Leonard, Street and Deinard

Leonard, Street and Deinard’s inspiration and values have held true since 1922. Whether representing an individual, a start-up company or a Fortune 500 corporation, the Minneapolis law firm works to understand client needs, stay focused on goals, and provide wise counsel and practical advice.

Problem

Leonard Street & Deinard sought to use their website more strategically. Seeking more effective ways to present the value they provide clients, they did not feel they had the tools they needed with their present web content management system. Other issues with the site existed as well:

• The current design and setup did not reflect their strong legal knowledge base and tradition of responsive, trusted service.
• Individual sections were not adequately called out, lacking the images and visual details that would best convey their themes.
• Content was scattered throughout the website, difficult to find and did not have a sense of consistency or cohesion. The way their categories, biographies and articles were set up isolated information, rather than tying it to the other resources behind them.

Solutions

Leonard moved beyond the proven & reliable ways of presenting law firm content organized by biographies, industries and practice areas. The social Drupal content management system permitted the firm to “tag” all content permitting them to create pages about any issue or topic.

For example, they created a page about issues associated with the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission and brought together a single FERC Topic page that includes all related content including Alerts, attorney bios, news, industries and practice areas.

Duo’s design team brought the site through a full re-design with new information architecture; creating a layout that highlighted key areas and illustrated a sense of confidence without detracting from the information.

Results

Using Drupal’s Views, Blocks and Modules, Duo’s developers created a system that made possible the efficient addition of articles, images, and biographies in various formats and locations throughout the site. Visitors have a variety of ways to locate and filter content. Beyond these basic improvements, site managers were given the ability to associate different types of content with practice areas and industries: for example, viewing an attorney’s biography, one could easily access any resources they had authored or were mentioned. Likewise, while viewing an article or news update, the authors and/or attorneys mentioned as well as categories associated with it appear as visible links. The benefits did not stop with the backend: pages were arranged in a way that allowed viewers to interpret multiple sources of information without feeling cramped or overloaded. The site’s aesthetic was enhanced with dynamic images and a clean, professional look.

Leonard recognizes that their site is a tool keeping the firm on the cutting edge of technology and online practices, and because of this plans to further expand its functionality.