DS Attorneys is a commercial law firm in Pretoria, led by its director, Dondré Samuels. The practice covers commercial and civil disputes, dispute resolution, construction law, ICT and technology law, and commercial contracts. The firm had the clients and the track record. What it did not have was a website a prospective client could find, read on a phone, and act on.

What the firm needed

A credible online presence that loads quickly, reads properly on a small screen, and makes it easy to start a conversation. The firm also wanted to publish its own legal commentary later, without paying someone every time a paragraph changes.

What we built

  • A website on the firm's own domain, attds.co.za, built around its branding and its five practice areas.
  • A valid TLS certificate with HTTPS enforced across the site, so visitors get the padlock and nothing is served over plain HTTP.
  • The firm's existing email left running throughout. We moved the site without touching the MX records, so no mail was lost during the cut-over.
  • A WhatsApp button that opens a chat in one tap, which is how most South African clients prefer to make first contact.
  • A mobile-first layout, including a navigation menu that works on the small screens most of the traffic comes from.
  • An Insights section for the firm's own commentary. The editor behind it is being set up so the firm can publish without going through a developer.

The thinking behind it

For a professional-services firm the website is the first filter. A visitor decides whether the practice looks current and trustworthy long before reading the copy, and a slow or insecure site loses them at that point.

The parts that took the most care were not the visual ones. Keeping live mailboxes working through a domain change, and getting the certificate and redirects right the first time, is where this kind of project usually goes wrong.

The Insights section matters for a different reason. Every article the firm publishes answers a real client question and adds another page a search engine can index. That only works if the firm can publish on its own, so the editor is part of the handover rather than something we hold on to.

If your firm needs the same, book a discovery call.