on the live site is its own risk, because a plugin update can conflict with the theme or with another plugin and break a page layout or a form.
The safe routine is simple. Take a full backup of files and database first, and confirm it actually restores. Apply updates on a staging copy of the site. Click through the key pages and submit the forms on staging. Then push the same updates to production and check again. Good hosting makes this easy with one click staging and automatic daily backups, which is one reason we spend so much time on it in our guide to law firm website hosting.
Keep backups somewhere other than the server they came from. A backup that lives on the same hosting account as the site disappears with the site if the account is compromised or suspended.
Uptime and security monitoring
An uptime monitor checks the site every few minutes and alerts someone when it goes down. Without one, the firm usually finds out from a client, or never. Security monitoring adds malware scanning, a firewall, login attempt limits and alerts for new administrator accounts or unexpected file changes. Require two factor authentication for every admin login, and remove accounts for former staff and past vendors.
Form and call tracking tests
This is the single most important maintenance task on a law firm site, and the one most often skipped. Contact forms break silently. A hosting change alters how email is sent, a spam filter starts catching notifications, the person listed as the recipient leaves the firm, or a plugin update changes a field. The form still shows a friendly “thank you” message to the visitor. The firm never receives the inquiry.
The fix is a scheduled test. Submit every form on the site with a clearly labeled test entry and confirm it arrives in the right inbox and, if you use one, in your intake system or CRM. Call every tracked phone number shown on the site and confirm it rings through to a person during business hours and to the right after hours route. If you use call tracking through a tool such as CallRail, confirm the numbers still forward and that calls are still being recorded as conversions in GA4. Sending form notifications through an authenticated email service rather than the server’s default mail function prevents a lot of these failures in the first place.
A broken form costs more than downtime because nobody notices it. A site that is down gets reported. A form that drops leads can run for months while the firm wonders why the phone got quieter.
SSL certificates and domain renewals
Most hosts now renew SSL certificates automatically, but automatic renewal fails more often than people expect, usually after a DNS or hosting change. When it fails, browsers show a full page security warning and almost every visitor leaves. Check the certificate expiry date on a schedule rather than trusting the automation.
Domain renewal is the same story with higher stakes. Turn on auto renewal, register the domain for several years at a time, keep the payment card current, and make sure the renewal notices go to an inbox someone at the firm actually reads rather than to a former employee or a past vendor. Who controls the domain registrar account matters a great deal, which we cover in who owns your law firm website.
Content accuracy
Law firm content goes stale in ways that are specific to law. An attorney leaves and their bio stays up, still listing them as available for consultations. Fees or consultation terms change and the website still shows the old ones. A statute is amended, a filing deadline changes, or a court rule is updated, and a practice area page now gives outdated information to the exact people who rely on it. Office hours, addresses and phone numbers drift out of sync with the Google Business Profile.
Someone at the firm, ideally a lawyer, should read the core pages on a schedule and flag anything that is no longer true. For departed attorneys, remove the bio and redirect its URL to the relevant practice page rather than deleting it and leaving a 404. Our law firm website content guide explains how the core pages should be structured when you rewrite them.
Broken links, redirects and speed
Pages get renamed, outside resources move, and old blog posts end up linking to nowhere. Run a crawl for broken internal and external links and fix or redirect them. Check that redirects from any past redesign still work, because those redirects are what preserve the rankings earned by old URLs. Keep an eye on Google Search Console for new crawl errors and pages dropping out of the index.
Speed degrades gradually as images get uploaded at full size, plugins accumulate and tracking scripts pile up in the header. A periodic check against Core Web Vitals catches that drift before it becomes a ranking or conversion problem. We explain the metrics in our guide to Core Web Vitals for law firm websites.
Advertising rule review when content changes
A law firm website is attorney advertising. ABA Model Rule 7.1 prohibits false or misleading communications about a lawyer’s services, and most states have adopted some version of it along with their own additional requirements. That means maintenance is not only technical. Every time someone adds a case result, a testimonial, a claim like “top rated,” or a new practice page, somebody should check it against the rules in your jurisdiction before it goes live. Rules vary by state, so use our attorney advertising rules by state hub as a starting point. This is not legal advice; check your state bar’s rules.
How often each task should happen
The right cadence depends on how busy the site is, but the schedule below is a sensible default for a typical firm site. Monthly is the baseline for anything that protects leads or security. Quarterly suits content and technical health. Annual is for the bigger review.
| Task | Frequency | What goes wrong if skipped |
|---|---|---|
| Backups verified to restore | Daily automatic, restore test quarterly | A failed update or hack with no way back |
| Core, theme and plugin updates on staging | Monthly, security patches sooner | Known vulnerabilities stay open, or updates break the live site |
| Uptime and security monitoring | Continuous, with alerts | Downtime or malware discovered by clients instead of the firm |
| Test every form and tracked number | Monthly and after every update | Leads silently lost for months |
| SSL and domain expiry check | Quarterly | Browser security warnings or the whole site going offline |
| User access review | Quarterly | Former staff or vendors keep admin access |
| Broken links and redirect check | Quarterly | Dead ends for visitors and lost value from old URLs |
| Speed and Core Web Vitals check | Quarterly | Gradual slowdown that hurts rankings and calls |
| Content accuracy read through | Quarterly, plus whenever staff or fees change | Departed attorneys, old fees and outdated law on the site |
| Advertising rule review | Whenever content changes, full pass annually | Noncompliant claims, testimonials or results left live |
| Full site review | Annually | Slow drift into a site that no longer fits the firm |
The annual review is where you ask bigger questions: are the practice areas on the site still the ones the firm wants to grow, and is it time to plan a redesign rather than keep patching.
DIY maintenance versus a retainer
A small firm with a simple site and one reasonably technical person can handle maintenance in house. The work is not complicated. The problem is consistency. Maintenance is the task that loses every scheduling fight against client work, and the failures it prevents are invisible until they are expensive. If you go the DIY route, put the monthly form test and update session on the calendar as a recurring appointment and treat it as seriously as a filing deadline.
A maintenance retainer makes sense when nobody at the firm wants to own the work, when the site has many forms and tracked numbers, or when the site is a real source of new clients and any gap costs money. The point of paying someone is not the button clicking. It is having a named person accountable for noticing when something breaks.
What to ask a maintenance provider
Ask whether updates are tested on staging before they touch the live site, or applied directly. Ask where backups are stored, how long they are kept, and when a restore was last tested. Ask whether they test your forms and phone numbers, how often, and whether you get a record of it. Ask how fast they respond when the site goes down and whether that is written into the agreement.
Then ask the questions firms forget. Do they include content edits, and how many? Do they report on anything, such as uptime, updates applied and issues found? If you leave, do you keep full access to the hosting, the domain and the site files? A provider that holds your site hostage on exit is a bigger risk than an outdated plugin. Get the exit terms in writing before you sign, not when you are already trying to leave.
Cost varies with what is included, how complex the site is and how much content work you want bundled in. Our law firm website packages page shows what our own care plans include.
Frequently asked questions
How often should a law firm website be updated?
Software updates and form tests should happen at least monthly, with urgent security patches applied sooner. Content, links, speed and user access deserve a quarterly check. A full review of the site, including advertising compliance and whether the site still fits the firm, should happen once a year.
What is the most common maintenance failure on law firm websites?
Contact forms that stop delivering inquiries without any visible error. The visitor sees a confirmation message, but the email never arrives. Testing every form and tracked phone number monthly and after every update is the only reliable way to catch it.
Can I maintain my law firm website myself?
Yes, if the site is simple and someone at the firm will do the work on a fixed schedule. Use staging for updates, keep off site backups, and test forms monthly. The risk with DIY is not difficulty but the work getting pushed aside by client matters.
Does website maintenance include content changes?
It should include keeping existing content accurate: removing departed attorneys, updating fees, hours and contact details, and correcting pages when the law changes. Whether a provider also writes new content is a separate question, so confirm exactly what your agreement covers.
Why do advertising rules matter for website maintenance?
Your website is attorney advertising, so new case results, testimonials and claims need to comply with ABA Model Rule 7.1 and your state’s version of the rules. Reviewing changes before they go live is part of maintaining the site. Rules vary by state, so check your state bar’s guidance.
The short version
Maintenance is more than updates. Update safely on staging with verified backups, monitor uptime and security, test every form and phone number every month, keep SSL and domain renewals under the firm’s control, and read the site for accuracy and advertising compliance on a schedule. The failures that cost firms the most are silent, so the schedule matters more than the tools.
If you are not sure whether your forms, tracking and technical health are in good shape, request a free law firm SEO audit and we will tell you what we find.
