Comic Sans MS is a famous font known worldwide, but it would be a poor choice for many businesses – including legal practices.
Whether you see Comic Sans as groovy or tacky, the bottom line is that it fails to promote the credibility, authority and professionalism expected from law firms.
So, what are the best fonts for lawyers?
Below, we explore different font options for law firm websites, legal documents and logos.
We also discuss what to consider when choosing a font for your law firm and why your decision plays an important role in brand perception and performance.
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What To Consider When Choosing The Best Fonts For Lawyers
Before choosing your font, your law firm should consider factors like the visual identity you aim to portray and the font’s flexibility.
1. Type Of Font: Serif vs. Sans Serif
Your font style plays an important role in how your law firm is perceived. This is because it helps portray your brand personality, values and philosophy.
Consider the two of the main typefaces, Serif and Sans Serif, for example.
Serif fonts usually have decorative flourishes, or lines, added at the beginning and end of their letters – similar to old typewriters.
Choosing a Serif font, like Times New Roman, for your law firm is one way to drive associations of legacy, reliability and authority.
The extra lines also help visibility when font size is smaller.
Sans Serif fonts, like Arial and Helvetica, take a more modern approach by removing the lines to match today’s handwriting styles.
The minimal, fresh style can promote a more agile brand identity, while Sans Serif is also often favored on printed, large-scale branded collateral like signs and billboards.
2. Placement & Pairings
Whether on your website, marketing collateral or internal documents, you’ll likely need to choose more than one font for your law firm.
Considering complementary fonts is an important step in creating visually engaging materials with headings that stand out and don’t clash with your body text.
As Sans Serif fonts tend to suit smaller font sizes, consider using a font matching tool like Monotype to combine a Sans Serif body text with Serif headings.
Some proven partnerships that boost credibility for law firms include:
- Helvetica Neue and Garamond
- Montserrat and Courier New
- Raleway and Lato
3. Formatting
Your font won’t always be seen at face value.
When deciding which fonts are best for your law firm’s documents, website and marketing materials, keep in mind the font’s readability when in bold, italic and strikethrough.
Features like letter and line spacing are also important.
Before finalizing your font of choice, make sure to test its flexibility and aesthetics with as many different formatting styles as possible. You can do this on free tools like Google Fonts.
Results
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#1. Which description correctly describes a Serif font?
#2. Which description correctly describes a Sans Serif font?
Best Fonts For Law Firm Websites
The best fonts for law firm websites drive positive associations of credibility and trust for legal firms while producing an easy-to-use user experience (UX) on an engaging user interface (UI).
Here are the three top fonts to consider:
1. Open Sans
Open Sans is a neutral, approachable and friendly Sans Serif typeface.
It is one of the most popular fonts across industries. It’s featured in over 100 million websites worldwide and almost 25% of all law firm websites.
Open Sans is a common choice due to its optimization for web, mobile and print interfaces that ensure legibility across channels.
Slaughter and May, a multinational law firm headquartered in London, uses Open Sans for its website navigation items and body paragraph text.
The Open Sans font displays quality and authority through clarity, while its flexibility is essential for an international business with a global audience that uses many different channels, devices and languages.
2. Roboto
Roboto is one of the best fonts for lawyers’ websites because it is modern, clean and highly legible. In fact, it’s used by more than 700 million websites and over 9% of all law firm websites worldwide.
The Sans Serif design makes Roboto well-suited for digital platforms, ensuring readability across various devices and browsers.
Additionally, Roboto is versatile, allowing for effective use in headings and body text, and its various weights and styles provide flexibility for branding and design purposes.
We used Roboto as the main body text for Sobo & Sobo’s New Jersey law firm website.
The font ensures accessibility for visitors of all backgrounds, devices and screen sizes.
The sleek, modern lines of Roboto’s Sans Serif design provide a counterpoint to the refined, traditional elegance of Noto Serif’s serif typeface that we added to the website’s headings.
This complementary contrast creates a visually striking and highly readable combination that delivers perceptions of professionalism and a high-quality UX for Sobo & Sobo’s online presence.
3. Barlow
Barlow is a versatile, modern Sans Serif font with a slightly rounded and low-contrast style. Its used on over 720,000 websites worldwide.
Its clean, geometric design makes the font highly legible across all forms of website content, from homepage titles to blog copy and privacy notices.
Conveying professionalism through clarity, Barlow also pairs well with numerous popular fonts like Inter. This makes it a strong option to drive consistency across all your law firm’s written materials.
Our branding team paired Barlow with the elegant Serif font Sangira for the website of Dunnion Law, a personal injury law practice based in California.
The typography choices help to position Dunnion Law as a reliable practice that provides high-quality, personal legal solutions.
Best Fonts For Legal Documents
The majority of courts’ key requirement for legal documents is that they are clear and legible. While size is seen as the most important factor, your chosen font should prioritize readability.
Three of the top fonts for legal documents include:
1. Times New Roman
Times New Roman is a classic Serif font. It has long been a go-to for documents of all kinds, including legal papers.
With clean, elegant lines and precise letterforms, Times New Roman is easy to read, making it an ideal choice for lengthy documents.
While some Serif fonts lose readability in smaller sizes, Times New Roman’s added lines guide the reader smoothly.
The font suits formal legal documents, such as contracts and court briefs, where clarity and professionalism are central.
2. Arial
Arial is a Sans Serif font. This immediately shows it is a modern alternative to legacy fonts like Times New Roman.
Its geometric design and clean lines make Arial an easy read on digital screens, ensuring that your legal documents are easily accessible to a wide audience.
As a versatile font that can be used for both headings and body text, Arial is a popular choice for various types of legal documents and can produce an engaging experience without the need for font pairing.
3. Helvetica
Helvetica is an easy-to-read Sans Serif font.
Its balanced design and precise letterforms deliver a professional text that is manageable in large blocks or multiple pages.
Helvetica is best suited for legal documents that require a modern and clean appearance, such as marketing materials and client-facing documents.
Best Fonts For Lawyer Logos
Considering 75% of U.S. shoppers think a good logo design is make or break for a company’s brand image, a memorable business logo font is crucial in building brand recognition and loyalty for your business.
Many law firms achieve this by creating a custom logotype font.
Using standardized fonts as a base for creativity, these companies produce a tailor-made logotype.
1. Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Kirkland & Ellis LLP is a global law firm that works with a vast range of clients.
The custom logo font drives authority and professionalism through clean lines and classic design elements that create a sense of tradition, stability and credibility.
While the font is easy to read, the serif flourishes add an element of sophistication, representing Kirkland & Ellis’ reputation for excellence in corporate and private equity law.
2. Latham & Watkins LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP is an American multinational law firm that works with high-end institutions and businesses.
The group’s logo font is clean and simple, providing a sense of clarity and precision.
Using a Sans Serif font gives the font a modern and forward-thinking image, reflecting Latham & Watkins’ commitment to staying at the forefront of legal developments.
3. Linklaters
Linklaters is a leading multinational law firm based in the United Kingdom.
The group’s bespoke Serif font provides an individual visual identity, creating a logotype that builds brand recognition and fosters brand awareness,
The clean lines and classic design reflect tradition and professionalism, while its Serif features add individuality and attention to detail – all of which are important perceptions to craft for a global law firm providing top-in-class legal solutions.
Why Do Fonts Matter For Law Firms?
Picking the right font for your law firm’s website, marketing materials and legal documents provides three important benefits.
Specifically, the best fonts for lawyers:
- Drive credibility: A high-quality font choice conveys professionalism and trustworthiness, essential qualities in the legal industry.
- Increase recognition: A professional font ensures consistency and a memorable visual identity across all firm communications, helping clients easily identify and recall the firm.
- Boost readability and accessibility: A clear font ensures that legal documents and communications are easily readable and accessible to a diverse audience, including those with visual impairments.
We work with law firms of all sizes. Request a Quote
Grow Your Law Firm With Digital Silk
From the font on your website’s homepage and blog posts to your logos and legal documents, typography is central in your law firm’s brand image.
Understanding different fonts and choosing those that create a memorable, on-brand visual identity can enhance your law firm’s reputation and loyalty.
As an expert web design agency and end-to-end branding company, we can help guide you through your decision-making process from ideation to implementation and beyond.
Our senior-level digital strategists, award-winning designers and branding specialists are able to analyze your brand identity, suggest the fonts that best represent your values and deliver final typography solutions across channels.
As a full-service agency, our solutions span:
- Custom web design
- Custom web development
- Digital branding
- Logo design
- Digital marketing
For every law firm project we take on, our team makes sure to:
- Take project ownership
- Provide total transparency
- Deliver measurable results
Have a law firm branding or web design project?
Contact us, call us at (800) 206-9413 or complete the Request a Quote form below for a free, custom consultation.
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