The collaboration between THOR Design Studio and the Colorado Bar Association (COBAR) culminated in the successful design and development of the Colorado Lawyer publication website, a significant leap forward from the outdated flipbook-style publishing method they had previously used. Leveraging the power of WordPress, THOR harnessed advanced features to create a dynamic and user-friendly platform that revolutionized how legal content is accessed and consumed in Colorado.

THOR Design Studio facilitated a seamless transition for the Colorado Lawyer editorial team by providing comprehensive training on the WordPress website CMS custom-built for their publication. With a focus on simplicity and efficiency, our training sessions empowered the small team of two editors to confidently navigate the CMS and manage the entire magazine publication process with ease. Through hands-on tutorials and personalized guidance, editors gained proficiency in content creation, editing, and publication, enabling them to streamline workflows and maximize productivity. With the intuitive interface and user-friendly features of the WordPress CMS, the editorial team can now publish an entire magazine effortlessly, ensuring timely delivery of high-quality content to their audience.

One of the key challenges addressed by THOR was the integration of legal citations within the website’s content management system (CMS). Recognizing the importance of accuracy and accessibility in legal documents, THOR developed a custom method for seamlessly entering citations, ensuring compliance with industry standards and enhancing the user experience for legal professionals and researchers alike. Some articles include well over 200 citations marked in the main text. The citation links made inside of Adobe InDesign in the print edition needed to carry over into the  WordPress CMS seamlessly. 

To achieve this goal, THOR restructured the InDesign templates. Each citation created an inline HTML citation within the article. This pointed to the correct resource in the endnotes. In WordPress, we created a custom space for each block of exported citations per article. In the theme, we wrote code to automatically recognize the citations and format them into superscript, in-page links. The resulting article pages move a reader between prose and citations with minimal administrative overhead.

The Colorado Lawyer team also wanted to go a step further and provide a weekly update of court proceedings for the entire state of Colorado. For this requirement, THOR built a custom sort/filtering interface to handle all 'From the Courts' content, and make the responsive experience available across all devices. Colorado Lawyer required a unique search solution to index their rich content trove. We utilized the excellent SearchWP plugin for the indexing requirement. THOR then layered a custom search experience on top of the index to keep branding consistent.  

In addition to the website, THOR embarked on a comprehensive redesign of both the print edition of Colorado Lawyer and its companion publication, the Docket. Drawing on best practices of magazine design, Colorado Lawyer’s print edition received a modern facelift, with a focus on readability, visual appeal, and user engagement. Meanwhile, the Docket underwent a transformation of its own, embracing a fun and whimsical aesthetic characterized by vibrant graphics and lifestyle-oriented content. This juxtaposition of serious legal content and light-hearted lifestyle features highlights THOR’s versatility in catering to diverse audience preferences while maintaining the integrity and professionalism of the Colorado Lawyer brand.

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