Even experienced CMOs and marketing directors can feel a little anxious before a major website project, especially if the last redesign was painful. The anxiety often comes from unanswered questions, such as:

• Should we also redesign the logo?
• Do we need a tagline?
• How much should we budget for photography and video?
• What content needs to be rewritten?
• What will the technology integrations really cost?
• How do we keep difficult stakeholders from derailing the process?
• Are we choosing the right web design partner?

When questions like these are still unresolved, jumping straight into a full redesign can be risky. However, there’s another option: start with a pre-project planning phase.

Start With a Plan

A pre-project planning phase gives your firm a way to define scope, clarify priorities, estimate costs, and build internal alignment before committing to a full redesign.

It means working with an agency to answer the big questions before the major budget, design, and development decisions are made. The result is a clearer path forward with far fewer surprises.

Case Study: A 600-lawyer Firm

A sizable law firm came to Great Jakes to discuss a website redesign. The need was obvious. Their existing site was outdated, difficult to manage, and no longer reflected the firm they had become.

But the project felt overwhelming.

Lots of Open Questions
The firm had ambitious goals, but the scope was fuzzy. They also had a long list of practical questions:

• Is a foreign-language site still necessary in the era of AI translation?
• Is it a good idea to feed data into the website from external systems?
• The current website integrates with eight external systems. Should all of them be carried over?
• How much content needs to be rewritten?
• Who would be responsible for the work?

The redesign felt big, complicated, and hard to budget for because the firm did not yet know what it actually needed. So we recommended that the firm separate the work into two related but distinct projects.

• Project 1: Planning & Budgeting.
• Project 2: Design & Implementation.

Here’s what that looked like.

Project 1 – Website Planning & Budgeting 

The first project was designed to help the firm work through its open questions, define the scope, and establish a realistic budget.

Importantly, this was a standalone engagement. The firm had not yet committed to the full redesign. It also had not committed to working with Great Jakes on Project 2, which meant that they had a way to evaluate us as a partner before making a larger commitment.

By the end of the planning project, the firm would have a clear blueprint for the full design and development effort, including answers to three big questions:

• What should the new website include?
• What resources would the firm need to dedicate to the project?

To get there, we led the firm through discovery and strategy work with both the marketing and technology teams. The deliverables included:

Strategic Recommendations
By the end of Project 1, we had helped the firm reach consensus on the key aspects of the new website, including:

• Core messages and themes
• Supporting content to be developed
• Website structure and navigation
• Key features and functionality
• Broad design direction

Wireframes
We also developed wireframes for key pages of the site to show how the recommendations would come to life.

They illustrated the navigation, page structures, content relationships, and technical components. For many stakeholders, this was the first time the vision for the new site felt tangible.

Detailed Cost Breakdowns
Because the scope was being defined early, we were able to estimate costs for items that are often left vague until much later, including photography, animation, iconography, and integrations.

For the integrations, we also developed detailed specifications so that costs could be estimated accurately rather than guessed.

A Realistic Timeline
Once the scope was clear, the timeline became much easier to understand.

The firm could see which parts of the project would be most complex, which would take the most time, and where internal resources would be needed.

By the end of the planning phase, the marketing team was ready to present a clear plan and budget to the firm’s management committee. More importantly, leadership had the information it needed to move forward with confidence.

Project 2 – Design & Implementation 

Once the plan was completed—and approved by firm management—the full redesign proceeded much more smoothly.

The firm had already worked through the big questions around scope, budget, functionality, content, and technology. That meant fewer surprises, fewer late-stage disagreements, and a clearer path through design and development.

The pause between the two projects also gave stakeholders time to absorb the recommendations, spread costs over a longer period, and plan internal resources more effectively.

Could This Work for Smaller Firms?

For our 600-lawyer client, separating planning from design and implementation turned a daunting project into something more manageable.

But does the same approach make sense for smaller firms with less complex website needs?

Yes.

In fact, we’re currently using this approach with a firm of roughly 60 attorneys. They don’t have nearly the same number of technical integrations or functionality requirements, but many of the challenges are similar: fresh ideas, uncertainty about how those ideas should translate into a modern website, and real concerns about cost.

Starting with a planning project gives the firm’s leadership team room to explore options before committing to a full redesign.

And just as important, it provides an exit ramp.

By scoping the full project before moving into design and development, the firm can step back, review the costs, and make sure the plan feels right before moving forward. Also, having worked with us for a few months, they can better evaluate whether we’re the right partner to actually design and build the site.

If you’d like to learn more about the planning phase of a law firm website project, we explore this concept in greater detail in our article “No-Drama Web Design, Part 1.”