Case Study: Stevenson Whelton Law Firm Website

Client Background

About the client

A prestigious law firm headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Stevenson Whelton LLP provides legal services for corporate and commercial companies, as well as some personal injury and malpractice clientele.

A Toronto law firm with a staff of approximately 20
Provides commercial legal services across a wide range of industries
Recognized in 2026 with the Best Lawyers award
Recently renamed to Whelton-Hiutin Barristers

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Where We Started

The challenge

While it did serve as a basic point of presence online, the original website for Stevenson Whelton had some room for improvement. With the website being approximately three years old at the time, there were several areas in need of attention.

A monotone design, not fit to represent a top-tier Toronto law firm
Service offerings that lead to confusion as to their specialty
A less than optimal user experience on mobile devices
Ineffective calls to action that were not generating new business leads
A limited focus on search engine optimization (SEO)

How We Collaborated

Design process

With a major focus of this project being on enhancing the corporate look and feel, much time was dedicated to enhancing the colours palette for Stevenson Whelton. While the existing maroon from the company’s logo need ed to remain, Leaf Design looked at complementing it with an accent colour to help provide a more vibrant and fresh look to the website.

Our initial design was great from an organizational standpoint. However, after it was reviewed within the Stevenson-Whelton organization, it was felt that the design pushed the boundaries a bit past their comfort level. They liked the new turquoise colour, but felt it was too abundant for their corporate website.

As a result, the turquoise colour was dialled back to simply become an accent colour. This allowed the brand’s existing maroon colour to be more dominant, while still adding some freshness to the new design.

1. Original website

Prior to engaging with Leaf Design the Stevenson Whelton website was confusing to both their primary and secondary audiences.

2. Design brief

Creating a design brief helped focus the website to speak to the most relevant clients for Stevenson Whelton.

3. Initial concept

The first Home page concept provided some added vibrancy to the law firm’s corporate website.

4. Final design

Reducing the turquoise colour to an accent, the new Home page design took on a more formal tone.

The Results

Our solution

A conservative, yet professional design

The new website developed for Stevenson Whelton utilizes a more traditional main column plus sidebar layout for most of its pages. Having a more conservative client-base, the company did not want a design that was difficult for visitors to comprehend. Navigation was kept simple to ensure easy access to pages of the website, whether on a desktop or mobile browser.

Simplified content

Blocks of content were kept relatively client short and succinct. Where lengthier content was required, an easy to read typeface was used in the main column. To minimize clutter, imagery was kept to a minimum, only being used in black and white for the header backgrounds.

Highlighting the team

A major component of any legal website is the firm’s legal team. A main index page includes and ever-growing list of the firm’s lawyers. Clicking on any of the headshots will take a visitor through to a page that details page.

Along with complete contact information, the education, bar admissions, and areas of practice for each lawyer are contained within accordion-style tabs for easy access. A detailed biography of the lawyer, along with a collection of his or her most recent cases is included in the main content area. Finally, a sidebar menu allows quick access to other team member’s profiles.