Angela Sdrinis Legal
Content strategy and website rebuild for a personal injury and abuse law firm
The challenge
When someone is considering a claim for workplace injury, institutional abuse, or a transport accident, they're not browsing. They're frightened, often ashamed, and trying to work out whether they can trust anyone with something deeply personal.
Angela Sdrinis Legal had been doing exceptional work for over a decade: 2,000+ institutional abuse survivors represented, multi-million dollar settlements, and an ongoing class action for survivors of the Ashley Youth Detention Centre. But their website wasn't built for the people who needed them most.
The old site was organised entirely around the firm's internal structure and legal expertise. Navigation was by practice area. Service pages were dense legal documents, detailed and accurate, but written for someone who already understood the Comcare scheme, knew their entitlements, and was comfortable with formal legal language. Testimonials existed but were buried on a separate page hidden inside a "News & Reviews" navigation item, invisible to anyone who didn't already know to look there. Calls to action were buried. The homepage led with the firm, not with the client's problem.
For someone arriving in crisis, injured, ashamed, or carrying years of institutional trauma, it was the wrong door entirely.
My role
Website strategy
Information architecture
Content structure
Copywriting direction
Squarespace design and build
What changed
The entire structure was rebuilt around how clients experience injury and harm, not around legal practice areas. Someone who survived institutional abuse doesn't think of themselves as a claimant. They think: something terrible happened to me and I need to know if anyone can help. The navigation and content were restructured to meet them there.
Service pages were rewritten from scratch in plain English, leading with the user's situation rather than the firm's credentials. The Comcare page moved from a dense procedural document to a clear, direct answer to the question: I was hurt at work. What am I entitled to? How do I start?
Testimonials were moved from their hidden location and became a central content element, distributed throughout the user journey. Real accounts from real clients, handled with care: pseudonyms where needed, language that honoured the weight of their experiences without sensationalising them.
The design shifted from functional grey to warm, professional and trustworthy. Neither cold legal authority nor false reassurance.
The outcome
A site that serves two audiences without compromising either. Referrers and legal peers see credentials, accreditations, and case depth. People seeking help see a firm that understands what they've been through, and makes the next step feel possible rather than terrifying.
The site is live and in active use by a firm handling hundreds of ongoing institutional abuse claims. The content structure has been maintained without requiring significant rework, which for a small legal team managing complex caseloads is a meaningful outcome in itself.
The relationship has continued into a second phase: developing a class action intake page and secure client costs agreement form. The brief required careful content sequencing, helping potential claimants understand whether they qualify before asking them to commit to anything, and a highly secure intake form handling sensitive personal information.