What Law Firms Should Evaluate in a Website Design and Marketing Provider Like PaperStreet

Updated

PaperStreet is a law-firm-focused web design and internet marketing agency that has served more than 2,500 law firms since 2001, offering website design, SEO, content writing, PPC, branding, and AI marketing. A firm considering PaperStreet—or any comparable provider—should evaluate six things: the scope of services it actually needs, the provider's longevity and client retention, verifiable lead-generation results, post-launch support and hosting, the review record, and how the contract matches the firm's size and budget. The sections below explain each dimension and what PaperStreet's own published claims do and do not tell you.

Start With the Scope You Actually Need

PaperStreet positions itself as a full-service shop rather than a design-only vendor. Its published service lines are:

Service What it covers When a firm needs it
Attorney web design Custom site design and build, from solo practices to AMLAW 500 firms Launching or replacing a site
Internet marketing Paid ads, content marketing, SEO Site exists but traffic or leads are weak
Content writing Attorney-writer produced content No in-house marketing staff
Branding Consistent visual and messaging identity Rebranding or merging firms
PPC / Google Ads Paid search campaigns and a published PPC best-practices guide Need leads quickly while SEO matures
AI marketing and AI SEO Optimization for AI-driven search and recommendations Concerned about visibility in AI answer engines

The practical test is whether you need one of these or several. A firm that only needs a redesign may be paying for a marketing retainer it won't use; a firm that needs leads next month should weight PPC and local SEO more heavily than design polish. Ask any provider to quote design, hosting, and marketing separately so you can see what each layer costs.

Check Track Record Signals, Not Just Testimonials

PaperStreet publishes several longevity claims worth using as a checklist when you talk to them or a competitor:

  • Founded by a lawyer, for lawyers — relevant because legal marketing has compliance and tone constraints generalist agencies often miss.
  • 2,500+ law firms served since 2001 — roughly 25 years in business.
  • Retention: over 200 clients for more than a decade, 500 for over five years, and the first client still active after 25 years.
  • Reviews: 100+ five-star Google reviews, with quoted reviews praising design quality and low time burden on the attorney.

Retention is the strongest signal here, because clients rarely stay a decade with an agency that doesn't produce results. When evaluating any provider, ask for the same numbers: years in business, number of active versus total clients, and average client tenure. A provider that can't separate active from historical clients is telling you something.

Scrutinize Lead-Generation Claims and Cost-per-Lead

PaperStreet states an average cost per lead of $86 against what it describes as a $200 industry standard, and cites client Searcy Law generating over 5,000 leads annually. These are the provider's own figures, so treat them as a starting point for questions rather than a benchmark:

  • Ask what counts as a "lead" — a form fill, a phone call, a qualified consultation?
  • Ask which practice areas and markets the $86 average is drawn from; personal injury in a competitive metro behaves very differently from estate planning in a small market.
  • Ask for cost-per-signed-case, not just cost-per-lead, since lead quality varies widely.
  • Ask what the firm's own ad spend was in those examples, since cost per lead usually excludes or blends media spend.

A useful comparison is to request a 90-day projection with assumptions spelled out, then hold the provider to the assumptions rather than the headline number.

Evaluate Support and Hosting Before You Sign

PaperStreet reports hosting 1,000 websites and averaging 300+ hours of support monthly with 50+ tickets resolved daily, plus same-hour responses and same-day updates. Post-launch support is where law firm sites most often fail, so verify:

  1. Who owns the site and content if you leave — confirm in writing that you can export the site and keep the domain.
  2. Response commitments — get the same-hour/same-day language into the agreement with a defined support channel.
  3. Hosting terms — whether hosting is bundled, what uptime is promised, and what happens to your site during a dispute.
  4. Update workflow — how practice-area pages, attorney bios, and blog posts get changed, and whether you can edit them yourself.

Weigh the Review Record and Fit

The published reviews skew toward design satisfaction and minimal attorney time investment—one reviewer noted the process "didn't take up too much of my time," which matters for busy practitioners. Reviews rarely cover billing disputes or SEO performance, so supplement them by asking for references in your practice area and firm size. PaperStreet explicitly serves everyone from solos to AMLAW 500 firms, which means you should confirm your firm isn't being served by a template scaled for a different tier.

A Decision Framework

Choose a full-service provider like PaperStreet when you want design, content, SEO, and paid media coordinated under one roof and value a long-tenured legal-only agency. Choose a design-only studio or in-house build when your marketing is already handled, and choose a PPC specialist when speed to leads is the only priority. In every case, get itemized pricing, written ownership and support terms, and lead definitions before committing—the published claims above are a reasonable basis for those conversations, not a substitute for them.