Hartley Quinn Australia - law firm website design for a Sydney-led practice

Hartley Quinn is a 230-lawyer firm across five Australian offices, from Sydney to Perth. Same twelve-template system as every Hartley Quinn edition, but Australian through and through: Pty Ltd with an ABN, Sydney as the founding office, ASX 200 clients, ASIC and the Federal Court, and a Privacy Policy under the Privacy Act 1988.

Project facts

• Client: Hartley Quinn Pty Ltd (fictional)
• Sector: Legal services
• Markets: Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth
• Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Law firm website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
• Templates: 12 page templates shared with every Hartley Quinn edition
• Stack: Hand-built HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript; one strings file and one theme file per market

The brief

Australian legal language, not American with sunshine

Australia inherits British spelling, but its legal vocabulary is its own: Pty Ltd not LLP, ASIC not the SEC, Federal Court not federal court, NSW not Delaware, ATO not the IRS. The firm's story moves from a New York founding to a Sydney one in 1987, and the office network becomes five Australian cities rather than five US ones.

Designing for Australia

What actually changed between the US and this edition

• Entity - US edition: Hartley Quinn LLP · Australia: Hartley Quinn Pty Ltd
• HQ - US edition: New York · Australia: Sydney (Surry Hills)
• Offices - US edition: New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, Boston · Australia: Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth
• Clients - US edition: Fortune 500 · Australia: ASX 200
• Regulators - US edition: SEC, IRS, Delaware, federal and state courts · Australia: ASIC, ATO, NSW, Federal Court of Australia and state Supreme Courts
• Contact - US edition: +1 (212) 555-0148 · Australia: +61 (02) 5550 0148
• Legal - US edition: Privacy Policy, Legal Advertising · Australia: Privacy Policy (Privacy Act 1988), Legal Advertising
• Footer - US edition: LLP, New York address · Australia: Pty Ltd, Surry Hills address, ABN, Acknowledgement of Country
• Look - US edition: Warm paper, deep ink navy, brass, Fraunces + Work Sans · Australia: Sun-bleached paper, deep green ink, ochre accent, Gambetta + General Sans, 2px radii

Brand adaptation

The same Hartley Quinn, with a local accent

The palette turns sun-bleached and outdoorsy: paper #FBFAF6, ink #1A2420, accent ochre #8b5b28, with a soft green paper-dim for panels. Gambetta (a warm serif) replaces Fraunces for headlines, and General Sans replaces Work Sans for body and UI. Corner radii drop to 2px, giving the system a crisper, more open feel. The descriptor stays Pty Ltd.

Homepage and key journeys

A panoramic Sydney skyline leads into Hartley Quinn Pty Ltd and a statement about advising founders, boards and institutional investors across five Australian offices. The stats split reads 230+ Lawyers / 5 Offices, the practice grid covers Corporate & Finance, Disputes & Regulatory and Industries, and the dark testimonial band quotes a General Counsel at an ASX 200 technology company. The people preview shows partners in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The most distinctive flow is the Australian Offices section: five city cards (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth) that open into office detail pages with local leadership, a Chambers Asia-Pacific quote and office-specific news.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

• Privacy Policy under the Privacy Act 1988, with the OAIC complaint route and Spam Act consent for marketing.
• Legal Advertising notice under Australian professional conduct rules.
• Footer: Pty Ltd, demo ABN and an Acknowledgement of Country.
• Passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on every page at 360, 390, 768 and 1440 px: no contrast failures, no unreachable controls, no horizontal scrolling.
• A language switcher built from hreflang sits in the header on desktop and in the footer on phones.

One system, twelve markets

Every visible string lives in one file per market, and every colour and typeface in one theme file. This edition needed no new templates or components: a strings file, a theme, regional photography and local legal content made it a different brand experience. For a law firm with international plans, a new market becomes a content project rather than a rebuild.

Deliverables

• Market profile: language, formats, legal and seasonality
• Full localised copy across 12 templates, header, footer and forms
• Brand adaptation: palette, type pairing and logo descriptor
• 28 regional photographs (Pexels, credited in credits.json)
• Local legal content
• Accessibility pass (WCAG 2.2 AA, automated) and QA at four screen widths
• Portfolio media: stills, full-page captures, scroll video, OG image, brand board