Being Findable in an AI-Driven Market
What Law Firm Partners Need to Know About LLMs, Visibility, and the Next Go-to-Market Shift
For the past two decades, law firm growth has been shaped by a familiar set of levers: reputation, referrals, rankings, SEO, and (for some) paid digital advertising.
That model is now being quietly disrupted.
Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are becoming a new interface between clients and professional expertise. Increasingly, prospective clients are asking AI systems questions they once asked Google or their colleagues, such as:
“Who is the best family law firm in Melbourne?”
This shift raises an important and often misunderstood question for law firm leaders:
Can law firms optimise their visibility for AI?
The answer is yes. But not in the way SEO, rankings, or advertising have conditioned us to think.
This Is Not Rankings
Legal rankings and directories still matter, but not because they are “rankings”. They matter because they serve as credible third-party validation signals that AI models recognise and reproduce.
LLMs do not simply return the #1-ranked firm. They surface firms that are:
Repeatedly referenced
Consistently described
Associated with specific expertise and geography
This Is Not Traditional SEO
SEO is about optimising for a search engine’s algorithm.
LLM discoverability is about optimising for semantic understanding and trust.
Keyword density, backlinks, and technical optimisation play a far smaller role than:
Clear positioning
Authoritative explanations
Consistent external references
This Is Not Google Ads or Paid Placement
Today, LLM recommendations in non-paid environments are not auction-based.
While some platforms are experimenting with advertising models, there is currently no equivalent of “buying the top result” when an AI system answers a question about professional services.
That makes early credibility and clarity far more valuable than budget.
How LLMs Actually Surface Law Firms
When an LLM is asked to recommend a law firm, it is not conducting a live search in most cases. Instead, it draws on patterns learned from vast amounts of public, reputable content.
In simple terms, LLMs favour firms that:
Are clearly specialised (not vaguely ‘full service’)
Are consistently described the same way across the web
Are referenced by credible third parties
Publish explanatory, practical content
Are associated with recognisable individuals, not just brands
This is less about marketing claims and more about collective internet memory.
The Shift Law Firm Leaders Need to Understand
Historically, law firms focused on being:
Well ranked
Well connected
Well regarded by peers
In an AI-mediated market, firms must also be:
Well defined
Well explained
Well referenced
LLMs do not reward ambiguity.
A firm described everywhere as a “leading full-service law firm” is harder for an AI system to confidently recommend than a firm consistently positioned as:
“A Melbourne-based family law firm specialising in complex parenting disputes and property settlements.”
Specificity builds recall. Recall drives visibility.
The Four Pillars of LLM Findability for Law Firms
1. Clear, Machine-Readable Positioning
Law firm websites are often written for prestige. However, LLMs prioritise clarity.
LLMs respond better to language that answers:
Who you help
What problems you solve
In which jurisdiction
In what context
This does not mean ‘dumbing down’. It means being explicit.
2. Credible Third-Party Signals
AI systems place far more weight on what others say about your firm than what you say about yourself.
Key sources include:
Legal directories
Media commentary
Industry publications
Guest articles and interviews
Consistency across these sources is critical.
3. Authoritative, Explanatory Content
LLMs are trained on content that explains how things work.
Firms that regularly publish:
Plain-English legal explainers
Jurisdiction-specific guidance
Scenario-based insights
are more likely to be associated with expertise, and therefore recommended.
4. Human Authority
In professional services, AI often recalls people before brands.
Partners who:
Write publicly
Are quoted in the media
Speak on specific topics
increase both personal and firm-level visibility.
Why This Matters Now
This is an early-stage shift, but not a speculative one.
Just as:
Early SEO leaders built durable advantages
Early content-driven firms shaped Google results
firms that understand LLM discoverability early will shape how AI systems describe them for years to come.
Late movers will not disappear, but they will compete in a noisier, more expensive environment.
Where Everingham Legal Fits
Helping firms become ‘findable’ in an AI-driven market is not about chasing algorithms. It is about designing clarity, credibility, and consistency into how a firm presents itself to the world.
At Everingham Legal, we work with law firm leaders to:
Define and sharpen market positioning
Align website language with real expertise
Build credible thought leadership frameworks
Establish governance around AI and digital risk
Create systems that make expertise discoverable
We support law firms to create go-to-market strategies for the AI era.
A Final Thought for Law Firm Leaders
AI will not replace referrals, relationships, or reputation.
But it will influence how prospective clients form first impressions. The first impression of your law firm often occurs before you ever know they were looking.
The question is no longer whether AI will shape discovery. It is whether your firm is described by AI the way you would describe yourself: clearly, accurately, and credibly. Most importantly, this is a strategy that can be designed deliberately.
