.webp)
Whitfield & Cross Criminal Defense had run on WordPress for years with no one clearly responsible for keeping it updated. Here’s how a standing WordPress maintenance plan restored a broken intake form, closed off plugin vulnerabilities, and turned a slow, fragile site into a reliable source of qualified case inquiries.
The Challenge
Whitfield & Cross had run its site on WordPress for years with no one clearly responsible for keeping it current. Core, theme, and more than twenty plugins had gone without a real update cycle. The confidential case-evaluation form, the one channel people facing charges actually used, often at odd hours, had failed silently for six weeks after a plugin conflict, and no one on staff realized until a caller asked why an online submission had never gotten a response. There was no staging environment, no tested backup, and no monitoring, just a live site one bad update away from turning away the exact people it existed to reach. The fix wasn’t a redesign, it was finally giving the WordPress install the ongoing care it had never had.
WordPress core and 20+ plugins hadn’t been meaningfully updated in over a year.
Established a monthly patch cycle for core, theme, and every plugin, tested on staging first.
No known vulnerabilities across the plugin stack today.
A plugin conflict silently broke the confidential case-evaluation form for six weeks.
Automated form-submission testing paired with a staging-first update workflow.
100% form deliverability, no silent failures since.
Outages were only ever caught when a prospective client called the office.
24/7 uptime and error monitoring with instant alerts to the support team.
Consistent uptime with no unplanned outages in 11 months.
No documented backup strategy, a bad update could have meant rebuilding the site from scratch.
Automated daily off-site backups with tested one-click restore points.
Every update now has a safety net measured in minutes, not days.
Page speed had crept toward 6 seconds, worst for mobile visitors searching at odd hours.
Image optimization, caching, and removal of unused plugins slowing the site down.
Load time down to 1.65s, −73%.
No hardening in place, and no one could confirm confidential case details were handled securely.
WordPress security hardening, a web application firewall, and monthly malware scans.
No security incidents since maintenance began.
The Approach
Audited core, theme, and every one of 20+ plugins for outdated versions, conflicts, and known vulnerabilities.
Patched the highest-risk plugins, restored the broken case-evaluation form, and put real backups in place in week one.
Every future core or plugin update is now tested on staging before it ever touches the live site.
Uptime, malware, and intake-form monitoring wired in so a submission never disappears again.
Monthly updates, security scans, and reporting under a standing WordPress support plan.
The Work
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
The Results
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page load timeLCP, mobile | 6.1s | 1.65s | −73% |
| Case-evaluation form failure rateconfidential intake submissions | 21% | 0% | −100% |
| Qualified case inquiriesmonthly average | baseline | +64% | +64% |
| Outdated or vulnerable pluginsat time of audit | 19 | 0 | −100% |
| Time-to-first-responsenew online inquiry to attorney reply | 26 hrs | ~3 hrs | −88% |
| Mobile bounce ratesitewide | 56% | 34% | −39% |
Built to satisfy what a criminal defense practice expects from ongoing WordPress support
In Their Words
“We used to find out about problems from a phone call asking why no one responded to an online submission. Now the update happens on schedule, gets tested first, and the report tells us before a client ever notices.”Managing Partner, Whitfield & Cross Criminal Defense
What's Included
Tell us how long it’s been since anyone checked your WordPress updates, and we’ll tell you honestly what a standing maintenance plan would fix.
Want more detail on this project?
Leave your details and we'll send over the full breakdown.
Book a free consultation with our web experts and discover how we can grow your brand online.
