Category: Industry Insights

While private equity buzz continues to swirl about the legal sector, three state legislatures set out to limit outside investment in law firms – in three different ways.

And while California, Colorado and Illinois were the first to restrict outside investment in this year’s legislative session, more could follow in 2027. Legislative sessions for another 36 states should start in January, and most will have gaveled in by the end of Q1.

What do these new regulations address, and what do they suggest for future regulation?

First: Background

Most U.S. states prohibit non-lawyers (e.g. investors) from owning or controlling law firms through their state’s Rules of Professional Conduct, regulated by the state supreme court. These rules vary from state to state, but most adhere rather closely to the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. 

ABA’s Model Rule 5.4 addresses non-lawyer ownership specifically, saying in part: “A lawyer or law firm shall not share legal fees with a non-lawyer” except for certain specific conditions, and “A lawyer shall not form a partnership with a nonlawyer if any of the activities of the partnership consist of the practice of law.”

Pretty straightforward.

But in 2020, Arizona struck its version of ABA Rule 5.4, and now has more than 100 law firms open to outside investors, including enterprises owned outright by major corporations like KPMG. In the same year, Utah opened a “regulatory sandbox” to oversee law firms owned by outside investors.

As of now, Puerto Rico, North Carolina and Washington state are allowing some degree of non-lawyer investment. Washington D.C. has a plan under consideration.

Even outside these states, there can be workarounds for outside investors, the most common being the Management Services Organization (MSO) model, where a non-lawyer-owned entity contracts with a law firm to provide non-legal services (accounting, marketing, IT). This allows outside capital to support the business functions of the law firm while the lawyers maintain control over the practice.

Each of these three new laws – California, Colorado and Illinois – set boundaries for these MSO models, and one introduces a new avenue of litigation for traditionally structured firms.

California: Taking Effect January 1

In August 2026, the California state legislature passed AB2305, a bill that would introduce new limitations on “corporate legal funders.” It was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 20.

The bill centers on litigation, working to keep investors out of it by designating their influence as an unauthorized practice of law if they engage in any of the following “substantive litigation decisions”:

• Determining which clients to represent;
• Determining the scope of representation of any client;
• Determining the financial terms of any client representation;
• Determining the legal strategy or theory of a case;
• Deciding whether to file, continue or dismiss a claim or defense;
• Making decisions about a settlement offer, negotiation position or acceptance of proposed resolution;
• Determining what evidence to present or how to conduct discovery; or
• Advising on appeals, procedural tactics or litigation timing.

In addition, outside investors are forbidden to have control “or be delegated authority” for selecting counsel based on profit maximization rather than client interest; setting financial incentives tied to litigation outcomes; making decisions about litigation funding allocations or budgeting that affect case strategy; and requiring litigation decisions to be based on investor return metrics.

The bill’s authors – including a former public defender, a former prosecutor and a former partner at Latham & Watkins – state in the bill its intent is to “safeguard the integrity of the judicial process, ensure advocacy remains ethically sound and in the best interest of the individual, and prohibit corporations from controlling or improperly influencing litigation decisions or outcomes.”

This follows AB 931, which passed in 2025 and restricted fee-sharing with out-of-state alternative business structures.

Under the bill, violating attorneys will be referred to the state bar for discipline, and clients can bring actions for $10,000 per violation (or three times the actual damages, whichever is greater).

If adopted, the measure will apply to contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2027 – so we may see a gold rush of a different sort hitting California in Q4.

Key point: AB2305 focuses on litigation, leaving other areas of the law (e.g. estate planning) ready for PE.

Colorado: Took Effect on August 12

On June 3, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed the Colorado Legal Practice Integrity and Fee-Sharing Prohibition Act, a considerably more far-reaching statute. The bill’s preamble gets right to the point, declaring that “even minimal nonlawyer ownership or profit participation in law firms compromises public trust in the legal profession.”

Under the Act, lawyers and law firms may not:

• Share any portion of legal revenue to any alternative business structure or nonlawyer, aside from salaries or bonus paid to law firm staff as a part of ordinary business operations;
• Enter into any financial, contractual, ownership, management, marketing, co-counsel, referral or fee-allocation arrangement with an alternative business structure;
• Form a partnership, LLC, corporation or other entity with a nonlawyer if any of the entity’s activities include providing legal services; or
• Practice with or in the form of a professional company authorized to provide legal services if a nonlawyer owns any interest or a nonlawyer has the right to direct or control the professional judgment of a lawyer.

With regard to MSOs, lawyers and law firms cannot engage with one unless their compensation is not tied to a percentage of legal fees, revenues or profits and not determined by case outcomes. 

According to Clark Hill analysis, this rule is the direct hit on private equity: “…the most common way investor capital reaches a firm’s economics is a management services organization that handles back-office functions and takes its fee as a percentage of firm revenue or profit. HB26-1421 permits the MSO but bans the percentage, collapsing the standard workaround while leaving genuine fixed-fee and hourly administrative support alone.”

The Act took effect August 12 and applies to “conduct occurring and contracts and agreements entered into or renewed on or after” the effective date.

The bill had a large team of 27 sponsors, including nine lawyers.

Key point: The Act provides for economic damages and attorneys’ fees for clients whose law firms have violated these rules, and in an interesting addition, law firms that “suffered or may suffer” loss in revenue due to offending competitors can seek injunctive or declaratory relief.

As one commentator wrote in LawWeek Colorado, “This means that competitors and perhaps even opposing counsel have an incentive to bring lawsuits collateral to the underlying suit if it gives them an upper hand. Far from deterring excessive lawsuits, this provision seems designed to incur a new spate of litigation between law firms.”

Illinois: Took Effect on August 7

On May 31, just three days before Colorado approved its measure, both houses of the Illinois General Assembly passed HB5487, and Governor JB Pritzker signed it into law on August 7.

Applying to all firms with annual global revenue of less than $300 million and all firms that “regularly represent clients on a contingent fee basis,” it also takes direct aim at the MSO structure, requiring disclosure of any MSO arrangements on all attorney-client contracts.

Further, it puts specific limits on the MSOs, forbidding them to:

• Interfere with lawyers’ professional judgment;
• Reveal, own or determine the content of client records, or to disclose any attorney-client communications;
• Hire or fire attorneys or professional staff;
• Set “competency, productivity or proficiency parameters”;
• Charge any fee directly or indirectly based on attorney fees, revenues or profits; and
• Restrict an attorney or staff member from competing with the law firm after a termination or resignation (i.e., no non-competes or non-disparagement clauses).

It also establishes new guidelines for fee-sharing with alternative business structure entities outside Illinois.

Similar to California, violations may result in discipline from the state bar, and statutory damages of $10,000 per violation or three times the actual damages incurred by the client, whichever is greater. 

Unlike Colorado, there is no clear path to litigation for competing law firms.

The bill had 12 sponsors, seven of whom are attorneys.

Key point: This law exempts law firms with annual global revenue of $300 million or more – essentially carving out Big Law. This year’s AmLaw 100 – the annual compilation of the highest-grossing law firms – stopped at $567.9 million. 

A quick review shows about two-thirds of these highest-grossing law firms operate offices in Chicago…and remain outside this law’s reach.

Other Developments

The American Lawyer reports that South Carolina is working to limit PE influence through its state ethical standards as opposed to legislation. In March 2026, its Ethics Advisory Committee issued an opinion stating that South Carolina lawyers should not serve as local counsel with an alternative business structure law firm with outside investors or fee-sharing.

It’s another avenue for regulation less open to lobbying and other legislative hijinks, and one that may be replicated outside The Palmetto State.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform  – which exerts influence in state capitals through coordination with local organizations – makes its position relatively clear in the title of its position paper against nonattorney investment in law firms: “Selling Out.”

It concludes: “Allowing nonattorney ownership of law firms will allow large, well-capitalized, profit-seeking investment funds to supplant the professional judgment of lawyers who are obligated to serve their clients’ best interests. This development would be a detriment to clients, lawyers, judges, and the public at large.”

In The American Lawyer, Chris Batz, a legal industry adviser, said law firms and outside investors should take these new restrictive actions as a warning for anti-PE blowback.

“I think it has some implications that are things people should not ignore,” he said, “and supposedly some other states might look at this.”

What should not be getting lost in the frenzy to incorporate AI into law firms: Your clients have questions about this technology, too. 

A lot of them.

Indeed, in this year’s General Counsel Report, a white paper from FTI Technology and Relativity, 70 percent of general counsel identified AI as a major risk to their organization, up from 20 percent two years prior. It’s the largest stressor by a wide margin; the second-place concern, geopolitical instability, was cited by 37 percent. 

And while 87 percent of these general counsel report using AI, they also shared a variety of concerns related to its deployment in their legal departments and organizations, among them:

• Data privacy: 25 percent;
• Security issues: 24 percent;
• Regulatory enforcement/compliance: 20 percent;
• Ethics: 20 percent;
• IP/copyright issues: 20 percent;
• Trigger for new frontiers of litigation: 17 percent.

Elsewhere in the report, 80 percent of general counsel said they expect AI usage to spawn a “new form of emerging data,” with AI outputs, logs and prompts entering into discovery. 

These concerns are ubiquitous, vexing companies in all industries, in all geographies, of all sizes.

So why isn’t this a practice group at every B2B law firm?

To be sure, most of the country’s largest law firms have Artificial Intelligence teams firmly in place; in Firesign analysis, 46 of the AmLaw 50 (92%) had active practice pages on their websites. For the lower end of the AmLaw 200, that percentage drops; for the AmLaw 151 to 200, the majority doesn’t. Twenty-three (46%) have formal practice groups at the time of this writing (September 2026).

Every firm is different, but given that AI’s tentacles are reaching so many aspects of the average business, most firms should be positioning themselves to help.

A few things to keep in mind if you’re looking to launch an AI service:

You don’t need to create a formal firm department. Your website is not the org chart. It is a catalog. This doesn’t need to be an official team with official bureaucracy; it can be a group of lawyers across disciplines and offices who have expertise and market it.

You are likely not starting from scratch. Do an inventory of your lawyer’s recent matters, speaking engagements, publications, client alerts. For one AmLaw 200 firm that did not have an AI practice page, a search for “artificial intelligence” surfaced 93 results, including attorneys quoted in the media about AI, a firm CLE about AI, and a lawyer earning an Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional Certification. The ingredients are there.

You don’t need to master every aspect of AI. What makes the most sense for your market position? Littler, for example, adheres to its employment focus; the firm’s AI practice page says it works to “shape the future of how AI will be used in the workplace.” Intellectual property boutique Fish & Richardson promises “a network of industry-experienced IP attorneys ready to back your AI achievements and safeguard the future of your IP.”

You must make it easy for clients to find. Do not nestle it under a broader “Technology” category or park it as an Industry. AI may not be a traditional legal discipline like Corporate and Tort, but it is affecting every sector of the economy; naming it as an Industry along with Agribusiness, Healthcare and Manufacturing suggests you are advising AI companies, not helping all companies with AI concerns. Think about a busy client looking to see if your firm handles AI matters on their phone, in the car, with their kids’ music at maximum volume. Make it easy.

(You cannot assume all of your clients know everything your firm does. I will never forget doing a client feedback interview with a company that had been with the firm in question for more than 100 years. At one point, they said “It would be great if they were in St. Louis.” The firm had operated there for over a decade.)

You must make it easy for AI itself to find. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude and CoCounsel are the new referral sources – and leads from AI sources are three times more likely to hire your firm than those from traditional search. Make sure your AI practice page – like all of your services – are constructed to build credibility with the large language models crawling your site. AI tools tend to favor law firm practice pages with a specific style and setup.

As of 2025, the median number of law firms used by companies was 10, according to Major, Lindsey & Africa and the Association of Corporate Counsel’s benchmarking report. If you are not actively packaging and marketing this work, your client may have nine other easy options waiting.

This fall, one East Coast law firm is running a new marketing play: courting college football fans through a first-of-its-kind uniform sponsorship.

Indeed, starting in 2026, Grungo Law, a personal injury firm, will be the “Official Jersey Patch Partner” of the Temple Owls (5-7 overall last year; 3-5 in the AAC). Per Above the Law, the law firm’s logo will appear on the Owls’ game and practice jerseys; beyond being Temple’s first jersey patch sponsor, Grungo Law is the first law firm to land on a Division I collegiate jersey in any sport.

The NCAA first approved commercial uniform patches in January, allowing corporate logos to appear on uniforms starting Aug. 1. While several schools – Notre Dame, Ohio State, and LSU among them – partnered with Fortune 500 companies, so far, Temple is the first to make a deal with a law firm.

Could a football sponsorship make sense for your firm? Classic legal answer: It depends.

Grungo Law is not a client, but if I were advising on this tactic, I’d look at it a few ways:

Audience.

Who’s going to see your logo, and how do they fit into your ideal client profile? Grungo Law is a personal injury firm; it speaks to a consumer base, advising them after injuries, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, and the like.

Demographics-wise, the college football audience skews male; 56 percent of viewers are men, according to Racasse Audience Intelligence. This fits well with Grungo Law’s target market; male drivers are nearly three times more likely to be involved in serious car accidents.

According to Racasse, the median age of a college football fan is 37 years, but nearly half – 47 percent – are 16 to 29 years old, a generation unlikely to have already formed law firm relationships. 

In terms of geography, Temple provides Grungo visibility at six home games in Philadelphia, 10 minutes from its Philly office. (Not to mention TV coverage on ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN+ and the CBS Sports Network.)

For Grungo, this audience makes sense: a mix of both genders, with a few more of the accident-prone; younger and untethered to another law firm; and native to its service area. The same may not be true for a niche B2B firm or one less focused on the Philadelphia area.

Authenticity.

Does the sponsorship make sense for this firm? Does it feel like a natural fit? A football sponsorship would feel like a disconnect for a white-shoe firm like Cravath or a science-dense patent practice. 

Grungo Law, however, passes the vibe check. The first words on its home page are “Proud Partners” of various sports teams, including Temple. This precedes information about its service area and the button to request a consultation. The firm leads with its sports investments.

The lawyers are athletes, too, according to their biographies: Brad Parker played football, baseball and track; Alec Pereira plays soccer.

Marketing Mix.

Is this a one-off sponsorship or is it part of a marketing ecosystem to drive visibility and action? Is it disconnected from the rest of the firm’s marketing?

To be sure, many a law firm has sponsored an athletic endeavor to appease a partner whim. This isn’t a mortal sin, but marketing – in whatever form – will work best when all of your tactics work together.

From the outside looking in, Grungo Law has integrated the Temple sponsorship well. As noted, it’s prominent on the website, confirming to any Temple fan who lands there that they are in the right place. Elsewhere in the site, we can see that Grungo Law also sponsors all of the Temple Athletics programs, not just football; it also supports Saint Joseph’s University Athletics, the Phillies, the Flyers, Flyers Charities and the Big 5 Classic. Philadelphia sports fans – self-described as The Most Passionate Fans in America – see the firm logo everywhere.

Beyond logo visibility – and again, from the outside looking in – I’d want to see additional tactics that educate the Temple audience on what exactly Grungo Law does. Recognizing the name and logo is one thing; knowing to call the firm for personal injury matters is another. This could be radio spots on the pre- or postgame shows; ads on the SEPTA routes that serve Lincoln Financial Field; sponsorship of the injury report; geofenced ads on game day.

These sponsorships are not inexpensive. Any law firm considering one must ensure it’s not throwing a Hail Mary pass, but executing a thoughtful offensive plan that will generate points all season.

If your law firm hasn’t started paying attention to its LLM presence, there’s a new compelling reason you should – in fact, 29 million of them.

In a study of 97 B2B websites, Orbit Media found that visitors who come from AI sources (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, you name it) are more likely to become an actual lead than visitors from other sources.

Specifically, by examining the analytics for these websites – spanning one year and 29 million visits – Orbit Media discovered that visitors who come from AI are three times more likely to convert into leads than those who come from organic (non-advertisement) traffic sources.

Why?

Orbit Media presented four theories:

• The AI guided the user through a “shortlist” process. Here, we assume that before clicking on a link supplied by a tool like ChatGPT, the user had engaged in a series of qualifying questions with the LLM. For example, “Help me find a trademark law firm in Florida” led to discussions of specific cities, industry verticals, or fee structures.

• The user already knows your firm, but the LLM prompted final action. This would occur if a potential client had chatted about your firm before or simply asked the LLM for your website link. 

• Users view AI responses as advice, not ads. While a Google search brings a long list of possibilities – and we’ve all become cynical at the riffraff inherent therein – LLM output feels more like a sensible advisor. (Keep in mind that, according to one study, ChatGPT may now be the single largest provider of mental health in the U.S. Trust in these platforms is dangerously high.)
  
• AI users “skew serious.” As Orbit Media put it, people don’t open ChatGPT to kill time the way they scroll on social media. People go to it with specific questions when they have specific intent. They’re not curious about trademark law generally; they’re looking to get one registered.

Whatever the specific reason, it’s imperative for law firms to ensure their websites are well-positioned to capture this audience.

Start by determining your current “Share of Model.” What are the LLM queries that matter most to your firm, and how are you showing up now? This can be done manually or through dedicated software; if done manually, ensure you take into account inherent bias. LLM tools that you have used before will be familiar with your firm, and results will be falsely positive.

Understanding the current landscape will help you put together an action plan to increase the firm’s visibility. While every situation is different, marketing tactics we are recommending include:

• Practice pages. A Firesign review showed law firm practice pages were most-cited URLs by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview. Revise your practice pages to be “AI-friendly” with elements like Frequently Asked Questions, statistics, definitions and lists.
  
• Awards and rankings. Firesign analysis shows Perplexity and Google AI Overview both rely on industry rankings like Chambers USA, Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers and Best Law Firms to refer lawyers. Consider which award programs you need to add, which you need to enhance, and ensure your current listings are accurate and specific.
  
• PR. When it comes to law firm recommendations, at Firesign we see LLMs referring to trade media (Law360, regional Lawyers Weekly publications); press releases on reputable newswires, such as Globe Newswire; and Wikipedia. Executing all of these creates a credibility loop, as press releases can bring earned media, and earned media is a critical component of becoming “Wikipedia-worthy.”

As you explore this new (and ever-changing) aspect of law firm marketing, a few caveats:

• Beware “one-size-fits-all” advice. There are a lot of general recommendations for growing a company’s AI visibility that dont’ necessarily work for the legal sector. For example, many “best practices” stress earned media alone, but it’s evident that for law firms, the LLMs have been trained to incorporate specific rankings, like Chambers.

• Don’t exhaust yourself trying to be everywhere. If you have limited time and resources, focus on ChatGPT. According to Orbit Media’s study, ChatGPT drives 8 in 10 AI visits, five times more than every other AI tool combined. Pay attention to its specific favorites (Wikipedia, law firm practice pages) and run some smart experiments.

• Don’t focus solely on AI visibility. In the Orbit Media analysis of 97 B2B sites, Google Search drove 100 times more traffic. The conversion is lower, but the volume is critical. As always, a well-rounded marketing strategy that incorporates a full range of channels (website content, PR, awards, social media) is the best bet for sustainable success wherever clients are looking.

Just as the rise of generative AI tools has given new relevance to awards and rankings, there’s another facet of legal communications drawing attention from the LLMs: practice group pages.

The conventional wisdom (and Google Analytics) said that firms should focus on attorney biographies and “Contact Us” pages, as they were the sections that drove the most traffic from a traditional human audience. It wasn’t uncommon to see just 4 to 5 percent of website visits going to practice pages.

However, our new robot overlords consume law firm websites differently, and it’s evident that LLMs are trained to scout practice pages early and often.

Consider these outputs from a recent AI visibility analysis for a boutique litigation firm. Using software that rotates IP addresses and generates thousands of queries, we asked different AI platforms about the firm’s practice areas (“Who are the best lawyers for XYZ litigation?”) and tracked the sources.

• On ChatGPT, law firm practice pages were 13 of the top 25 most-cited URLs. As a category, law firm practice pages surpassed all other source types; Wikipedia pages were second, with four in the top 25.
  
• On Perplexity, law firm practice pages were 14 of the top 25 most-cited URLs. The next-highest-performing category, awards and rankings, had four.
  
• In Google AI Overviews, law firm practice pages comprised 15 of the top 25 most-cited URLs. The category in second place, awards and rankings, had three.

While every firm’s context is different – and LLM parameters are changing every day – law firms that want to be visible in AI queries must ensure their practice pages are positioned to deliver the information LLMs want in the format they want it in.

The Anatomy of an “AI Friendly” Practice Page

The team at MantyWeb thoroughly researched the factors driving performance in AI visibility. Many will feel familiar to law firms that actively engage in SEO; they span site setup, content presentation and key content ingredients.

Key factors include:

Site Setup

• AI Bot Access: This is a straightforward issue, but an imperative one. Does your site allow AI bots to crawl it? If you have restricted their access, you will not be visible in any AI answers.
  
• Schema Markup: Have you added code to the back end of your website to help robots understand the context of your page?

Content Style

• Readability: Is the page easy to scan? Take cues from presenting to humans here; break up long sentences, avoid jargon, use subheads as visual cues and break up long lists with bullet points.

• Length: Does your page have sufficient substance? AI bots want to see 300 or more words.

• Active Voice: Is most of your prose in active voice? 

Content Ingredients

• Statistics: Does your page show authority through data? Does your practice page provide quantitative evidence (number of litigators, number of verdicts, number of states covered)? Do you provide external data about the market (e.g. XYZ litigation claims are up 25 percent)?
  
• Citations: Do you link to reliable external sources? (Recall that LLMs love legal awards and rankings; your Chambers, Best Lawyers, Best Law Firms and Super Lawyers pages could be excellent contenders.) Aim for three.
  
• Content Age: LLMs want to see that your information is current. Is there a clear sign of the content age, such as “Updated January 2026”?
  
• Definitions: Do you provide definitions of key terms? Try to include two.
  
• FAQs: Do you provide an on-page Q&A section that can help LLMs answer user queries? 

(MantyWeb provides a free scanner you can use on your site’s content as well as a paid tool that tracks which pages LLMs are visiting.)

Where to Go From Here

Does this mean that you should rewrite all of your practice pages to adhere to AI’s preferences?

Time for the classic legal answer: It depends.

Take into account your brand and your clientele. For a consumer-facing family law firm, definitions and Q&A are value-adds for the human visitors as well as the robots. But if your firm serves a sophisticated audience, tread carefully; the general counsel of a publicly traded company may be put off thinking you need to define “securities” for them or seeing very rudimentary FAQs.

Despite the neverending AI buzz, you are still in a people business, and your website must not alienate, confuse or turn off your human visitors in an attempt to court the robot variety.

Consider how important AI visibility – and AI leads – are to your overall business development strategy, and act accordingly. If nothing else, checking that your site is available to AI bots and that your schema markup is complete and relevant can boost your visibility without changing any client-facing material.

Finally, remember that optimized practice pages are a key part of LLM output, but they are not the only part. AI tools also consult attorney awards and rankings, trade media, Wikipedia and even Reddit. As this nascent field evolves, the best defense and offense remains a well-rounded communications strategy that keeps your law firm visible across channels.

Your ideal client opens ChatGPT and types in “Make me a short list of the best lawyers for [your specialty] in [your location].”

Will you show up?

It’s a complicated answer for many reasons:

• The longer one uses a given LLM, the more it tailors responses – and incorporates assumptions about one’s preferences. 
•  It’s a matter of time before the companies behind these tools monetize the results. Google AI Overviews is doing it already.
• LLM responses are incredibly inconsistent, even within the same platform. Research shows there is a less than 1 percent chance that ChatGPT or Google AI will give you the same list of brands in any two responses. Claude is the consistency leader at a whopping 1.65 percent.
• There is a considerable Big Law bias that will challenge many small firms.

All of this while experts predict everything from a deflated AI bubble to Skynet becoming self-aware.

At best, assessing AI visibility right now feels like being a meteorologist on the local news: I can tell you the current conditions and look about ten days out. (But a thunderstorm may still pop up tomorrow.) It’s dangerous to rely on sweeping one-size-fits-all “get seen on AI” advice. I saw a statistic last week that said something like 96 percent of AI results come from earned media; that’s not accurate. 

To understand what the LLMs are looking at – right now – let’s take a look at an actual boutique law firm for whom I did this analysis. To eliminate bias, we use special software that rotates IP addresses daily; to provide reliable trend data, it runs thousands of queries.

While every law firm’s context is different, this can help show you the sources that LLMs are using to recommend lawyers and law firms.

We set up an exercise based on this law firm’s practice areas (i.e. What are the best law firms for XYZ litigation?) and tracked the sources. This shows not only what resources the LLMs are relying on but how different the outputs can be.

CHATGPT

Favorite source: Wikipedia. ChatGPT referenced law firm pages on Wikipedia in 35.6 percent of queries. No other source topped 9 percent.

Runner up: Large law firm practice pages. Among the top 20 most frequently cited domains, 16 were law firms, and eight of those were AmLaw 200 firms. On these websites, the LLMs are crawling practice pages, not lawyer biographies or educational content. (This is a marked difference from human habits; your carbon-based lifeform clients will look at biographies more than anything else.)

Rankings: ChatGPT does not rely on rankings. It referenced Chambers in 4.1 percent of queries, the only lawyer ranking to make the top 20 most frequently cited sources. Legal 500 surfaced in 2.7 percent of answers, and Best Law Firms and Martindale both showed up in 1.4 percent.

Earned media: ChatGPT isn’t bullish on traditional news, either. It referenced a regional legal trade publication in 6.8 percent of answers; a national newspaper in 2.7 percent; and a global news site in 1.4 percent. These were the only three “earned media” sources cited in the top 100.

Wild card: ChatGPT loves lurking on Reddit. It was the No. 11 most frequently cited source. To be sure, some of the pages ChatGPT cited were dedicated to associate kvetching, but in the eyes of this LLM, Reddit is a reliable source.

What I’d recommend: If you wanted to prioritize ChatGPT, I’d tell you to prepare to play a long game earning a Wikipedia page. For a shorter turnaround and simpler actions, you should align your practice pages to accommodate both humans and robots (and that’s another article).

PERPLEXITY

Favorite source: Awards and rankings, and it’s not close. Perplexity cited Super Lawyers in just more than half (50.7 percent) of all answers. Right behind it: Best Lawyers, with 45.2 percent, and Chambers, with 38.4 percent. 

Runner up: Law firm practice pages. Among the top 20 most frequently cited domains, 12 were law firms. The big firm bias is a little less pronounced on Perplexity; just three of the 12 were AmLaw 200 firms.

Rankings: As stated above, Perplexity favors rankings more than any other source. The platform tends to steer people toward resources that help them scout law firms themselves more than explicit recommendations. Other rankings and roundups in the top 20 include Avvo (27.4 percent); BTI Consulting’s client recommendations (20.5 percent); and Vault (17.8 percent).

Earned media: The only traditional earned media cited was Law360 (in 1.4 percent of answers).

Wild card: Perplexity also likes Reddit; Reddit chats surfaced in 17.8 percent of answers. Unlike ChatGPT, there were zero citations for Wikipedia.

What I’d recommend: For Perplexity, work on your rankings game. I would prioritize Chambers department rankings in the practices and regions that matter most. Keep your lawyers active in Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers voting, and explore paid placements for your most lucrative niches.

GOOGLE AI OVERVIEWS

Favorite source: There’s a slight edge to law firm websites, but it’s less pronounced than the favoritism shown by the other LLMs to their preferred sources. Among the top five sources, three are law firms; one is Chambers; one is Vault. 

On Google AI overviews, small law firms with smart SEO fare better. Of the 13 law firms cited most frequently, only two were Am Law 200 firms. One firm was a sole practitioner. Google AI overviews are more democratic – and reward firms that play Google’s original game.

Runner up: Legal reference pages took three spots on the top 10 sources. This includes Vault (31.9 percent) as well as law firm lists maintained by BCG Search (16.7 percent) and BTI Consulting (16.7 percent). Like Perplexity, Google AI overviews often direct users to resources that help them scout lawyers themselves.

Rankings: Google AI overviews do not rely on rankings as heavily as Perplexity, but Chambers was the second most-cited source, appearing in 36.1 percent of all answers. Other industry accolades that appeared: Super Lawyers (15.3 percent); Legal 500 (11.1 percent); Best Lawyers (5.6 percent); Best Law Firms (1.4 percent).

Earned media: Google AI overviews cited earned media more than the other LLMs. Law360 appeared in 22.2 percent of answers, the seventh-most-cited source, but usage dropped after. The ABA Journal, Law.com and a specific regional legal trade were each cited in 1.4 percent of answers. (Note that this is the LLM with the highest use of earned media, but it doesn’t approach the apocryphal claim that 96 percent of LLM answers use earned media).

Wild card: Pay-to-play newswires. Google AI overviews treat press releases posted on PR Newswire and EIN Presswire as “news.” Savvy law firms used this to announce rankings in Best Law Firms and major case results.

Interestingly, there were no Wikipedia citations, and Reddit was cited only once.

What I’d recommend: Specific to Google AI overviews, look to build a well-rounded online presence – just as you would for traditional Google results. Consider using paid newswires to share major accomplishments and rankings.

THE BOTTOM LINE

There is no magic answer to AI visibility, but this actual case study shows the sources each platform tends to favor.

Without getting into tactical takeaways (which should be based on your firm’s context), here are the two primary lessons:

• While there’s no silver bullet to top all of the LLM charts, a well-rounded online presence will help you rise across all of them. Many of these pieces work together; for example, we know that Google AI likes earned media but ChatGPT favors Wikipedia. What helps you get a Wikipedia page? Earned media mentions.
  
• If it’s worth saying, it’s worth repeating. LLMs pull from varied sources. If your firm ranks Band One in Chambers, it will obviously appear on that site, but it should be on your practice page and run as a newswire item. Demonstrate your firm’s strengths frequently, consistently and in a variety of outlets. No one, human or bot, is scanning just one source.

A comprehensive approach and consistent messaging: These fundamentals have been key to effective law firm marketing long before generative AI, and they will be instrumental to your firm’s success with it.