Published · Updated · By Christopher Ross
The count is an addition problem with 4 inputs: 4 core pages, 1 page per attorney, 1 page per practice area you actually want more of, and 0 to 3 resource pages. A solo doing divorce, custody and support comes out at 8, or 6 once the about page and the bio become one page and the fee line moves onto the home page, which is the shape of a Starter build. A firm of 2 to 5 attorneys lands between 9 and 18. Then 20 to 30 for a larger firm or several offices is a working rule of thumb, because past 5 attorneys the offices and jurisdictions drive the count more than the practice areas do.
Want this handled instead of DIY'd? See how a small firm's site is structured and priced.
A kitchen with one junk drawer and a kitchen with forty labeled drawers fail the cook the same way: the layout has stopped matching what you reach for. Page counts work like that.
The formula
Core pages (4). Home, about the firm, contact, and 1 page for fees or what the first consultation involves. These 4 pages apply whatever the size of the firm.
One page per attorney. A real page at a real address, with its own link, rather than a name inside an accordion on a shared team page. People search names, referral partners need a single link to send, and when an attorney leaves a bio at its own address is easy to redirect. A solo has 1. A 4-attorney firm has 4.
One page per practice area you actually want more of. If you take modifications but would rather not, that is a paragraph on the divorce page and not a page of its own. The family law list is short enough to write out in full: divorce, custody and parenting time, child support, spousal support, property division, modifications and enforcement, uncontested or agreed divorce. Pick the ones you want the phone to ring about.
0 to 3 resource pages. A questions page, a "what to bring to your first meeting" page, a page explaining your process step by step. Decide after you read the section on the 4 pages below, because that is where the pages a client actually uses live.
| Firm | The addition | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Solo, 3 practice areas | 4 core + 1 attorney + 3 areas | 8 |
| Same solo, about folded into the bio, fee line on the home page | 2 + 1 + 3 | 6 |
| Same solo, plus 2 resource pages | 4 + 1 + 3 + 2 | 10 |
| 2 attorneys, 3 practice areas | 4 + 2 + 3 | 9 |
| 3 attorneys, 4 areas, 1 resource page | 4 + 3 + 4 + 1 | 12 |
| 4 attorneys, 6 areas, 2 resource pages | 4 + 4 + 6 + 2 | 16 |
| 5 attorneys, 6 areas, 3 resource pages | 4 + 5 + 6 + 3 | 18 |
Every row is the same 4 numbers moving around. That is the whole site.
If you are a solo, websites for solo family law attorneys covers the build at that size. At 2 to 5 attorneys, the bio and practice area architecture is the part worth getting right on the first pass: websites for family law firms of two to five attorneys.
The test for whether something is a page
The bloat in this industry has a signature look. A firm decides it needs to cover custody and ends up with "child custody lawyer," "custody and parenting time," "child custody attorney services," and "custody help," 4 pages saying the same thing in a different order. The firm now maintains 4 pages where it needed 1.
Which words a page should use, and which towns deserve their own pages, are search questions and belong to my sister site, DivorceSEO.com.
Every page is a recurring obligation
Here is the cost nobody quotes you. A page is a small standing commitment to keep something true.
Fees change. An attorney gets a new admission. A statute changes and a page describing the old position is now wrong on your own website, under your own name, where a prospective client is reading it.
A stale page does more damage than a missing one. A visitor who cannot find information about spousal support on your site simply calls to ask. A visitor who finds a page with a filing fee from 4 years ago has learned how closely the firm watches its own details.
A stale page does more damage than a missing one.
So the honest way to choose a page count is to ask how many pages the practice can keep true. If that number is smaller than the number a vendor proposed, the smaller number wins.
The blog question
Launch with a blog only if a specific person has already committed to writing it.
The reasoning is arithmetic. A blog is only an asset while somebody writes it, and in a small firm the people who can write credibly about family law are the same people whose hours are the revenue. Run the schedule forward before you commit: 3 posts in launch month, 1 more around month 4, then the months where writing loses to a trial calendar. 18 months later the site's most prominent date stamp says when the firm stopped paying attention.
Extend a questions page instead. Every question you answer twice in a week is a question your website should answer. Adding a paragraph to an existing page carries no date stamp and improves as it grows.
Or commit properly. If somebody in the practice genuinely will write 1 post a month, a blog earns its place and I will build you a good one. A blog added later is easy; a blog abandoned in public is not.
The 4 pages that are easy to leave out
A fee page. Even a range. Even a line like "consultations are $250 for 1 hour, and uncontested matters run between X and Y," with your own figures in place of that illustrative one. Put yourself on the other side of the screen: if you cannot tell whether the phone call itself will cost money, closing the tab is the safe move. You do not have to publish a full schedule. You do have to answer the question. Whether and how a fee may be advertised varies by state and province, so check with your own bar counsel before the figures go live.
A "what happens on the first call" page. How long it takes, who they will speak to, what you will ask, what they should have handy, and what happens after. Your reader has probably never hired a lawyer for anything, and what stops them is uncertainty about what they are walking into. A page that describes the call removes it. What to ask on that call: a divorce lawyer's website intake form.
A "what to bring" page. Easy to write once, and it doubles as a link you can send before an appointment, which quietly makes the appointment better.
A page for the uncontested or agreed matter. A different buyer and a simpler engagement, easy to leave off because it feels less prestigious than the litigated work. Write it knowing 2 people may be reading the same page, sometimes over the same shoulder.
What a September 2026 sample of sitemaps shows
On 2026-09-21 the public sitemaps of 45 family law firm sites, 34 in the US and 11 in Canada, were counted for this site. The firms came from page one of web searches, 2 or 3 per city, so the sample leans toward firms that already invest in search, and sites behind bot protection were dropped. It is not a random sample, and the counts describe these sites, not the industry. Of the 45, 37 loaded and 35 published a readable sitemap, across 21 states and provinces.
Counting only the addresses that are not blog posts, half of the 35 list 29 pages or more. The middle half runs from about 19 to about 110, the smallest lists 1 and the largest lists 425. Eight of the 35 list 18 pages or fewer, inside the bands above, and 9 list more than 100.
A sitemap lists everything a firm chooses to publish, town pages and the 4 custody pages from the section above included. The bands in this guide count what a reader needs, so they sit lower.
The 4 pages above were checked by looking for words like fee, consultation, prepare and uncontested in each address.
| Page type, judged from the address alone | Sites showing one | Sites showing none |
|---|---|---|
| Fee or cost | 11 | 24 of 35 (69%) |
| Consultation or what to expect | 11 | 24 of 35 (69%) |
| What to bring or how to prepare | 7 | 28 of 35 (80%) |
| Uncontested, simple or flat fee | 12 | 23 of 35 (66%) |
Five of the 35 showed all 4 and 15 (43%) showed none. The address test misses a fee section inside another page, or a page under an unusual address, so the real number of missing pages can only be lower, not higher.
Count your own site
If you already have a site, this is the whole exercise. Steps 3 and 4 take the longest.
- List what you have. Every page in your menu, then every page you can only reach from inside another page. The second list is the one to watch.
- Run the one-sentence test on each. What question does this page answer that no other page answers? Write the sentence out. If it will not come, mark that page to be merged.
- Check every number. Fees, filing fees, office hours, admissions, anything with a date attached. Confirm each one is still true today, or fix it before you do anything else here.
- Write down what you were asked twice. The questions you answered twice on the phone this month. Any of those without a page is a page waiting to be written.
- Check the 4. Fee page, first call, what to bring, uncontested matter. Note which ones you do not have.
- Count what is left and compare against your size: 6 to 10 for a solo, 9 to 18 for 2 to 5 attorneys, 20 to 30 for a larger firm.
If the list comes out shorter than it went in, that is the exercise doing its job.
If you want a second opinion on the number you land on, email hello@divorcewebdesigner.com or use the contact page.
Common questions
Does a solo really need a separate attorney page when the home page already says who I am?
Yes, because the 2 pages do different jobs. The home page answers "what does this practice do for me," and the bio answers "who is this person," which is the page a referral partner links to and the page someone opens after hearing your name.
Can one questions page replace the fee, first-call and what-to-bring pages?
It can at launch, if each topic gets its own heading so the page can be linked to section by section. Split a topic out into its own page once its section runs past 1 screen on a phone, or once you find yourself sending that link on its own.
Should a family law firm launch with a blog?
Only if a named person has agreed to write it on a schedule before the site goes live. Adding a blog later is a small job that touches nothing else on the site, so deciding no today and yes in 12 months costs nothing.
How do I stop pages going stale?
Put a review date on every page that carries a number, and keep that list where the office manager can see it. Fees, filing fees, hours and admissions go on the list; bios and practice area pages can wait for an annual pass.
I run a mediation practice. Does the count change?
The 4 inputs are the same, but the practice area list is different (mediation, the collaborative process, parenting plans, and how mediation differs from litigation) and the first screen has to read as non-litigation. Mediation website design covers what changes.
How do I count my own site the way the sample was counted?
Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for a "Sitemap:" line, or try yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Count the addresses that are not blog posts and compare with the menu list from step 1. The gap is the pages you forgot you had.
Sample method: 45 family law firm sites (34 US, 11 Canada) found by web search on 2026-09-21; 37 loaded, 35 had a readable sitemap; page types inferred from address words; names not published, aggregate counts only.
Canadian? The same three sizes in Canadian dollars are on the CAD pricing page.