How AI assistants recommend lawyers
Someone who asks an AI assistant for a lawyer gets a short list of firms, and the list changes with the assistant and the practice area. Here is what they answered in every city the AIGROW Index asked, and what a firm can work on.
- Cities asked
- 88
- Names in the rankings
- 1,673
- Businesses named per city
- 60
- Names repeated on a rerun
- 43%
- Answers that name the leader
- 40%
The first two rows are counts; the rows under them are medians over the ranked pages. Every question was asked without a location or a chat history.
Asked for a lawyer in 88 cities, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok named about 60 firms per city, and 59% of those names came up only once. Each assistant builds its list from what is published about a firm. What a firm controls is that public record: its practice areas, its lawyers and its listings.
What a customer asked, and who came first
One place of the 88, as an example: New York. Every place was asked the same questions in its own language, and its page in the Index has the full ranking.
- Who is the best lawyer in New York?
- I'm getting divorced in New York. Which family lawyer would you recommend?
- I was injured in a car accident in New York. Which personal injury lawyer should I call?
- Which law firm in New York would you recommend for a small business?
- Cellino Lawnamed in 19% of the answers
- Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katznamed in 19% of the answers
- Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLPnamed in 19% of the answers
The names that recur
77 different businesses came first across 88 rankings, and 104 names were listed in three places or more. These are the most frequent.
- Garrigues8 places
- CMS Hasche Sigle7 places
- Cuatrecasas7 places
- Irwin Mitchell7 places
- Baker McKenzie6 places
- Fidal6 places
Counted by spelling: two businesses with the same name in different places count as one.
What an owner can work on
No one can promise a place in an assistant’s answer. What an owner controls is what is published about the business, and these are the parts the questions above point to.
One page per practice area
The questions ask for a divorce lawyer, a personal injury lawyer and a firm for a small business, not for a lawyer in general. A page for each area you take on, with the lawyers who handle it, answers the question as it is asked.
Name your lawyers in public
Profiles of each lawyer, with admissions, languages and the matters they handle, kept the same on your site, bar listings and legal directories, give an assistant facts it can repeat.
Say who you act for
An assistant asked for a small-business firm looks for firms that say they act for small businesses. Write who your clients are and what you do for them in plain words.
Every ranking for this trade
The AIGROW Index publishes the ranking of each place with every answer, and how it was measured.
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