WordPress Child Themes for Law Firms: Pros & Cons

What Is a Child Theme?

A child theme is a type of incomplete WordPress theme that is dependent on its parent theme for styling, functionality, and features. They are the recommended way to add custom features that you would not want to add directly to the parent theme because the parent theme won’t be affected. Working on a parent theme, especially if it is a third-party theme, will lose all your changes once the theme is updated by the third-party developer since it will overwrite all the changes made to it. It is considered best practice to use a child theme in most cases as it protects your website from being overwritten and losing changes.

Pros of Using a Child Theme

Safe Theme Updates

The biggest benefit is maintaining your updates and changes because any good parent theme will receive updates regularly for either new functionality, updates to features, or more importantly, security or compatibility fixes.

Easily Added To

A child theme, when used correctly, only needs to extend the functionality or styling of the parent theme’s code which allows for flexible coding since you only need to modify the files or functions that need to be customized. For example, it is far easier to repaint a car a different color than to build a new car from scratch in a different color.

Keeps Custom Code Separate

A child theme allows you or your developer to keep all the custom added code separate and organized. This makes it easier for future updates since other developers will know what is custom and what isn’t.

Many parent themes use custom folder structures, filenames, etc., which helps any new developer to quickly have a clear idea of the changes without having to dig through complex folders or unrecognized code.

Cons of Using a Child Theme

Many Sites Don’t Need a Child Theme

Adding a child theme is helpful especially for adding advanced features or overwriting the parent theme’s functionality or styling but if your website is more dependent on ACF, custom templates, and does not rely too much on the third-party theme then it would not be needed in most cases and likely only add unneeded complexity.

You Are Locked Into a Parent Theme

Having a child theme makes switching themes harder and may break your website since they are most likely dependent on the structure of the parent theme. The custom code or functionality added are usually specific to the parent theme in use and will need editing if you want to switch to a new theme.

Maintenance Issues

A child theme can be a great and clean way to extend the functionality of the parent theme but at the same time, a poorly built theme can hurt performance and create long-term issues. Oftentimes in poorly built child themes, they have duplicate styling or loads extra and unnecessary stylings which can bloat and slow down the website or even create convoluted code that is hard to maintain and update.

All in all, child themes are tools to use and the best route to take is the one that will add the least complexity and maintenance. They are great at what they do and make a very useful option for third-party themes but are not always the answer.