McSorley Lewis Solicitors · Splott, East Cardiff · website rebuild
I rebuild small-business sites in my spare time when I can see they are leaving conversions on the table.
Ten minutes on the live mcsorleylewis.co.uk on a phone surfaced three things that stood out for a criminal-defence specialist.
Three findings below, then a working rebuild you can click through at /preview/.
What I sawThe homepage at mcsorleylewis.co.uk runs on the Greatives Blade theme with WPBakery / Visual Composer, with at least seven render-blocking CSS files and an un-optimised hero JPG served as a CSS background-image (no responsive srcset, no lazy load). The hero slider still carries placeholder template imagery alongside the firm logo. A first-time visitor searching "criminal solicitor Cardiff" in the back of a police-station waiting room is being asked to wait several seconds for a slider that does not even feature the firm.
What the rebuild doesAfter rebuild: an Astro static site on Vercel. Court-navy and oxblood palette sampled from the firm logo. Hero block, above the fold, naming the firm, the practice area (criminal defence), the location (41 Splott Road, Splott), and the 24-hour emergency line. Readable in the first second of the page, on a phone, in the back of a custody-suite waiting room.
What I sawThe homepage repeats the "Get In Touch" / "Get a Free Consultation" call-to-action three times across header strip, mid-page banner, and pre-footer block. Each one points at the same contact page, with the same generic copy. This is the fingerprint of a drag-and-drop builder where every section was assembled from the same library card and never edited for the brief. A criminal-defence client is not after a "free consultation"; they are after a duty solicitor at the police station tonight.
What the rebuild doesAfter rebuild: one above-the-fold call to action that names the action correctly. The 24-hour emergency line at 07969 487978 is the primary CTA, surfaced as a tel: link with a custody-suite-icon SVG. A separate "office hours" enquiry path for non-urgent matters. The trichotomy criminal defence actually has (police station, magistrates, Crown Court) is reflected in the service grid, not in three copies of the same banner.
What I sawThe firm holds the Law Society Lexcel quality mark (audited annually, covering client care, file management, supervision) and Cyber Essentials certification (NCSC scheme, particularly load-bearing for a criminal-defence firm holding privileged material). Both are real accreditations a generalist competitor down the road probably does not have. The footer reads "© Declan McSorley & Jon Lewis Solicitors 2010 to 2025. All rights registered." The site itself is contradicting the trust signals it is asking for, because today is May 2026.
What the rebuild doesAfter rebuild: Lexcel and Cyber Essentials surfaced as named credentials in a dedicated trust strip, not template badges. The footer year is generated at build time, not hard-coded. LegalService and Organization JSON-LD schema with the SRA number 592471, the Companies House number 07982440, the Lexcel and Cyber Essentials accreditations, the address at 41 Splott Road, and the 24-hour emergency line, so Google Search and AI Overview can read the credentials as structured data rather than body text under an out-of-date copyright.
No retainer. No contract. No in-person visits, fully remote from Switzerland.
If the proposal lands, reply with two or three 20-minute slots in the next ten days for a video call. I take on three Cardiff builds this quarter, and first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 28 May 2026, the proposal site comes down.
A working preview you can click through · opens in a new tab