Website design for law firms and advocates in Uganda
Corporate clients look you up before they instruct you. What they find decides whether the meeting happens.
Typical for a law firms website
From deposit to live, depending on size
We write the pages, you check them
Domain and hosting in your name
A law firm website is not a lead magnet in the way a restaurant's is. It is a credibility check. A company secretary shortlisting firms for a retainer, or a diaspora client looking for someone to handle a land matter, will search your name and decide in thirty seconds whether you look like a firm that handles serious work.
That means restraint. Clean typography, named partners with real qualifications, practice areas described in plain language, and nothing that looks like it was assembled from a template in an afternoon.
Firms worry about what they are permitted to publish, and that caution often goes too far. You cannot discuss a client's matter, but you can explain an area of law clearly, set out the steps in a process, and say what documents somebody should bring to a first meeting. That kind of writing is what people search for at the moment they realise they need an advocate, and it demonstrates competence without touching confidentiality at all.
There is one client group that searches for Ugandan lawyers constantly and is poorly served: Ugandans living abroad. Somebody in the UK needs a power of attorney so a relative can sign for them, somebody in the Gulf is trying to settle an estate, a family in the United States is fighting over land back home. They cannot ask a friend for a recommendation the way a local client can, so they search, and they judge entirely on what the website says. A page on how you work with clients who are not in the country - what can be done by email, what needs a signature, how documents are witnessed and couriered, how you charge - reaches a client nobody else is writing for.
The mistake we see most often
Most Ugandan firms make one of two mistakes: no website at all, so a corporate client cannot verify you exist; or a site full of stock photos of gavels and foreign lawyers in libraries, which signals the opposite of substance.
What a law firm website needs
- Practice areas explained in language a client understands, not statute references
- Partner and associate profiles with qualifications, admission and experience
- Sectors you serve - banking, real estate, family, employment, criminal
- A contact route that respects confidentiality
- Firm details: physical chambers, registration, professional memberships
- Plain-language guides on common matters, which quietly bring in searches
Included as standard
Every site we build leaves our hands with all of this. None of it is an extra.
Written to be found
Page titles, headings and text built around what your customers actually type into Google.
Fast on slow connections
Compressed images, no page-builder bloat. Pages open in about two seconds instead of eating someone's data.
Yours to edit
A login, a training session and a recording. Change prices and photos yourself, whenever you like.
What it costs
A law firms website usually lands in the Business package, from UGX 750,000. Half to start, half at launch.
Domain and hosting are separate and paid to the hosting company - roughly UGX 150,000 to 300,000 for the first year, registered in your name.
Questions from law firms
Are we allowed to advertise as advocates?
Professional conduct rules limit how advocates may advertise, and they matter. In practice a factual, dignified website describing your practice areas and your people is accepted everywhere. We build it factual and let you clear anything you are unsure about with the Law Council.
Should we publish our fees?
Usually not as fixed figures. What works is being clear about how you charge - consultation fee, hourly, fixed for standard matters like company registration or conveyancing - so a client knows what to expect without you committing to a number.
Do legal guides really bring clients?
They are the strongest thing a Ugandan firm can publish. "How to register a company in Uganda", "what to check before buying land", "what happens in a divorce case". People search those constantly, and the firm that answered is the firm they call.
What can we publish without breaching client confidentiality?
Everything except the clients and their matters. Write about the law and the process: how long a land transfer normally takes, what happens at each stage of a company registration, which documents are needed to file for probate, what employment law requires on termination. Explain the steps, the usual timeline and the common mistakes. That is general legal information, not advice on a specific matter, and it is exactly what somebody searches for before they instruct anybody. If you want to reference past work, describe the type of matter and the outcome without naming parties or anything that could identify them.
People want a free consultation. How should we handle that on the site?
Decide the policy before the enquiries arrive, then state it plainly. Many firms offer a short first conversation at no charge to establish whether there is a matter and whether it is one they handle, and that is a reasonable position that costs you little. Say how long it lasts, what it covers, and what happens after. The alternative - staying vague - means your day fills with calls that were never going to become instructions. If you do charge for the first meeting, say so and say the amount; people respect a clear number far more than a phone call that turns out to cost money they did not expect.
Related
Accountants and auditors
Small businesses search for URA deadlines and company registration all year. Answer those and you meet your next retainer client.
Read moreInsurance brokers
Motor third party, medical, property. People search for the cover, not the broker. Give each product its own page.
Read moreReal estate agents
Buyers search by area and budget. If your plots and houses are not listed as searchable pages, you are invisible for every one of those searches.
Read moreReady to talk about your law firm website?
One WhatsApp message with what your business does is enough. We reply with what your site needs, what it costs and how long it takes.