Case № 19
Real counsel.
Phillips Lytle is a 185-year-old multinational firm in the top-200 American law firms tier. I led the digital brand refresh, the custom website, and the publishing tool overhaul that took 3,500 pages of content into the modern era.
Top-200 American law firm website redesign.
Phillips Lytle LLP is one of the most established law firms in North America, with offices across the continental United States and Canada and a 185-year history. They are a top-200 American law firm by revenue, and they came to me to lead a complete digital brand refresh after running their previous website for more than 20 years.
This was a multi-stakeholder enterprise engagement. I worked directly with Chief Marketing Officer Rebecca Farbo and more than fifteen project stakeholders inside the firm, alongside the firm's external advertising agency and an in-house web designer. The work spanned digital brand strategy, a custom user interface across more than 20 unique page templates, a custom WordPress build that handles 3,500-plus pages, search optimization woven through every phase, and a content strategy and publishing tool training that gave the marketing team full control of the site on day one.
Rebecca's summary of the engagement: "The responsiveness was truly second to none. He was always extremely accommodating and always offered solutions to our questions and challenges along the way." That is the standard for an enterprise-tier law firm rebuild.
What was broken.
Phillips Lytle had three structural problems. The website had aged out after more than 20 years of incremental updates. The publishing tool could not keep up with a marketing team publishing articles, announcements, webinars, and attorney news on a near-daily cadence. And the site had to support a 3,500-plus page content library across practices, industries, attorneys, offices, insights, and firm news without the structure collapsing under its own weight.
The brand also needed to grow up. A 185-year-old firm with offices across the continental United States and Canada cannot ship a website that reads like a two-decade-old template. The visual language had to project the seniority, the depth of expertise, and the modernization the firm was actually delivering to clients. Every pixel on the screen had to earn its place.
The stakeholder map was complex on its own. Fifteen-plus stakeholders inside the firm, an external advertising agency, an in-house web designer, and the attorneys themselves who needed to understand the technical reasoning behind every architectural decision. The engagement needed clear project management, calm explanations, and a process that kept everyone aligned across legal, marketing, and IT.
How it got fixed.
I started with a discovery phase that anchored the entire project. Stakeholder interviews with the marketing team and key partners, in-depth analytics review of the existing site, competitive research across the top-200 American law firms tier, and a full content audit alongside Rebecca Farbo and her team. The output was a strategic plan that told us not just what the website should look like, but how the publishing tool should behave, where the search optimization gains were sitting, and which content models needed to be invented from scratch. The plan also mapped the editorial workflow so the publishing tool I built later actually fit how the marketing team writes, edits, approves, and publishes content day to day.
From strategy I went into the sitemap and the wireframes. I designed the navigation around the firm's three primary content jobs (find an attorney, understand a practice or industry, read recent thought leadership) and used an interactive prototyping tool so stakeholders could click through wireframes in context before any visual design started. That cut down on revisions later and gave the attorneys a way to interrogate the structure before we put a brand on it. The wireframe phase also surfaced the cross-link relationships that would later define the editorial automations between attorneys, practices, industries, and insights.
The creative phase brought the new digital brand to life across more than 20 unique page templates. I designed in both desktop and mobile from day one and presented every page in context. The custom WordPress build came alongside the design, with Advanced Custom Fields used to give the marketing team granular control of every page type. One of the most useful additions was a direct-to-PDF and direct-to-DOC export tool on attorney profiles and thought-leadership pages, which turns every page on the site into a marketing asset the team can hand a prospective client. Search optimization was wired into every layer (architecture, templates, page metadata, content models) so the marketing team's day-to-day publishing inherits the strategy automatically rather than depending on someone remembering to apply it page by page.
Discovery with 15-plus stakeholders
I ran working sessions with the marketing team, the external ad agency, the firm's in-house web designer, and key partners. The output was a strategic plan that fed every downstream decision and kept the attorneys aligned on the technical reasoning behind each architectural choice.
Information architecture for 3,500-plus pages
The new sitemap centers on three primary content jobs: find an attorney, understand a practice or industry, read recent thought leadership. Every supporting section (offices, careers, firm news) lives behind those three so the structure stays scannable even at scale.
Custom user interface with 20-plus unique templates
I designed more than 20 unique page templates so the firm can present attorneys, practices, industries, insights, case studies, news, and events with formats built for each content type. Every pixel on the screen earns its place.
Custom WordPress publishing tool
I built the backend on WordPress with Advanced Custom Fields so the marketing team has granular control over every page type. Direct-to-PDF and direct-to-DOC export tools turn attorney profiles and thought-leadership pages into instant marketing assets the firm can hand a client.
Search optimization woven into every phase
Search optimization was not a post-launch task. It was built into the discovery, the architecture, the templates, the page metadata system, and the content strategy. The marketing team got a search-friendly publishing tool with the strategy already encoded into the templates.
What I actually shipped.
Not a services list. The real work streams, in the order I ran them.
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№ 01
Discovery and digital brand strategy
Working sessions with Rebecca Farbo, 15-plus internal stakeholders, the external advertising agency, and the firm's in-house web designer. Output was a strategic plan that fed every architectural and creative decision.
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№ 02
Sitemap and information architecture
A new sitemap built around the firm's three primary content jobs (find an attorney, understand a practice or industry, read recent thought leadership), with cross-links between content models and analytics-driven fixes for every drop-off point.
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№ 03
Wireframe and user experience design
Interactive wireframes for every unique page template, presented in a prototyping tool so partners and marketing could review in context before visual design started.
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№ 04
Responsive user interface design
20-plus unique page templates designed in both desktop and mobile from day one, anchored on a digital brand language built specifically for the seniority of a 185-year-old multinational firm.
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№ 05
Custom WordPress build with Advanced Custom Fields
A custom publishing tool with template-level control for the marketing team, content automations between attorneys, practices, industries, and insights, and a direct-to-PDF and direct-to-DOC export tool on profile and thought-leadership pages.
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№ 06
Publishing tool training and post-launch support
Recorded live training session covering the full publishing tool and the search optimization framework, plus a 60-day complimentary aftercare period with monitoring, security updates, and health checks.
What shipped.
The Phillips Lytle homepage, in the browser.
Direct-to-PDF export on every attorney profile.
A century of practice, one digital home.
Nick was a true pleasure to work with. He offered amazing project management and always offering creative ways to solve challenges with a very confident demeanor that was important in explaining technical reasoning to the attorneys. He was also was very collaborative and worked so well with our ad agency and our own web designer. The responsiveness was truly second to none. He was always extremely accommodating and always offered solutions to our questions and challenges along the way.
Where it landed.
The new website launched and now sits as the firm's primary digital marketing platform. Phillips Lytle has a brand presence that matches the seniority of a 185-year-old multinational practice, a publishing tool the marketing team controls without designer involvement, and a structure that scales gracefully across thousands of pages.
Rebecca Farbo (Chief Marketing Officer) summarized the engagement clearly: "He offered amazing project management and always offering creative ways to solve challenges with a very confident demeanor that was important in explaining technical reasoning to the attorneys. The responsiveness was truly second to none." Across an enterprise rebuild with 15-plus stakeholders, an external ad agency, and an in-house web designer, that is the outcome that matters. The work shipped, the team trusts it, and the platform supports the firm's growth.
The direct-to-PDF and direct-to-DOC export tool I built on attorney profiles and thought-leadership pages turned out to be one of the most-used features post-launch. Every attorney page is a downloadable bio, every insight is a downloadable article, and the marketing team can pull them on demand for pitches.
More from the book.
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