A good lawyer often does not need to look for clients: past clients recommend them. It is tempting to conclude that a website is unnecessary. But a recommendation gives a person only a name. They then search for it and decide within minutes whether to call. If the results are empty, or show a generic page offering “legal assistance for individuals and businesses”, they may call someone else.
A website helps word of mouth work.
The legal restrictions below come from Russia's Code of Professional Ethics for Lawyers, recommendations of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers (FPA) and legislation. This is not legal advice, so check them before publishing your own website.
How people actually choose a lawyer
In 2025, SberPravo and Rambler&Co surveyed more than 47,000 Russians. Sixty per cent found a lawyer through a personal recommendation, 19% online, 8% through specialist services, 6% through social media and 4% through online advertising.
Experience was the leading factor for 53%, recommendations for 26% and price for 16%. Online reviews were named by only 5%.
Compare that with the US. FindLaw's 2024 research found that 82% of people who found an attorney online read reviews, and almost 40% called reviews their main information source. Russian clients appear to rely less on other people's words and more on things they can check: experience, specialism and professional status.
The customer journey looks like this:
problem → recommendation or search → check several candidates → website, maps and mentions → first contact → engagement agreement.
The website works during the checking stage. That check comes down to five questions.
Five questions a client asks your website
1. “Do they specialise in my problem?”
Five things are enough for the first screen: name, main specialism and city, whom you help, verifiable professional status and a consultation booking button.
Compare:
“Criminal defence lawyer in Moscow. Representation during preliminary enquiries, investigation and trial. Ivan Petrov, professional register no. …”
with
“Professional legal assistance. We solve complex problems. Guaranteed results.”
The first version tells a visitor within three seconds whom they have found. The second could describe any firm, and a Russian advocate is prohibited from promising an outcome under the Code of Ethics.
Specialism should also be visible in the website structure. Replace one “Services” page listing family law, tax, insolvency, inheritance and criminal law with separate pages for real situations. For a property dispute specialist, these might be “Challenging a transaction”, “Dispute with a developer” and “Division of property”.
Each page should follow the client's questions: their situation, what needs checking, available options, risks, documents to gather, how you work and the cost of the next step.
2. “Is this a real person I can trust?”
The FPA recommends that an advocate's website show their name, register number, chamber, address and contacts, along with specialisms, academic qualifications, awards and further training. A legal adviser without advocate status should show comparable evidence: education, experience and business details.
Describe experience as a fact:
“I have worked on inheritance disputes since 2014.”
rather than
“Fifteen years of successfully solving every kind of legal problem.”
Use real photographs: a portrait, a working scene, the office. The purpose is to let someone recognise the person they saw online when they arrive for a consultation. Stock images of scales, a judge's gavel or handshakes cannot do that.
If you previously worked as an investigator, prosecutor or judge, describe that calmly. The FPA considers excessive emphasis on past public service unacceptable, including uniformed photographs, because it can imply influential connections.
3. “Have they handled cases like mine?”
“Our victories: 127 cases won” is less convincing than it seems: the figure cannot be checked, and the FPA advises advocates against such tallies. A “Practice” or “Case analyses” section is stronger, with each example structured like this:
- Situation: what happened, without unnecessary client details.
- Problem: what needed to be proved or prevented.
- Work done: key steps, without disclosing strategy.
- Outcome: how the case ended.
- Evidence: date, court and case number, where publication is lawful.
- Qualification: a past result does not guarantee the same outcome in another matter.
This shows that you have dealt with this kind of problem, rather than merely saying you are experienced.
A significant trap: a judgment published by a court is not automatically a story you may publish on your own site. Courts remove personal data from judgments themselves, and some categories, including family cases and matters involving minors, are not published at all. The Civil Code protects private life, and preliminary investigation information cannot be disclosed without the investigator's permission. Advocates are also bound by professional secrecy, which includes the very fact that someone approached them. Only the client can release them from that obligation, in writing.
A practical rule: anonymise case studies, avoid posting document scans, remove third-party data and obtain client consent where protected information is disclosed. The lawyer, rather than the copywriter, must check this.
4. “What will it cost?”
“Price on request, call us” can scare people away: they assume it will be expensive and choose someone who explains. You do not have to publish a price for the whole case, but explain how fees work:
- an initial consultation of up to 60 minutes: … RUB;
- document review and a written opinion: from … RUB after assessing the volume;
- representation: fees agreed by stage after reviewing the materials.
On outcome-based fees: the Code of Ethics permits such arrangements for advocates, but excludes criminal cases and administrative offence proceedings. Even where permitted, advertising “pay only if we win, victory guaranteed” is not acceptable.
5. “What happens if I contact them?”
A “Leave an enquiry” button promises little. “Book an initial consultation” is clearer, with a note next to it:
“Briefly describe the subject. We will request documents securely after our conversation.”
Three fields are enough: name, contact method and subject. Do not immediately ask for a passport, the names of everyone involved and the full case history. The visitor is already anxious, and you do not need the additional personal data.
Show a phone number and the hours when you really answer. This sounds obvious until you see the figures. In 2024, Clio approached 500 US law firms as prospective clients: only 33% replied to emails, 40% answered the phone immediately, and up to 48% could effectively not be reached. Even the most expensive website is useless if nobody responds to the enquiry.
Reviews: different rules for legal advisers and advocates
For a legal adviser without advocate status, genuine reviews on independent platforms can help. For an advocate, Article 17 of the Russian Code of Ethics prohibits including other people's reviews of their work, evaluative claims and comparisons with colleagues in information about the advocate.
An advocate should therefore avoid a “Client testimonials” block on their website and soliciting reviews specifically. Trust must come from professional status, specialism, practice, publications and public speaking. According to the SberPravo survey, those are the things Russian clients look at anyway.
Claims best left off the website
- “The city's best advocate”
- “98% of cases won”
- “Guaranteed acquittal”
- “We resolve matters in courts and investigative agencies”
- “I know how to arrange a deal”
- “We solve any problem”, followed by twenty unrelated areas of law
For an advocate, the first five directly conflict with the Code of Ethics, potentially resulting in a reprimand, warning or even loss of professional status. Misleading claims also create advertising-law risks for any legal adviser. The last claim simply does not work: it suggests no specialism.
Other legal points to understand
- Information on your own website is not always advertising. Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service explains that information about your own services, provided on your site to inform visitors, is not automatically advertising. A paid blogger post, banner or integration is advertising, must be labelled, and the contractor agreement should specify who handles that.
- Advertising on blocked resources has been prohibited since 1 September 2025.
- The 3% advertising levy does not mean a lawyer must add 3% to their budget. The main payers are advertising distributors.
- Personal data processing consent must be separate from other documents since 1 September 2025. Small print saying “by clicking you agree to everything” is no longer sufficient. See “Website fines in Russia in 2026”.
How people will find you in search
People search for legal help in different ways, and each kind of query needs an appropriate page:
- ready to hire: “fraud defence lawyer Moscow”, “lawyer for a developer dispute”;
- describing a problem: “summoned for questioning what to do”, “developer has not handed over flat”, “former spouse sold jointly owned property”;
- checking prices: “how much does a criminal defence lawyer cost”;
- looking locally: “advocate [district or metro station]”;
- checking a recommendation: “[surname] advocate”, “[surname] reviews”.
The last group matters more than it seems. You already received the recommendation; the website must not lose it.
A common mistake sold to lawyers is hundreds of almost identical pages: “divorce lawyer central district”, “divorce lawyer northern district”, “inexpensive divorce lawyer”. Google explicitly warns against content written for search engines rather than people. The better approach is fewer pages, each providing a strong explanation of a specific high-value situation.
When choosing topics, look beyond search volume. “What is a statement of claim?” may bring many students and no clients. A page about a particular situation reaches fewer people, but they are more likely to need you. The basics are explained in “What is SEO?”.
One rule for the copy: a copywriter should not invent legal positions in your name. In a case study about an advocate's site, Rush Agency said its team needed two or three months to become confident with the terminology. A sensible process: the SEO specialist finds what people search for, you provide the legal position and examples, an editor makes the copy clear, and you approve the final version.
What it costs, and how long to wait
Prices. The range is enormous. Public studio prices include around RUB 69,000 for a template-based site, RUB 139,000-279,000 for custom design with SEO setup, and up to RUB 635,000 for complex bespoke work. Agency SEO starts at roughly RUB 47,000 a month. Building a serious search channel, including a site and regular content work throughout the year, may bring the annual budget to RUB 900,000-1.5 million. This is an illustrative calculation, rather than market statistics.
You do not need a hundred pages to start. Ten to twenty complete pages are enough: home, about, main specialism, several key situations, working process, fees, practice, questions and answers, contacts and personal data documents.
Timing. Google says some changes are reflected in search within hours and others take months. For a new site, the following is a guide rather than a promise:
- Two to six weeks: the site enters search and queries containing your surname appear.
- Two to four months: the first enquiries from people who do not know you may arrive.
- Four to six months: you can see whether impressions and enquiries are increasing.
- Six to twelve months: a steady flow may develop in a competitive niche.
Moscow insolvency work and a narrow administrative specialism in a regional city face very different competition. Do not trust a contractor who guarantees a new site a top-three position within two months.
What other people's case studies really prove
Web-Center describes a bankruptcy law firm in Yekaterinburg: within three months, 34 of 42 commercial queries reached Yandex's top ten. That sounds excellent. But the case study does not say how many clients and contracts it produced.
Another 2026 case study: a criminal defence advocate's site increased targeted traffic by 215% over six months and received 15,400 visitors. 15,400 visitors are not 15,400 clients. Again, the number who called or signed an agreement is unknown.
So measure something more useful than:
“I have 8,000 visitors.”
For example:
“Search produced 28 relevant enquiries, leading to 17 consultations and six new engagement agreements.”
Record every enquiry: where the person came from, whether the enquiry was relevant, whether a consultation took place and whether an agreement was signed.
Where to start
- Write down: which clients you want, in which city, with which problems, which cases you do not take, and what proves your experience with these situations.
- Build a site on your own domain: name, specialism, city, status and consultation booking on the first screen; then situation pages, photographs, biography, fees and practice.
- Complete maps and directory listings with the same name, address, phone number and specialism as the website.
- Organise enquiry handling: respond quickly and record where each person came from and how the conversation ended.
- List 30-50 real client questions and gradually turn them into pages.
- Check at useful milestones: technical errors after a month, impression growth after three, initial search enquiries after six and acquisition cost after a year.
Frequently asked questions
All my clients come through recommendations. Why do I need a website?
To prevent those recommendations from being lost. A person receives your name and checks it. Your site shows specialism, experience and a clear first step, helping them call you rather than the next person in the search results.
Can an advocate write about cases they won?
They may describe their practice, but without win rates, promises or testimonials, using anonymised examples and respecting professional secrecy. Disclosing information about a client requires that client's written consent.
Can I manage without advertising?
Yes, if the site is built as a lasting channel: pages answering real situations, maps listings and reliable enquiry handling. You pay with time and content work rather than clicks.
Where this leaves you
A recommendation lends you trust. Search reaches a person when a problem arises. A website turns both into evidence that you are the right specialist.
A useful legal website answers five questions: do they specialise in my problem, are they a real person, have they handled similar cases, what does it cost and what happens if I contact them? Everything else comes afterwards.
A website for a lawyer or advocate: pages addressing clients’ real situations, SEO for Yandex and Google, and a simple way to book a consultation. See multi-page website development for details, or find contact information on Roman Mikhailov’s developer profile.
