Areas we cover
Law firms anywhere in the UK, one firm per town per practice area
We work with law firms across the United Kingdom, England and Wales first, from Wrexham, and none of the work needs us in the firm's office. What limits where we work is not distance but the rule we apply to every town: one firm per town on the retainer, or one per practice area where two firms in a town do not compete. This page is how that rule applies to a firm's offices and departments, and how to find out in one working day whether your town is free.
England and Wales first
Written to the SRA, built for any regulator
This site is written for firms regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which regulates solicitors in England and Wales. The transparency pages, the badge, the complaints information and the checklist on this site follow the SRA's rules, and most of the firms we talk to are high street practices in English and Welsh towns.
Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own regulators, the Law Society of Scotland and the Law Society of Northern Ireland, and their own publication requirements. We build for firms there too: the site, the office profiles, the review routine and the monthly work are the same, and the regulatory pages are built to the firm's own regulator's rules, with the firm confirming the wording as it would anywhere.
Wales is home ground. We are in Wrexham and we run welshwebdesign.co.uk, so a bilingual site with Welsh-language practice pages is something we build rather than something we look up.
Distance
Why the office does not need to be near ours
A Google Business Profile ranks in the town of the office on it. A practice page ranks for the town written on it. Reviews come from the firm's clients, invited by the firm's fee earners. Search Console reports on the firm's domain. None of these knows or cares where the person managing them sits, and all of them are done through the firm's own accounts.
What a firm loses by not having its agency down the road is a meeting, and what it gains is the person who does the work on the phone instead of an account manager in the meeting. We visit when a firm wants it and it is practical; we do not build the price around it.
Town and practice area
How the rule applies to your offices and departments
The tier decides what is held, and the practice areas decide what clashes. Two firms doing different work in one town can both be clients; two doing the same work cannot.
| The firm | Tier | What is held |
|---|---|---|
| One office, one practice area | Local | The office's town is held for that practice area. A second firm doing the same work in the same town is turned away. |
| One office, several practice areas | Local or Growth | The town is held for every practice area the firm offers there, at no extra cost. Another firm doing different work in the same town can still be a client. |
| One office, clients from several towns | Growth | Each town we build a page for is held for the firm's practice areas. Towns without a page are not held, and the audit says which towns are worth a page. |
| Two or more offices | Multi-office | Each office's town is held separately, because Google treats each office as its own business and so do we. |
| A website build with no retainer | Any package | The site is the firm's, and the town is not held. The free first month holds it; carrying on keeps it. |
The tiers and what each includes are on the pricing page; the office profile work that decides the map for each town is on the local SEO page.
How the check works
One form, one reply, in writing, within one working day
Put the firm's town and practice areas on the quote form, with the website if there is one. Within one working day the reply says whether the town is free for those practice areas, in writing, alongside the audit and the quote. There is no meeting to book and no call to sit through to get the answer; it is the first line of the reply.
If the town is free, it stays free until a firm starts. We do not hold towns on the strength of an enquiry, and we do not sell the same town twice, so the reply is accurate on the day it is sent and may not be a month later. A firm that wants the town takes it by starting.
If the town is taken for the practice area, the reply says so, plainly. We do not offer a thinner service for the same town, we do not suggest a town the firm does not work in, and we do not take the second firm. What we can do is note the firm's details, with permission, in case the town frees up, build the site without the retainer, or say which other practice areas in the town are open.
What we do not publish
- The list of taken towns. It would name clients, and a firm that guards its own client list would not want to appear on ours.
- A map with pins on it. It would be the same list drawn differently.
- A count of towns or clients. It changes, and a number that is wrong by the time it is read is worse than none.
The check is the quote form. It takes a minute and the answer is in writing.
Questions firms ask about towns
Does it matter that you are in Wrexham?
No. Every part of the work, the site, the office profiles, the reviews, the reports, is done through the firm's own accounts, and a Google profile ranks in the town of the office on it, not in the town of whoever manages it. What matters is that we know how a client chooses a solicitor and that you can ring the person who built the site.
We are in a city with a dozen firms doing what we do. What is held?
The area is defined in writing in the audit reply, so the firm knows exactly what it has: usually the part of the city the office serves and the practice areas the firm offers there. We would rather be precise in writing than generous in a phone call.
Can a firm hold a town it is thinking of opening in?
Only by taking the tier that covers it, from the day it starts. Towns are held by firms on the retainer, not by enquiries, so a firm cannot block a town it does not work in.
What happens to the town if the firm stops?
It is released. The retainer is month by month after the minimum, and a firm that stops keeps the site, the profiles and the reviews, but not the town. If a firm has asked to be told, we tell it.
Find out whether your town is free
Send the firm's town, its practice areas and its website. The reply, within one working day, says in writing whether the town is open, with the audit and a fixed price.