The short answer
If your chambers or firm runs its website on ExpressionEngine, you’re in good company. Plenty of sets and firms do, and a well-built ExpressionEngine site can serve a legal practice perfectly well.
The question is not whether ExpressionEngine works. It is whether it will keep up with what you need from your website over the next five years, and what it will cost you along the way.
There is little that one platform can do and the other cannot. The real difference is the ecosystem around each one: how many ready-made tools exist, how many developers know it, and how easily it connects to the rest of your business. That shapes how quickly and cheaply your site can grow, and how easily you can find help if your circumstances change.
Market share, and why it matters
WordPress runs more than 40% of all websites, and around six in ten of those built on a content management system (CMS). ExpressionEngine accounts for less than 0.1% of the CMS market (W3Techs, October 2026).
Popularity says nothing about quality on its own. But it does decide how many people build tools for a platform, how many developers know it, and how many other services connect to it. Those three things are where the practical differences show up.
Plugins and add-ons
The official WordPress directory lists tens of thousands of free plugins, with many more premium plugins sold elsewhere. ExpressionEngine’s add-on store is a small fraction of that size.
This matters when a new requirement comes up. Take an online booking system for seminars or client meetings:
- On WordPress, there are likely to be several well-supported options to compare and install
- On ExpressionEngine, if nothing suitable exists, the feature may need to be built from scratch
Custom development is possible on either platform. The difference is how often it becomes necessary, and therefore how often it adds cost.
More plugins is not automatically better. Each one needs vetting and maintaining, which we cover in our guide to WordPress plugins.
A worked example: pupillage applications
Pupillage and mini-pupillage applications show the difference clearly. A connected WordPress site can:
- accept each application through an online form
- create a PDF of every submission
- save key details to a shared spreadsheet
- notify the people reviewing applications
None of this needs bespoke code on WordPress. Form builders such as Gravity Forms have their own add-ons for multi-page applications, conditional questions and staged review. Automation tools such as Zapier or Make, which link thousands of business apps, have a ready-made WordPress connection.
ExpressionEngine’s main form add-on, Freeform, is capable, but has fewer extensions for complex review processes. Connecting to other systems generally means webhooks or custom work. On a less connected platform, each step in that list is likely to be a development task.
Finding developers and support
Because WordPress is so widely used, skilled developers and agencies are far easier to find. That matters most when it is least convenient: if your developer leaves, your agency closes, or your support arrangements need to change quickly.
A website that only a small pool of specialists can maintain is a business continuity risk, however well it was built.
SEO
WordPress is widely regarded as strong for search engine optimisation. With a plugin such as SEOPress, editors can manage page titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, redirects and structured data from the admin area, without developer help.
ExpressionEngine’s SEO add-ons cover the basics but offer fewer of these features. Matching the same level of control usually means custom development.
Ease of use and layout control
WordPress is generally seen as the more user-friendly of the two for the people who update a site day to day. Its block editor also allows visual, drag-and-drop page building where a marketing team wants more control over layouts.
ExpressionEngine tends to rely on fixed, structured templates. That suits organisations that want tight brand consistency. WordPress can be set up the same way, with locked-down page structures and custom fields, so the choice between flexibility and structure stays open.
What about security?
WordPress has a reputation for being hacked, and it is fair to ask about it. Its popularity makes it a bigger target, and most problems come from out-of-date plugins, abandoned themes or cheap hosting rather than WordPress itself.
Those risks are manageable. A professionally run WordPress site uses a small number of vetted plugins, managed hosting with a web application firewall, automatic security updates and regular backups. Run that way, it is as secure as any alternative.
ExpressionEngine’s smaller footprint means fewer automated attacks aimed at it. But a smaller community also means fewer people looking for, reporting and fixing vulnerabilities, so obscurity is not the same as security.
When staying on ExpressionEngine makes sense
Moving platform is not always the right call. It may be better to stay where you are if:
- your site was built or rebuilt recently and still does everything you need
- you have a reliable ExpressionEngine developer or agency with capacity to support you
- you are on a current, supported version of ExpressionEngine
- you have no significant new features or integrations planned
In that position, the sensible move is to review again when your next redesign comes round.
Signs it is time to review
On the other hand, it is worth looking seriously at a move if any of these sound familiar:
- your ExpressionEngine developer has left, retired, or is hard to get hold of
- small changes keep turning into quotes for custom development
- your site is on an older version of ExpressionEngine and upgrading looks costly
- you need bookings, application workflows or integrations that have no ready-made add-on
- your marketing team wants more control over pages without going through a developer
- a redesign is due anyway, so the cost of rebuilding is coming regardless
What moving to WordPress involves
A move from ExpressionEngine to WordPress is a well-trodden path, and it does not mean starting again. A typical migration covers:
- Content audit. Agreeing what moves across, what is updated and what is retired. This is a good moment to clear out old news, events and documents.
- Content structure. ExpressionEngine’s channels and custom fields map closely to WordPress custom post types and fields, so member profiles, practice areas, news and events keep their structure.
- Content migration. Moving content across in bulk rather than by hand, including images and documents.
- Design. Rebuilding your current design on WordPress, or using the move as the moment to refresh it.
- Protecting search rankings. Keeping URLs the same where possible, and setting up 301 redirects where they change, so that search engines and existing links still find every page.
- Training. Showing your team how to update the new site, which most find quicker to learn than what they had before.
Done properly, visitors notice a better website rather than a move, and your search rankings carry over.
Talk to us
We have built websites for barristers’ chambers and law firms for more than 25 years. If your site runs on ExpressionEngine and you are wondering whether it is time to move, we can review it for you, with no obligation. We will tell you honestly whether a move makes sense, and what it would involve.
Get in touch to arrange a review.
