AI as the Next Go-to-Market Channel for Law Firms

Why the Firms That Act Now Will Pull Ahead (Just Like They Did with the Web)

For most of the modern history, law firm growth followed a familiar pattern: reputation, relationships, referrals. Marketing was restrained, distribution was limited, and differentiation was subtle.

Then came the website. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, most law firms treated websites as digital brochures: static, conservative, and largely symbolic. A small subset of firms, however, recognised that the web was not just branding infrastructure, it was a new go-to-market channel.

Those firms:

• Published practical insights instead of generic credentials

• Made expertise searchable, discoverable, and accessible

• Used content to pre-educate clients before the first meeting

• Scaled reputation beyond geography and personal networks

The result was measurable. Firms that invested early in SEO, online thought leadership, and digital client journeys consistently outperformed peers on:

• Inbound enquiries

• Mid-market and growth-stage client acquisition

• Practice expansion beyond legacy networks

What separated leaders from laggards was strategic intent. They understood that distribution of expertise mattered as much as expertise itself.

Today, law firms face a similar (and arguably larger) inflection point.

AI Is Not Just an Efficiency Tool. It Is a Distribution Shift.

Most conversations about AI in legal focus on:

• Faster drafting

• Research acceleration

• Cost reduction

• Associate leverage

These are real benefits, but they miss a big opportunity.

AI is emerging as a new interface between legal expertise and the market.

Just as Google reshaped how clients find lawyers, AI is reshaping how clients:

• Explore legal questions

• Evaluate expertise

• Decide who to trust

• Engage before speaking to a human

This is not theoretical.

• Over 70% of B2B buyers now complete the majority of their research before contacting a provider

• AI-powered search and assistants are rapidly displacing traditional keyword search

• Clients increasingly expect answers, not introductions

In this environment, firms that rely solely on reputation and referrals risk becoming invisible in the early-stages of the buying journey.

The New GTM Question for Law Firm Partners

The strategic question is no longer “Should we use AI?”

It is:

How does our expertise show up clearly, accurately, and credibly in an AI-mediated world?

This is a go-to-market question, not a technology one.

Forward-looking firms are beginning to treat AI as:

• A new channel for expertise distribution

• A pre-engagement client experience

• A force multiplier for thought leadership

• A differentiator in how value is delivered, not just priced

A Practical Framework: How Partners Should Think About AI as a GTM Lever

At Everingham Legal, we encourage partners to evaluate AI through four lenses.

1. Visibility: Where Does Your Expertise Appear?

In an AI-driven market, expertise that is not structured, accessible, and machine-readable is effectively invisible.

Key questions:

• Can AI systems accurately understand what your firm is known for?

• Is your thinking codified or trapped in partner conversations and PDFs?

• Are you shaping the answers clients receive before they speak to a lawyer?

Insight: In the same way SEO once determined visibility on Google, structured expertise now determines visibility in AI-driven discovery.

2. Credibility: How Is Trust Established Before First Contact?

AI will increasingly handle the first impression of your firm by summarizing, recommending, or comparing providers.

Leading firms are using AI to:

• Deliver consistent, high-quality explanations of complex issues

• Reinforce judgment and nuance rather than generic answers

• Align messaging across partners, practices, and regions

The goal is to create an environment to pre-validate expertise.

3. Experience: What Happens Before the First Meeting?

Historically, value began at the first call. Increasingly, value begins before that moment.

AI-enabled firms are experimenting with:

• Guided client intake and issue framing

• AI-assisted insights tailored to industry or scenario

• Faster path from question to qualified conversation

This shortens sales cycles, improves fit, and raises the quality of engagement on both sides.

4. Leverage: How Is Human Judgment Amplified?

The real differentiator is what lawyers do with the time and clarity AI creates.

Firms that win will:

• Redeploy time toward judgment, strategy, and relationships

• Use AI to reduce noise, not replace thinking

• Make senior expertise more scalable without diluting quality

In this model, human excellence becomes the premium product.

Why Timing Matters

Every major distribution shift creates a temporary advantage for early movers.

• Early websites created durable SEO moats

• Early content leaders became category authorities

• Late adopters were forced to pay to compete

AI is creating a similar window, but it will close faster.

Once AI-mediated discovery becomes the baseline, differentiation will be harder, more expensive, and reactive.

The Firms That Will Pull Ahead

The firms that win this transition will be the most intentional.

They will:

• Treat AI as a GTM strategy, not a side project

• Invest in structure, governance, and clarity before tools

• Align AI initiatives with brand, positioning, and client experience

• Keep the focus on making legal work simpler, smarter, and more human

Conclusion

The web didn’t replace lawyers. It reshaped how clients found them.

AI won’t replace lawyers either. But it will reshape how legal expertise is discovered, evaluated, and experienced.

This is a rare inflection point. The law firm leaders who plan and execute intentionally will capture the attention of AI models before their competitors and create an advantage for years to come.