Where they started
The site had one services page listing eight practice areas as bullet points. Nothing on it distinguished Hartwell & Mercer from any other mid-sized litigation firm in Chicago, and their homepage headline was "Trusted advisors since 1994".
Partner bios ran two sentences. Law school, admission year, done. For a firm where the individual practitioner is the product, that's the most expensive omission on the site.
The intake problem was concrete and quantified. Their office manager tracked enquiries for a quarter before we started: 22% fell within their practice areas and above their minimum engagement. The rest were family law, personal injury, and traffic matters, each one costing somebody fifteen minutes to redirect.
The managing partner's stated reason for the vagueness was compliance — Illinois advertising rules restrict what a firm may claim. That's true, and it had been read far more broadly than it says.
What we built
Positioning came out of interviews with five partners about the matters they handle best and want more of. The answer was consistent and much narrower than the site: shareholder and partnership disputes in closely held companies, matters in the $2m–$20m range. Three of the eight listed practice areas were work they'd stopped seeking years earlier and hadn't removed.
Each real practice area got its own page, built around what prospects search and the questions they ask on a first call. What does a shareholder dispute cost. How long does it take. What happens if there's an arbitration clause. Answering those before the call is the whole mechanism.
On compliance, we drafted specific and let their reviewer cut. Illinois rules prohibit guarantees, superlatives, and comparative claims — they don't prohibit describing your work. "We handle shareholder disputes in closely held companies, typically $2m to $20m in dispute" clears review comfortably. Their compliance partner changed nine phrases across roughly 9,000 words.
Intake became structured: matter type, jurisdiction, opposing party for a conflicts pre-check, and timing, routed to the right partner. It's a longer form than a contact page usually gets away with, and for a high-value low-volume practice the length is a filter rather than a cost.