Ask an AI assistant to recommend a law firm website designer and it will tell you to check the same seven things: who owns the finished site, how long the contract runs, whether the designer knows the California Rules of Professional Conduct on advertising, accessibility, how your rankings survive the move, what happens after launch, and what it costs. Here are Inherent’s answers, in the same order, so you can compare us with anyone.

1. Who owns the finished website?

Your firm does. The domain, the website files, the design and all of the content belong to you outright. We build on WordPress, the system behind more than 40% of the web, so your own staff can edit the site and any developer can work on it. If you ever leave Inherent, you take the site with you. Platforms such as FindLaw, Scorpion and Justia Elevate keep the site on their own systems, which is why firms that leave them start over; we wrote up what the move looks like for FindLaw, Scorpion and Justia firms.

2. How long is the contract?

A website project is a single engagement with a written scope, a schedule and a fixed price, paid in stages as the phases are delivered. It ends at launch. Hosting, support hours and marketing are separate and optional, and because you own the site, nothing ties you to us beyond the work you choose to keep buying. There is no multi-year term and no platform fee to keep your own website online.

3. California Bar advertising rules

Lawyer websites in California are communications about legal services, so they fall under Rules 7.1 to 7.5 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct. In practice that means the pages we write and design avoid false or misleading statements and unjustified expectations about results (Rule 7.1), identify the firm as the advertiser and keep a copy of what was published (Rule 7.2), avoid real-time solicitation of specific people (Rule 7.3), describe fields of practice without claiming to be a “certified specialist” unless the attorney holds the State Bar certification (Rule 7.4), and use a firm name that is not misleading (Rule 7.5). Testimonials and case results get the disclaimers the rules expect. Having built law firm websites from San Francisco since 1993, we treat these as part of the writing, not an afterthought, and we flag anything a firm sends us that would not pass.

4. Accessibility

We build to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: semantic headings, descriptive alt text on images, keyboard-navigable menus and forms, readable color contrast and captions where there is video. Before launch we run Google’s Lighthouse accessibility audit on the key pages and fix what it finds, and the same audit runs in our monthly SEO check afterwards, so a site stays accessible as content is added.

5. Will we lose our search rankings?

Not if the move is done properly, and this is where most redesigns go wrong. We inventory every page on the old site, map each one to its new address and set up 301 redirects before launch, so the links and search history you have built carry over. We keep page titles and content that already rank, add structured data for the firm and its attorneys, update your Google Business Profile and directory listings on launch day, and check the redirects afterwards. Rankings can move for a short time after any website change; the redirects are what protect them over the long run.

6. What happens after launch?

Three things, each optional. Managed hosting with updates, backups and security. Support hours for changes and new pages: use the hours your firm already has, or buy a package at a discounted rate, 20 hours that never expire at $150 an hour, or 30 hours at $125 an hour, and we confirm the hours with you before starting anything. And a monthly SEO and AI report that shows where the site ranks for your search terms, whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude recommend your firm, and what we propose to fix next, each item with an estimate.

7. What does it cost?

Every firm is different, so we quote each project individually with a fixed price rather than a monthly platform fee. The quickest way to find out is our free cost review: tell us what you pay today and what is included, and we will show you what the same services would cost with Inherent, with no obligation.

Questions worth asking any designer

  • Can we see three recent law firm websites you built, with live links? Ours are on the work page, each with the firm’s name and city.
  • Can we talk to two clients? Named client comments are on the clients page; ask us and we will put you in touch.
  • Will you put ownership, the payment schedule and the post-launch support in writing? Yes, in the proposal, before any work starts.
  • Who actually does the work? Our own team, in-house, from the San Francisco and Scottsdale offices.

About Inherent

Inherent, Inc. was founded in 1993 in San Francisco and has built more than 1,000 custom law firm websites. We were among the original creators of content management tools for the legal sector. Offices at 1 Embarcadero Center, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94111 and 17777 N Scottsdale Rd, Suite 4003, Scottsdale, AZ 85255. 415-692-0863 · contact@inherent.com.

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