What are some good non-blog themes for a self-employed professional?

Hi, guys. I’m sorry if this thread has “newbie” written all over it but this is really my first post, so I don’t really have a working forum sense. I promise to get better if I stay around. I usually learn eventually. Please move the thread if it more properly belongs elsewhere.

So, long story short I’m a former DYI self-taught notepad user moving to the first CMS (at least one I didn’t make in notepad). I’m frankly feeling like notepad is actually easier than figuring out the theme structure. ?? Won’t be creating my own themes any time soon. But if I have the free time to learn the theme structure, I’ll be sure to create some stuff to share free of charge. But this is off-topic.

The topic is I need to put together a professional small business webbie to get me some clients as a mostly legal translator. Lawyers are fans of (company-paid, if possible) gadgets and websurfing from inside a traffic-jammed cab while billing the client for it. In short, it’s gotta work on that silly default handheld browser which fails to support background properties properly, among other things (which killed the ambitious Japanese-style design with transparency and round corners I kept trying to save until 7 a.m. today).

On the other hand, it’s gotta work on standard corporate handouts and hand-downs with sometimes outdated software and castrated settings. But it can’t be boring. It’s like a CV/resume: there isn’t that much you can do but you’ve got to do something to make yours stand out from 1000 others when the headhunter has 10 seconds to spare per piece. I’m frankly not nearly talented enough to achieve that with graphical files or gadgetry, so it’s gotta be a strong design. Among other things, a better design than I could eventually come up with after a night of trial and error, F5, caffeine and Google searching.

So I guess, to sum up, it’s gotta work on handhelds, degrade gracefully on old junk, but it does not need to look actually the same. My site is mostly a one-time sight. Once they’ve got my e-mail, they don’t need to come back unless they like my photo.

What I absolutely need is a contact page that doesn’t employ the visitor’s mail client. It’s gotta use PHP mail or something else server-side. I have my own HTML/PHP code for that, so it’s okay if I can just paste it in and it will work, worse if I’d need to dig for 2 nights to find it and alter 20 other things to enable it to work.

Summary:
– neat, hygienic, no loose ends, preferably no rough edges in design, doesn’t fall apart in a bad window size (handheld resolution or non-fullscreen window on a PC);
– reasonably forgiving learning curve and/but some potential to play with,
– non-gaudy, no aggressive sales pitch, preferably no basic colours that would be too tedious to replace,
– won’t fall apart even in the dumbest of handheld browsers, and will actually be inviting to a lawyer squeezed in a taxi between international calls on his mobile,
– and won’t fall apart on his assistant on intern’s aged PC,
– most important is static content, like what’s on offer, ToS, ego wall etc., I won’t be posting any news or diaries or such,
– free of charge or price includes VAT (too much paperwork otherwise),
– it can require plugins or hacks or widgets etc., just as long as I don’t need a maths degree to figure it out.

Please note I’m aware of the existence of theme directories that pop up in Google, I’ve already been there before coming here. I’m basically asking for recommendations from people who have actually played around a bit with specific, individual themes, especially used them for actual websites like this. This hands-on experience is irreplaceable.

Thank you in advance.

Also, I hope this is okay with the moderators in terms of staying on topic, but I’d also love to hear any other suggestions that come to your mind when reading this, not necessarily strictly limited to theme selection.