Serving Hamilton, Burlington, Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Dundas & Grimsby
Overview
This page is for small and mid-sized Hamilton-area law firms — solo practitioners up to about fifteen lawyers — who need a website that reads as credible to a prospective client and to referring counsel. Most projects land between $1,499 and $4,999, quoted flat before work begins, with a typical timeline of three to six weeks. If you need something larger or more custom, we will tell you that on the first call rather than after a deposit.
Law firm web design has a different job
Someone looking for a lawyer is usually in a bad week of their life. They are not browsing. They want to know within a few seconds whether you handle their kind of matter, whether you have handled it before, and how to reach a person. Everything else on the page is secondary to those three answers.
That is what shapes our approach to law firm web design in Hamilton: one clear page per practice area rather than a single overloaded "Services" page, plain-language explanations of process and fees, and an intake path that works on a phone in a parking lot.
We also work within the rules you are held to. Law Society of Ontario marketing requirements, careful framing of past results, and client confidentiality all sit inside the build rather than being bolted on at the end.
Who it fits
Solo and small firms, new practices splitting off from a larger firm, and established firms whose site has not been touched in five or more years.
Who it does not
National firms needing enterprise intranets, custom case-management software, or a full brand identity built from zero.
What you own
Your domain, your hosting, your content, and a WordPress site you can update without calling us. No proprietary platform lock-in.
Process
How a law firm web design project actually runs
Five stages, three to six weeks for most firms: an intake call and practice-area map, content and structure, design, build with intake and compliance, then launch and handover. The slow part is almost always content approval, so we build the schedule around your calendar rather than ours.
01
Intake call & practice-area map
Which matters you want more of, which you want fewer of, and who you compete with for them. We leave with a page map and a flat quote.
02
Content & structure
We draft practice-area copy in plain language and send it for your review. Nothing describing your work is published without a lawyer signing off.
03
Design
Home page and one practice-area template first, so you are approving a real layout rather than a mood board. Two rounds of revisions included.
04
Build, intake & compliance
WordPress build, encrypted contact and intake forms, accessibility pass against WCAG 2.1 AA, speed tuning, and a review of results language.
05
Launch & handover
We migrate, test forms end to end, connect analytics and Google Business Profile, then walk your staff through editing pages themselves.
Why choose Back9
What a legal site needs that a generic template misses
Most website packages are built for restaurants and trades. A law firm carries obligations a template has never heard of: how case results may be framed, what an intake form is allowed to collect, confidentiality in how the work is done, and accessibility as a requirement. These are the things we handle differently, every time.
Case results, framed properly
Results build trust, but they cannot promise anything. We present them with the qualifying language and context regulators expect, and we never publish a matter you have not cleared.
A real page per practice area
Someone searching for a criminal defence lawyer should land on a criminal defence page, not a services list. Each area gets its own page, its own process explanation, and its own call to action.
Intake forms that respect the stakes
Encrypted submission, no sensitive detail sitting in plain-text email, spam filtering that does not eat real enquiries, and a clear notice that contacting you does not create a solicitor-client relationship.
Confidentiality in how we work
We will sign your confidentiality agreement, keep staging sites private and unindexed, and never use client matter details as portfolio material.
Accessibility as a requirement
Keyboard navigation, colour contrast, real heading structure, labelled forms, and screen-reader testing — built to WCAG 2.1 AA so an accessibility complaint is not the first you hear of it. Ontario firms also fall under the AODA, whose information and communications standard applies to public-facing websites.
Ontario-specific, not imported
AODA accessibility expectations and Law Society of Ontario marketing rules are Ontario problems. We build to them from the first draft instead of retrofitting an American template.
Photography
Photography that looks like your firm
Photography is where most law firm web design quietly falls down. People hire a person, not a firm name. Portraits of the lawyers who will actually answer the phone do more for trust than any headline we could write, so we plan and art-direct photography into the build. The images here are illustrative.
Consistent headshots across every bio page, cropped and colour-matched so the team reads as one firm.
An office or exterior shot, which quietly confirms you are a real practice in a real place.
A shot list and posing direction before the shoot, plus compression and sizing after, so photos never slow the site down.
If you already have photography you like, we will work with what you have and only reshoot what is letting the page down.
Legal work to date
Legal websites we have designed and built
Law firm web design is a core part of what we build. Every project below started with the same questions: which practice areas earn the work, how a nervous first-time client actually gets in touch, and how to explain complex matters in plain language. That is the thinking we bring to Ontario firms.
What we can and cannot show you
No traffic charts, no lead counts, no rankings. We do not publish performance figures for legal clients, and we are not going to invent any to fill this section.
On a call we will walk you through these sites live and show you more of our web design portfolio, explain the reasoning behind each decision, and answer questions about our non-legal Hamilton work in full.
Book a walkthrough →Pricing
Three tiers, quoted flat
All law firm web design is quoted flat. Prices in Canadian dollars, before HST. The number you approve is the number you pay — scope changes get quoted separately before anyone starts work. Hosting and care plans are optional and priced monthly.
Solo Practice
$1,499
CAD, one time · 2–3 weeks
For a solo lawyer with one or two practice areas who needs a credible, current site quickly.
Up to 5 pages, including 2 practice areas
Mobile-first WordPress build
Encrypted contact form with legal disclaimer
WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility pass
Google Business Profile setup
Training session and handover
Most firms start here
Full Practice
$2,999
CAD, one time · 3–5 weeks
For an established firm with several practice areas, multiple lawyers, and results worth showing.
Everything in Solo Practice
Up to 12 pages, including 5 practice areas
Lawyer bio pages and team section
Case results section with compliant framing
Multi-step intake form with file upload
On-page SEO for Hamilton and surrounding areas
Blog or legal-updates section
Multi-Practice
$4,999
CAD, one time · 5–8 weeks
For larger firms, multi-location practices, or firms that want content and search work running after launch.
Everything in Full Practice
Unlimited practice-area and location pages
Custom design system, not a template
Copywriting for every practice area
CRM or case-management form integration
Three months of post-launch SEO and support
| Compare | Solo Practice | Full Practice | Multi-Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $1,499 | $2,999 | $4,999 |
| Timeline | 2–3 weeks | 3–5 weeks | 5–8 weeks |
| Pages | Up to 5 | Up to 12 | Unlimited |
| Practice-area pages | 2 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Encrypted contact form | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lawyer bios and team | — | Yes | Yes |
| Case results, compliant framing | — | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-step intake with file upload | — | Yes | Yes |
| Blog or legal-updates section | — | Yes | Yes |
FAQ
Questions firms ask us first
Six questions firms actually ask on the first call — about protecting your rankings through a rebuild, ranking guarantees, confidentiality, who writes the practice-area content, and what happens after launch. If yours is not here, ask it on the call. We would rather answer a hard question early than have it surface halfway through a build.
Will we lose our Google rankings when the site changes?
Not if it is migrated properly. We map every existing URL to its replacement, keep the content and structure that already earns traffic, put the 301 redirects in place before launch rather than after, and submit the new sitemap the day we go live. Ranking loss on a rebuild almost always traces back to skipped redirects.
Can you guarantee we will rank first for our practice area?
No, and neither can anyone else honestly — search results are controlled by Google, not by your web designer. What we control is the technical foundation, the page structure, the content quality, and the local signals. Any agency promising a specific position is selling you something they cannot deliver.
How do you handle confidentiality and client matter details?
We sign your confidentiality agreement before we see anything sensitive, keep staging sites password-protected and hidden from search engines, and never reuse matter details as portfolio material. Intake form submissions go to your systems, not ours.
Who writes the content for our practice-area pages?
We draft it and a lawyer at your firm approves it. You know the law; law firm web design is our side of it, and that includes making the page readable to someone who has never hired a lawyer. Nothing describing your services goes live without your sign-off, and the Multi-Practice tier includes full copywriting for every area.
What happens after launch — are we locked into a contract?
No. You own the domain, the hosting account, and the site. Care plans for updates, backups, and monitoring are month to month and cancellable. If you would rather maintain it in-house, we hand over the site and train your staff to do exactly that.
Do you only work with firms in Hamilton?
No. Our law firm web design work is based in Hamilton and most of our clients are in the surrounding area — Burlington, Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Dundas and Grimsby — but we work with firms across Ontario, and remotely beyond it. Meetings run by video or in person if you are close by, and the Miami practice we built for was handled entirely remotely.
Get started
Get your free law firm website quote
Tell us about your practice and we will scope the law firm web design around it. Within one business day we will reply with a plan, a fixed price, and a timeline. No pressure, no retainer, and no obligation to proceed.
Flat quotes — no hourly surprises
Confidentiality agreement signed before anything sensitive
You own the site, the domain and the hosting
Back9 Digital · Hamilton, Ontario · Serving law firms across Hamilton, Burlington, Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Dundas and Grimsby.