<p>Law firm website content has two jobs before it ever reaches a search engine. It must help a visitor understand whether the firm handles the problem, and it must give that person a clear, appropriate way to make contact. Vague practice pages and oversized intake forms make both jobs harder.</p>

<p>This checklist covers content planning and technical implementation. It is not legal advice. The firm and its qualified advisers must approve statements about services, results, jurisdictions, credentials, confidentiality, advertising rules, privacy, and required disclaimers.</p>

<h2>Start with the visitor's decision</h2>

<p>A person arriving from search may know the legal issue but not the name of the practice area. Organize navigation and page language around recognizable needs, then explain the legal category in plain terms. Each page should tell the visitor:</p>

<ul>
  <li>which matters the firm considers;</li>
  <li>where the firm practices and any important limits;</li>
  <li>who at the firm handles the work;</li>
  <li>what information is useful for an initial contact;</li>
  <li>how to call or submit an inquiry; and</li>
  <li>what the visitor should expect after contacting the office.</li>
</ul>

<p>Avoid claims that outrun the firm's evidence or professional-responsibility review. The American Bar Association's <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_7_1_communication_concerning_a_lawyer_s_services/">Model Rule 7.1</a> addresses false or misleading communications about a lawyer's services. State rules control and may differ, so the website review must use the rules that apply to the firm.</p>

<h2>Practice-area page checklist</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Name the matter in language prospective clients use.</li>
  <li>Explain the types of situations the page covers without promising an outcome.</li>
  <li>Identify jurisdiction or geographic limits when they affect whether the firm can help.</li>
  <li>Describe the general engagement process without presenting a universal timeline.</li>
  <li>Link to the attorney or team responsible for that work.</li>
  <li>Use a specific contact action, such as "Request an initial consultation," if that matches the firm's process.</li>
  <li>Add a last-reviewed date and a named content owner inside the firm's editorial records.</li>
</ul>

<p>One thorough page for a real practice area is stronger than a set of thin pages that swap city or service names. Location pages need facts that matter to the reader, such as office or service information the firm can verify. They should not imply an office where none exists.</p>

<h2>Attorney biography checklist</h2>

<p>Attorney biographies often receive high-intent visits. Treat them as working pages rather than ceremonial resumes.</p>

<ul>
  <li>Use the attorney's current name, title, photo, and contact path.</li>
  <li>List admissions and jurisdictions in the form the firm approves.</li>
  <li>Verify education, credentials, memberships, languages, awards, and dates.</li>
  <li>Describe areas of work with links to the relevant practice pages.</li>
  <li>Explain the person's role in terms a prospective client can understand.</li>
  <li>Remove departed attorneys promptly and redirect old biography URLs when a suitable destination exists.</li>
</ul>

<p>The website team should not infer expertise, certification, or representative results from incomplete source material. Ask the attorney or designated reviewer to approve the final biography and record that approval.</p>

<h2>Design the intake path around the first conversation</h2>

<p>A website form is usually an inquiry channel, not a full case-management interview. Request enough information to route and respond to the inquiry. Detailed facts and sensitive documents can move through an approved process after the firm decides how to proceed.</p>

<table>
  <thead><tr><th>Field</th><th>Planning question</th></tr></thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr><td>Name and contact method</td><td>Which fields are required to respond, and can the person state a safe contact preference?</td></tr>
    <tr><td>General matter type</td><td>Can a short controlled list route the inquiry without asking for a legal conclusion?</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Location</td><td>What minimum location information is needed for jurisdiction or routing?</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Opposing or related parties</td><td>Should conflict information use a separate approved workflow rather than an ordinary email?</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Free-text message</td><td>What guidance and length limit will reduce unnecessary sensitive details?</td></tr>
    <tr><td>File upload</td><td>Is upload necessary at first contact, and where will the file be scanned, stored, and deleted?</td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<p>Place the firm's approved notice near the submit button where a visitor can read it before sending information. The firm decides the language about confidentiality, attorney-client relationships, deadlines, and emergencies. The developer makes the notice readable and ensures the submission result is clear.</p>

<h2>Plan delivery and failure handling</h2>

<p>A form that displays "success" should create a durable record or confirm that the destination accepted the message. Email alone can fail because of filtering, DNS changes, provider limits, or a full mailbox. Use server-side validation, spam controls that do not block keyboard users, delivery monitoring, and a documented fallback.</p>

<p>Test the intake route on mobile and with assistive technology. The person submitting should receive a useful confirmation that states what happens next without promising a response the firm cannot meet. Staff need an alert when delivery fails and a way to review submissions without sharing mailbox credentials.</p>

<h2>Accessibility review</h2>

<p>People may need legal information while under time pressure or while using a screen reader, keyboard, magnification, or voice input. The U.S. Department of Justice publishes <a href="https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/">website accessibility guidance</a> for businesses open to the public. The W3C recommends using the current <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">WCAG 2 standard</a> when developing or updating accessibility policies.</p>

<p>At minimum, review heading order, link purpose, keyboard operation, focus visibility, form labels, error messages, contrast, text resizing, image alternatives, and document accessibility. Automated scanning helps locate some problems. Keyboard and screen-reader testing find issues that scanners miss.</p>

<h2>Privacy and analytics checklist</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Inventory every form field, tracking script, call-tracking tool, chat widget, and embedded service.</li>
  <li>Document where submissions go, who can access them, and how long each system retains them.</li>
  <li>Collect the minimum data needed for the stated intake purpose.</li>
  <li>Configure analytics and advertising tags according to the firm's approved consent and privacy approach.</li>
  <li>Keep private inquiry details out of analytics event labels, URLs, and application logs.</li>
  <li>Review vendor contracts and settings with the firm's privacy and security advisers.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Technical SEO and launch review</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Give every indexable page a unique title, description, H1, and canonical URL.</li>
  <li>Link practice pages to relevant attorneys and link biographies back to relevant services.</li>
  <li>Redirect replaced URLs one-to-one where a genuine equivalent exists.</li>
  <li>Keep drafts, search results, internal thank-you pages, and private portals out of search indexes.</li>
  <li>Validate structured data against the visible page and omit reviews or locations the firm cannot verify.</li>
  <li>Test the XML sitemap, robots rules, error pages, social previews, and mobile layout.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Ownership after launch</h2>

<p>Assign a person to each practice page, attorney biography, office detail, disclaimer, and intake workflow. Set review dates based on how often the facts change. The maintenance plan should cover software updates, backups, uptime, form delivery, broken links, accessibility checks, and content changes.</p>

<p>Terry Hunt Dev provides <a href="/services/nextjs-development">Next.js development services</a> for sites that need clear service information, dependable intake paths, maintainable publishing, and careful technical implementation. If your firm is planning a new site or repairing an existing intake flow, <a href="/contact">request a law firm website consultation</a>. I can help turn the firm's approved content and requirements into a site the internal team can operate.</p>

Plan law firm website content and intake paths with a checklist for practice pages, attorney bios, privacy, accessibility, disclaimers, and SEO.

Law Firm Website Content and Intake Checklist

A practical pre-launch checklist for law firm content, intake, accessibility, privacy, and technical review.

Plan practice pages, attorney bios, intake forms, accessibility, privacy, and launch review.

Law Firm Website Content Checklist

<p>A nonprofit website plan should fit the organization's staff capacity after the launch celebration is over. A polished design becomes a burden when nobody knows who updates programs, donation forms, event details, or board information. Planning ownership early protects the budget and helps supporters find accurate information.</p>

<p>This nonprofit website checklist focuses on the decisions that shape cost, accessibility, integrations, governance, and ongoing care. It does not assume a large communications team or a custom build.</p>

<h2>Write down the jobs the website must perform</h2>

<p>Start with a short list of outcomes. A visitor might need to understand the mission, request help, donate, register for an event, volunteer, or find a public document. Staff may need to publish updates and see whether campaigns lead to useful actions.</p>

<p>For each outcome, name the audience, page or workflow, content owner, and measurement. "Increase engagement" is too broad to guide a build. "Help volunteers find and submit the orientation form without emailing staff" gives the team something it can design and test.</p>

<h2>Content inventory and ownership checklist</h2>

<ul>
  <li>List every current page, document, form, image collection, and embedded tool.</li>
  <li>Mark content to keep, revise, combine, redirect, or remove.</li>
  <li>Assign a staff owner to programs, leadership, events, volunteer information, financial documents, and policies.</li>
  <li>Record review dates for content that becomes harmful when stale.</li>
  <li>Identify material that needs board, legal, grant, or program approval.</li>
  <li>Decide who can publish and who only prepares drafts.</li>
</ul>

<p>Content ownership affects the CMS design. A small team may need a constrained editor with a few reusable page types. A larger organization may need approvals, separate roles, and structured records for programs, locations, people, events, and reports.</p>

<h2>Budget for ownership, not only construction</h2>

<p>Divide the budget into launch and ongoing work. Launch may include discovery, content migration, design, development, accessibility testing, integrations, redirects, analytics, training, and documentation. Ongoing costs may include hosting, licenses, payment processing, monitoring, updates, backups, content help, and technical support.</p>

<p>Staff time belongs in the budget. A cheaper platform can cost more when staff spend hours correcting layouts or moving data between tools. A custom system can create the same problem if every change requires a developer. Choose the amount of control the team can operate.</p>

<table>
  <thead><tr><th>Constraint</th><th>Planning response</th></tr></thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr><td>One staff member manages the site part time</td><td>Use a small set of reusable content types and avoid fragile layout controls.</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Programs change often</td><td>Give each program a named owner and an expiration or review date.</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Several systems already hold supporter data</td><td>Map the source of truth before adding another integration.</td></tr>
    <tr><td>The grant funds launch but not upkeep</td><td>Reduce recurring complexity and document the annual operating cost before approval.</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Volunteers help with content</td><td>Use limited roles, review steps, and training that survives volunteer turnover.</td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<h2>Donation workflow questions</h2>

<p>The donation page connects messaging, payment processing, receipts, supporter records, and privacy. The website does not need to own every part of that chain. A reputable hosted donation platform may reduce the payment and compliance burden compared with custom payment code.</p>

<ul>
  <li>Which organization is the merchant of record?</li>
  <li>Where are donor details stored, and which staff roles can access them?</li>
  <li>Does the form support recurring gifts, designations, tribute gifts, and the receipts the organization needs?</li>
  <li>Which data moves into the CRM, accounting system, and email platform?</li>
  <li>How are duplicate contacts, failed payments, refunds, and chargebacks handled?</li>
  <li>Can staff reconcile a website transaction with the payment and accounting records?</li>
  <li>What happens to the donation path if the website or integration is unavailable?</li>
</ul>

<p>Do not publish fundraising performance claims that the organization cannot document. Keep confirmation messages accurate and avoid sending private donation details into analytics tools.</p>

<h2>CRM, email, volunteer, and event integrations</h2>

<p>Draw the data flow before selecting connectors. Name the system that owns a supporter's email address, consent status, donation history, volunteer application, and event registration. Decide whether each connection runs in one direction or two.</p>

<p>Useful integrations validate inputs, prevent duplicates, retry temporary failures, and create a review queue for records that need attention. They also keep an audit trail that staff can understand. A connector that saves ten minutes a month may not justify another subscription and another place to monitor.</p>

<h2>Accessibility belongs in planning and content</h2>

<p>Supporters, volunteers, clients, and staff may use screen readers, keyboards, magnification, captions, or voice input. The W3C encourages teams to use the current <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">WCAG 2 standard</a>. Its guidance covers text alternatives, keyboard access, form behavior, contrast, page structure, and other requirements that affect design and content.</p>

<p>Include accessibility in vendor selection, templates, content training, document creation, and acceptance testing. Check donation and event tools as carefully as the pages around them. An accessible homepage does not compensate for an unusable registration form.</p>

<p>Automated scans catch part of the problem set. Add keyboard testing, screen-reader review of important workflows, zoom and reflow checks, caption review, and testing by people with disabilities when the project can support it.</p>

<h2>Analytics and consent</h2>

<p>Measure actions tied to the website's stated jobs, such as completed donations, volunteer applications, event registrations, resource downloads, and contact requests. Avoid collecting data because a tool offers it by default.</p>

<ul>
  <li>Document each analytics and advertising script.</li>
  <li>Keep names, emails, messages, and donation details out of event labels and URLs.</li>
  <li>Configure consent behavior based on the organization's approved privacy approach.</li>
  <li>Limit dashboard access and remove accounts when staff or vendors leave.</li>
  <li>Set a schedule for reviewing whether the collected data is still useful.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Technical SEO and migration checklist</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Map one primary purpose to each indexable page.</li>
  <li>Use clear titles and headings that match the language supporters use.</li>
  <li>Write unique descriptions for the homepage, main programs, donation page, volunteer page, and important resources.</li>
  <li>Link related programs, locations, events, stories, and calls to action with descriptive anchor text.</li>
  <li>Create one-to-one redirects for useful old URLs that have a true replacement.</li>
  <li>Keep internal search, test pages, thank-you pages, and private documents out of search results.</li>
  <li>Verify the sitemap, canonical URLs, structured data, social previews, and error pages before launch.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Governance and handoff</h2>

<p>The organization should own the domain, DNS, hosting, source code, CMS, analytics, donation platform, and other core accounts. Vendors and volunteers receive their own access instead of sharing the organization's main login.</p>

<p>Ask for a handoff package with an account inventory, architecture summary, deployment steps, content guide, backup and restore process, integration map, renewal calendar, and incident contacts. Record which changes staff can make and which ones need technical review.</p>

<h2>Ongoing maintenance checklist</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Test donation, volunteer, event, newsletter, and contact workflows on a schedule.</li>
  <li>Review software updates, backups, uptime, errors, and security alerts.</li>
  <li>Check program details, staff and board information, reports, policies, and event dates for accuracy.</li>
  <li>Review broken links, redirects, Search Console, analytics collection, and accessibility issues.</li>
  <li>Test restoration and confirm account ownership at least once a year.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Questions to answer before requesting proposals</h2>

<ol>
  <li>Which three visitor actions matter most?</li>
  <li>Who owns each major content area after launch?</li>
  <li>Which existing systems must remain?</li>
  <li>Which integrations are required for launch, and which can wait?</li>
  <li>How much staff time and annual budget are available for maintenance?</li>
  <li>Which accessibility and privacy requirements have the organization's advisers approved?</li>
  <li>Who owns final acceptance and signs off on the launch?</li>
</ol>

<p>Terry Hunt Dev provides <a href="/services">website development and maintenance services</a> centered on staff capacity, maintainable content, accessibility, and responsible integrations. If your organization is planning a rebuild, <a href="/contact">request a nonprofit website consultation</a> and share the current site, goals, systems, budget constraints, and the people who will maintain it.</p>

Use this nonprofit website checklist to plan goals, content ownership, donations, CRM integrations, accessibility, analytics, and maintenance.

Nonprofit Website Planning Checklist

Plan a maintainable nonprofit website around mission goals, staff capacity, integrations, accessibility, and responsible ownership.

A practical planning guide for nonprofit content, donations, accessibility, governance, and maintenance.

<p><code>getStaticProps</code> still works in the Next.js Pages Router. It pre-renders a page at build time and serializes the returned props for the browser. That makes it a good fit for public data that can be known before a request, such as documentation, catalog pages, and CMS articles.</p>

<p>It is not an App Router API. New App Router work uses server components, <code>fetch</code> caching, and route-level revalidation instead. Keep that boundary clear when you maintain a mixed Next.js application.</p>

<h2>Fetch public data at build time</h2>
<pre><code>export async function getStaticProps() {
  const response = await fetch("https://example.com/api/articles")
  if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Article request failed: ${response.status}`)

  return {
    props: { articles: await response.json() },
    revalidate: 300,
  }
}</code></pre>
<p>The function runs on the server. Its returned props do not stay private, though. Next.js includes them in the rendered page data, so never return tokens, private customer fields, or unrestricted database records.</p>

<h2>Read local files directly</h2>
<p>Build-time code can read a repository file or call a server-only library directly. Avoid calling your own API route from <code>getStaticProps</code>; importing the shared data function removes an extra network hop and keeps one implementation.</p>
<pre><code>import { loadArticles } from "../lib/articles"

export async function getStaticProps() {
  return { props: { articles: await loadArticles() } }
}</code></pre>

<h2>Generate dynamic routes with getStaticPaths</h2>
<p>A dynamic Pages Router file such as <code>pages/articles/[slug].tsx</code> pairs <code>getStaticProps</code> with <code>getStaticPaths</code>. The path function chooses which pages build ahead of time. The props function loads one record and should return <code>notFound: true</code> when the slug does not exist.</p>

<h2>Use ISR for public data that changes</h2>
<p>The <code>revalidate</code> value enables Incremental Static Regeneration. After that interval, the next eligible request can trigger regeneration while the existing page remains available. Treat the interval as a freshness decision, not a guarantee that a page changes at an exact second.</p>

<h2>Handle failures deliberately</h2>
<p>A failed required build-time request should usually fail the build so stale or incomplete content does not deploy unnoticed. For optional data, return an explicit empty state and monitor the failure. Catching every error and returning <code>null</code> can turn a broken integration into a successful deployment.</p>

<h2>Check these boundaries</h2>
<ul><li>The page lives in the Pages Router.</li><li>The data is public and safe to serialize.</li><li>Missing records return <code>notFound</code>.</li><li>Dynamic paths have an intentional fallback policy.</li><li>ISR freshness matches the publishing workflow.</li></ul>

<p>See the current <a href="https://nextjs.org/docs/pages/building-your-application/data-fetching/get-static-props" rel="noopener noreferrer">Next.js getStaticProps documentation</a> for the supported return values. If you are planning a broader application change, review <a href="/services/nextjs-development">Next.js development services</a> or <a href="/contact">share the route and data requirements</a>.</p>

Use Next.js getStaticProps for build-time data, dynamic routes, preview content, and ISR while keeping secrets out of serialized page props.

Next.js getStaticProps Patterns for the Pages Router

Use getStaticProps for public build-time data, dynamic Pages Router routes, preview content, and incremental static regeneration without exposing secrets.

Accessibility Resources & Benchmarks

Law Firm Website Content and Intake Checklist

Nonprofit Website Planning Checklist

Practical getStaticProps Patterns for the Next.js Pages Router

Need hands-on help with Accessibility?