Burkhalter Attorneys
Brand Evolution
Website Relaunch
Legal expertise. With a human touch.
Burkhalter Attorneys has over 100 years of legal expertise, offices in Bern, Zurich and Lausanne, and three languages. Online, it read like a list of practice areas, so clients who are not lawyers could not tell where they fit.
I led the brand evolution and website relaunch at TBS. We kept what people already recognise, rebuilt the expertise around six industry sectors and moved the site to WordPress with a full content migration. Eight months after launch: 858 organic clicks and 26.7k search impressions in September 2026.
Role: Project lead, UX analysis, Brand design, Digital design
Launch: January 2026
Agency: TBS Agency
Visit the live website
858organic clicks in September 2026 26.7ksearch impressions in September 2026 6industry sectors replace the practice area list
Problem and hypothesis
Over 100 years of legal expertise across three offices and three languages read online like a list of practice areas. Lawyers think in disciplines. Clients think in their industry and their problem. They had to know the legal term before they could find the right lawyer.
Hypothesis: if expertise is rebuilt around six industry sectors and the platform is ready for search and editorial content, non-experts find their entry faster and the firm becomes easier to find on Google.
What we kept
A relaunch invites a fresh start. We decided against it where recognition mattered: the existing blue stays, refined, because clients and the market already know it. Where we changed, we went precise. Two Swiss typefaces bring contrast, and photography of the firm’s villa and real working moments replaces abstraction.
A Liquid Glass design system adds clarity without decoration. Transparent layers, sharp edges and controlled depth reflect how the firm works: precise, calm and focused on outcomes.
Built to grow
WordPress with a full content migration, a multilingual structure and an editorial workflow based on Gutenberg. The firm publishes on its own, without technical complexity.
The architecture is ready for new sectors, offices and people, and it is set up for performance and SEO from the start.
Restructuring the expertise areas
Our UX analysis showed that a list of legal disciplines made the firm’s positioning hard to grasp for non-experts. I rebuilt the structure around six industry sectors. Visitors pick their context first and reach legal depth one click later.
Each sector has its own abstract imagery from its industry, so orientation works before anyone reads a line.
Results
Launch January 2026. In September 2026, drpb.ch had 858 organic clicks and 26.7k impressions in Google Search, 93% of the clicks from Switzerland.
The strongest queries are the firm’s name and its lawyers. After the homepage, the team page and the lawyer profiles get the most clicks. People search for the person they will trust with their case, and the site leads them there.
What’s next
Grow search beyond the name: sector pages and insights should rank for legal topics, not only for the firm. First signal: an insight on house raffles gained clicks in September. Next, track enquiries per sector to see which ones convert.