Roy, Beardsley, Williams, and Granger LLC is a local law firm with big personality. (Don’t take my word for it, check out their Facebook page!)
RBWG was looking for a contemporary and professional style that stood apart from the “stodgy lawyer” stereotype, that they could easily update when needed. Their old website offered a lot of information, but needed a face-lift and some function. Most of the content, such as the attorney bios, resources, and information about areas of practice, just needed to be transferred over to the new site. The face-lift would require some high resolution images, mobile-friendliness, and a new color scheme. For functionality, we wanted to add custom contact forms for all attorneys and simplify the navigation process.
Once you’ve seen one law firm website, you’ve seen them all. Although this is a bit of an exaggeration, after looking at some industry websites, we noticed similar elements and a similar overall look. RBWG has too much personality to use professionals with briefcases or scales of justice stock photos. Instead of going for the legal chic look, Leslie suggested showcasing the local area and found a local photographer for us to work with. Some clients for RBWG live out of state, but there’s a reason they’re drawn to Downeast Maine. And we were all about showcasing the unique beauty of the Ellsworth area without drawing on the Maine cliches we’re all used to.
An interesting challenge for the new design was the lack of a logo. A logo often acts as a design guideline, where the concepts for colors and fonts are born. It also directs the attention of those who visit the website (entire homepages are built around logos). With RBWG, we started from scratch in terms of color concepts and fonts. Leslie created a design concept that all the attorneys agreed upon. This is their new homepage:
The homepage is also used to organize the information listed in the menu in a more visual way. For instance, we used a widgetized footer to display all areas of practice (also accessible as a drop-down list through the main menu).
In terms of functionality, every business deserves a website that does a little bit of legwork for them. We created custom contact forms for each lawyer. This means that anytime you fill out the contact form on the RBWG website, it goes to the actual attorney. The intake and inquiry process of any business can be time-consuming, but with the help of these contact forms, the process will hopefully become more streamlined.
In addition to custom forms, individual attorneys now have their own pages (before, it was a pop-out window). In addition to a head shot and the bios from the old site (if you haven’t read them yet, add it to your to-do list, I promise it’s worth it), the page has a sidebar that displays areas of practice, education, and a link to their Martindale pages.
Example of an attorney sidebar
Roy, Beardsley, Williams and Granger was our first ever law firm website. We enjoyed working with this team and hope that they enjoy their new website!