Projects / Volunteer Legal Advocates

User-Friendly Website Helps Nonprofit Bring Justice Within Reach

PROJECT SCOPE

Website design
WordPress development
Website strategy
Website management

The Client

For many survivors of domestic violence, the cost of legal representation can be a significant barrier to justice.

In 2008, a group of attorneys recognized the need for accessible, affordable legal aid and formed the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project (DCVLP). The nonprofit organization provided pro bono representation for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence and vulnerable children across the District.

Over time, the organization expanded its work to Montgomery County, Maryland. In 2025, DCVLP took on a new brand identity and name to reflect its greater breadth of services and scale of impact, becoming Volunteer Legal Advocates.

Volunteer Legal Advocates believes that a life free of violence and abuse is a basic human right. Through a network of more than 500 volunteer attorneys, the organization helps bring justice and hope to more than 3,000 survivors and children each year.

The Challenge

Following their rebrand, Volunteer Legal Advocates was eager to implement the new brand, logo, and visual identity across their marketing channels.

The existing website was built for DCVLP, so the new website would need new design and content. But the team saw this redesign as an opportunity to do more than an update. They decided to retire the old site and start fresh.

As organizations grow, their websites evolve. Several pages and pieces of content get added over time. Eventually, this can contribute to unclear pathways and an overwhelming user experience. This is what happened to Volunteer Legal Advocates’s website.

After 17 years of growth, the site hosted a lot of useful information, but it wasn’t easy to navigate.

Volunteer Legal Advocates’s Director of Communications & Brand Strategy, Monica Herman, shared, “The website had content for our staff, our board members, and donors, but it wasn’t always easy for people to find what they needed. With the redesign, we wanted to simplify it to better reach our core audiences.”

The original website helped the organization grow to what they are today. To keep up the momentum, Volunteer Legal Advocates now needed a new digital presence.

“We wanted a website that felt user-friendly, clean, and easy to navigate … a space that put our best foot forward.”

Monica Herman

Director of Communications & Brand Strategy, Volunteer Legal Advocates

Project Highlights

Streamlined user pathways to make next steps clear
Cleaned up old, accumulated content for a simplified experience
Creatively translated new brand guidelines to the web
Expanded visual identity with repurposable graphic elements

The Solution

Having partnered with Digital Ink for past web design projects, Monica gave us a call.

“I’m a big fan of their work. We’ve worked together for a long time, so when I joined the team at Volunteer Legal Advocates, I knew that I would bring them with me.”

It didn’t take long for us to get back into gear together. Like all of our projects, we kicked off this work with a roadmap that detailed:

The project timeline
Digital Ink’s process
Any assets needed from Volunteer Legal Advocates
Smaller deadlines to keep us on track

This helped us launch the new site right on time. Monica noted, “My concern with a website redesign is always staying on time. Digital Ink came with a roadmap of what we needed to accomplish to launch on time. Not every organization does that! They’re unique in the way they guide you through the process.”

Digital Ink and Volunteer Legal Advocates worked together to outline the content, calls to action, and user pathways, with the goal of designing a clean site that served clients and donors.

“Digital Ink created a really beautiful representation of our brand and helped bring it to life. We're really proud of what we’ve created together.”

Monica Herman

Director of Communications & Brand Strategy, Volunteer Legal Advocates

Results

Volunteer Legal Advocates was created to make legal aid for survivors of domestic violence and vulnerable children accessible and litigation less overwhelming. Their new website reflects their commitment to demystifying the legal process and improving access to justice.

The new website has received great feedback. Volunteer attorneys have noted that the site is clear, compelling, and easy to navigate. The marketing team continues to see conversions increase organically, including:

Form submissions
Event registrations
Newsletter signups

Most of all, Monica noted, “We’re really proud of the new site. We love how clean it is and how our impact comes through. We’re working to share it far and wide.”

As Volunteer Legal Advocates continues driving traffic to the new website, they still have partners in Digital Ink post-launch. We built the backend of the website to empower the team to make updates on their own — but while they get used to the platform, they know we’re always here to help.

“Digital Ink remains very responsive. When we needed to update a form, they got that done in minutes, basically. If I need a refresher on something they’ve already shown me, or a quick walkthrough of a lesser-used feature, they answer my questions with no judgment. I appreciate that.”

What’s next for Volunteer Legal Advocates? More growth, Monica says. They’re always looking to bring on additional volunteers and serve more survivors and children in need. With the new website in place, they’re ready to scale their mission and bring justice within reach for even more members of the community.

“We’re really proud of the new site. We love how clean it is and how our impact comes through. We're working to share it far and wide.”

Monica Herman

Director of Communications & Brand Strategy, Volunteer Legal Advocates

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