Lawson Lundell LLP

Problem

Business law firm Lawson Lundell’s current information architecture was no longer meeting the needs of the organization or their visitors. Content was hard to find or repurpose, and relationships between attorneys, practice areas, and publications were unclear or minimal. The backend wasn’t the only issue: they also wanted a new look and feel, one that would not only enhance visual appeal but improve front-end navigation.  They needed to not only improve how their site looked, but tie its content together.

Following the project’s launch, Lawson would come to Duo to further improve their site’s functionality, this time through their search engine and resources.

Solutions

Duo migrated the existing site onto the eZ Publish platform, chosen for its unique, flexible content engine, ability to organize a variety of information, and powerful yet intuitive administration interface. Directories were rebuilt, and the necessary landing pages created. The migration added more comprehensive search engine marketing, levels of user permissions, and a contact form. This not only increased their web presence, but streamlined the way they made updates.

Although not the sole authors of the redesign, Duo worked with Lawson to finalize much of its rebranding, helping create a design that remained clean and simple while retaining the firm’s personality. No longer primarily text-based, the site was populated with images throughout, the homepage enhanced with Flash and Javascript.

During the project, the search engine was initially built using the out of the box eZ Publish. Duo and Lawson quickly realized that to fully realize the site’s potential, they needed to change the way the search worked. Utilizing eZ Find, an extension of eZ Publish, Duo was able to create a granular search engine that worked with multiple types of interrelated information.

Results

Lawson was extremely pleased with their site’s functionality and rebranding. Users are able to filter information by attorney, location, practice groups, and practice areas, specifying different combinations to quickly obtain answers from within a large pool of data.  They continue to work with Duo to customize their existing search engine, and are exploring expanding it into more sections.

This site was built using eZ Publish, an open source content management system developed by eZ Systems. eZ Publish is available for free download under the GPL license, as well as under proprietary licenses with commercial support.

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