We’re delighted to announce that we have been awarded two prestigious ‘Legal Standard of Excellence’ WebAwards in 2024.
These awards recognise our continued excellence in delivering innovative, user-friendly and visually appealing digital experiences for the legal sector. While we’ve previously been honoured with two WebAwards in 2022 and 2023 for website work for barristers’ chambers (Gatehouse Chambers and Cornerstone Barristers, respectively), these new accolades are for work outside the Bar: our website for law firm Blackfords LLP and the popular blog and membership site, Global Sanctions.
The WebAward wins highlight our ability to deliver targeted solutions for different clients an audiences in the legal sector.
The Blackfords LLP site is a classic corporate / law firm website, promoting their expertise and team profiles, demystifying the legal process and capturing leads.
Global Sanctions combines our expertise in building membership association websites with gated content, member fees and renewal payments, e-commerce and complex workflows together with extra features like superfast search, automated email digests and multi-lingual translations.
Both projects gave us an opportunity to demonstrate our flexibility, commitment to the highest web standards, and in-depth understanding of the legal sector’s digital requirements.
Blackfords LLP
elevating a law firm’s digital presence
Blackfords LLP is a leading law firm known for handling high-profile criminal and civil cases. Their website had to reflect their stature while remaining approachable, clear, and user-friendly. Our challenge was to deliver a modern, professional look that represented Blackfords’ prestigious reputation without losing accessibility for all visitors.
Key features of the project and site include:
- Elegant, professional design, including subtle animations and crisp typography, drawing attention to the people, offices and expertise of the firm.
- Lawyer profiles with text sections, related content, award logos, contact details and dynamic PDF versions.
- Multiple lead generation strategies: enquiry forms, calls-to-action, newsletter sign-ups and (coming soon) an AI-powered chatbot.
- Automated, embedded posts from their busy use of LinkedIn.
- Search engine optimisation strategies including landing pages, content and code optimisation, rich structured data and local SEO.
The Square Eye team has done a fantastic job in capturing the essence of Blackfords LLP, ensuring our site is both professional and accessible, allowing us to showcase our expertise and better connect with clients. The WebAward is a testament to the hard work, skill and dedication behind the website.
Global Sanctions
the go-to resource for international sanction coverage
The second WebAward in 2024 was for our work on Global Sanctions, a prominent legal blog and membership platform. We not only rebuilt their site, migrated their membership platform and payment provider, modernised their design and added many new features, but also handled their change of name and branding at the same time.
This project brought a unique set of challenges, including maintaining traffic levels and search engine rankings after a significant name change, a membership model for corporate and individual users, and ensuring the content-heavy site was easy to navigate and easily accessible by a global audience. The new site balances complex subject matter with a clear, engaging design.
Key features of the project and site include:
- Brand refresh and name change as the Sanctions team recognised their ever-expanding scope and audience;
- Gated content system: Free taster posts and thousands of detailed, archived articles available to paid members;
- Superfast search and filter interface;
- Powerful membership platform with payments, renewals, email workflows, corporate memberships, discounts and more;
- Updating an old tagging and related content system to one using modern best practices;
- A customised version of WordPress to make the lives of busy content editors as easy as possible;
- A clear, user-centric layout;
- Automated email alerts when new content is published, either in realtime or weekly digest form.
We’re delighted to have received the Legal Standard for Excellence web award for Global Sanctions. With Square Eye’s support, our website has been transformed significantly in the last 24 months. We remain the UK’s leading resource on sanctions and the design of our website has made it easier for users across the globe to access vital information in this important legal and foreign policy area.
Why these WebAwards matter (to us)
The WebAwards recognise websites that go beyond basic functionality to deliver superior user experiences, meet the highest standards of accessibility, and contribute meaningfully to their field. It is the longest-running annual website award competition, dedicated to naming the best websites in 96 industries. Judges include senior management, marketing and digital executives from companies like Microsoft, Yahoo!, The Kennedy Center, Warner Bros, Xerox, Adobe and many more.
Winning two WebAwards in 2024, after our previous successes in 2022 and 2023, showcases our versatility in adapting to different types of projects within the legal world: barristers’ chambers, law firms, membership associates and specialist blogs. These recent awards affirm our position as a leader in web design for the legal profession.
About the Web Marketing Association WebAwards
Since 1997, the Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAward Competition has been setting the standard of excellence for Website development. Only the best are recognised with a WebAward. The WebAward Competition is the premier award recognition program for Website developers and the online marketing community
