A prospective client needs a lawyer. Instead of opening Google and comparing a dozen websites, she asks ChatGPT a question:
“Who is the best employment lawyer near me?”
In seconds, she receives a shortlist, a summary of each firm and a recommendation about which one might suit her case.
Your firm may be on that list. It may not.
Worse, the AI assistant might describe your practice incorrectly, overlook your strongest specialty or repeat information that went out of date two years ago.
This is not a hypothetical client journey. In a recent survey of 871 US legal consumers, 62% said they had used AI to identify reputable firms in their area. Nearly three-quarters used it to investigate a firm’s reputation and expertise.
AI-assisted consumers considered only 2.3 firms on average before choosing one.
That smaller shortlist changes the marketing challenge. It is no longer enough to rank well after a prospect starts searching. You also need to understand what AI says before the prospect reaches your website.
Here are five things you can do this week.
1. Run the questions your clients actually ask
Do not start by asking ChatGPT, “What do you know about my firm?”
That may produce a flattering company summary, but it does not recreate how a potential client searches.
Instead, write down five to 10 questions that reflect real client needs. For example:
- Who is the best divorce lawyer in Denver?
- Which local firm handles complex workplace discrimination claims?
- Is [Firm Name] reputable?
- What does [Firm Name] specialize in?
- Who are the alternatives to [Firm Name]?
- Would you recommend [Firm Name] for a high-value commercial dispute?
Test the same questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. If your clients are likely to use Google’s AI-generated results, check those too.
Record whether your firm appears, where it appears and how it is described. Save the answers with the date because the results can change.
You are not conducting a scientific trial. You are carrying out the AI equivalent of calling your office to see how the telephone gets answered.
2. Look for omissions, not just mistakes
Lawyers naturally look for statements that are demonstrably wrong. An incorrect office location or invented partner is easy to spot.
Omissions are quieter and can be more expensive.
Suppose an AI assistant correctly describes you as a business lawyer but fails to mention that you handle shareholder disputes. The answer is not false. However, you may never appear when someone asks for help with a shareholder dispute.
Review each AI-generated description against a simple checklist:
- Practice areas
- Specialist services
- Attorney names and credentials
- Office locations
- Jurisdictions served
- Client types
- Industry experience
- Languages offered
- Consultation options
- Current contact information
Pay particular attention to the matters you most want to attract. If an important service is consistently missing, the problem may begin with how clearly you describe it online.
3. Make every important service easy to verify
Your website may mention a valuable specialty in one paragraph on a general services page. A human reader might find it. An AI system may not give it enough weight to associate your firm with that specialty.
Create a clear page for each important practice area. Explain what you do, who you help, which jurisdictions you cover and the types of matters you handle.
Clarity beats cleverness here. A page titled “How We Protect What Matters” may sound elegant, but “Employment Discrimination Lawyers in Denver” communicates more useful information.
Check that attorney biographies support the same message. If a partner has 20 years of healthcare litigation experience, say so clearly and connect that experience to the relevant practice page.
You should also make essential firm information consistent across your site. If one page calls you a national firm, another lists only one local office and a third has an outdated attorney roster, an AI system has to decide which version to trust.
Do not make it solve a mystery.
4. Audit the information you do not control
AI platforms do not build their understanding from your website alone.
They may use legal directories, news coverage, review platforms, bar profiles, social networks, podcasts, community discussions and other third-party sources.
Search for your firm and attorneys on the sites that appear prominently in your market. Check whether the descriptions, practice areas, links and contact details are accurate.
You may find:
- An old directory profile listing a former attorney
- A professional biography missing a current specialty
- An article using an outdated firm name
- Review pages attached to the wrong office
- Inconsistent descriptions of the geographic area you serve
- Interviews or guest articles that no longer reflect your practice
Correct what you legitimately can. When information appears on an independently edited publication, ask for a correction only when something is factually wrong or genuinely outdated. Do not ask editors to rewrite history or add promotional links.
The objective is a consistent body of trustworthy evidence, not artificial praise.
5. Treat AI visibility as a monthly intake check
AI monitoring does not need to become another elaborate marketing project.
Create a small recurring check. Once a month, run your most important client questions across the major platforms and note any meaningful changes.
Track four things:
- Inclusion: Does your firm appear when it should?
- Accuracy: Are the facts correct?
- Completeness: Are important services or qualifications missing?
- Positioning: Is the firm being recommended for the right kinds of clients and matters?
Assign significant problems to a person rather than a committee. A marketing manager might correct a practice page. An attorney may update a professional biography. An office administrator might repair directory listings.
If AI presents a serious false claim, document the answer, prompt, platform and date before taking further action.
You should also rerun the check after any major change, such as opening an office, adding a practice area, completing a merger or changing the firm’s name.
Your website visit may no longer be the first impression
Law firms have traditionally treated the website as the beginning of the digital client journey.
Increasingly, it is the second or third step.
Before a prospect sees your biography, reads a case study or calls reception, an AI assistant may have already explained what you do, assessed your reputation and placed you on a shortlist.
You cannot control every answer, and you should be suspicious of anyone promising that you can. What you can do is make accurate information clear, consistent and easy to verify.
Start with five client questions. Run them across the major AI platforms. Look closely at what is missing.
You may discover that your next marketing problem is not persuading a prospect to choose you. It is making sure the prospect knows you are a choice.
