A law firm gets named by ChatGPT or Google's AI features when those systems find a page that answers the question and choose to use it, and no firm controls that choice. What a firm controls is access, so its pages can be crawled and indexed, and substance, so those pages answer what prospective clients ask with detail only that firm can supply. Treat a recommendation as something you observe in a specific answer, not something you can buy.
Many owners notice the problem the same way: someone asks ChatGPT for a lawyer nearby and a competitor's name comes back. The first instinct is to look for a trick. The documentation Google and OpenAI publish points somewhere less exciting, toward ordinary access settings and pages that answer real questions.
This is a content-planning question for firm owners and marketing leads, not legal advice. Anything a firm publishes about its services also falls under attorney advertising rules, and those vary by state.
What the platforms' own documentation says
Google's page on AI features and websites states: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." To appear as a supporting link, a page has to be "indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet," and Google adds that "all existing SEO fundamentals continue to be worthwhile."
The same page describes a technique called query fan-out, "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources" to build a response. One reasonable hypothesis follows: a firm whose site answers the subtopics around a legal problem (cost, timing, what happens after the first call) gives those related searches more relevant pages to find. Google does not say that in those words, so treat it as a planning assumption, not a rule.
Google's separate guide to generative AI features is just as plain about format. It says "You don't need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search," and that there is "no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces" for AI to understand it. Its advice is to "Create the content yourself based on what you know about the topic." The guide also notes that AI responses can include information about local businesses and that a Google Business Profile can help with visibility there.
OpenAI's publisher FAQ says "Any public website can appear in ChatGPT search," and "For your site content to be included in summaries and snippets in ChatGPT, make sure you aren't blocking OAI-SearchBot." The FAQ does not describe how ChatGPT chooses or ranks sources, so be cautious with anyone who claims to know the formula.
Check access before rewriting anything
Start with the technical basics, because they are cheap to confirm. Put two questions to whoever manages the site: "Is OAI-SearchBot allowed in our robots.txt, and which of our practice area pages are indexed in Google right now?" The answers may take an afternoon and can save weeks of rewriting a page that search systems may have limited visibility into.
Then look at how pages connect. A strong practice area page with no internal links pointing to it is hard for anyone to find, person or crawler. Google's AI features page lists making content findable through internal links among the fundamentals that still apply.
Save evidence as you go: the question asked, the date, the location if relevant, the full answer, and any sources it linked. A screenshot without the question is half a record. The same habit makes measurement possible later, which the page on measuring whether AI assistants mention your firm covers in detail.
Answer what clients ask before they call
A prospective client rarely types "injury lawyer" and stops. They ask whether they can afford a lawyer, whether it is too late, what the first meeting costs, and whether the firm takes their kind of case. A practice area list is not an answer. A page that says "We handle car accidents, truck accidents, and slip and falls" tells the reader what the firm does without touching anything they asked.
Collect the real questions first. Intake notes, contact form messages, and the attorneys' own memory of first consultations are better starting points than a keyword tool alone. The page on what a practice area page should answer before a client calls turns that list into a page structure.
Then write the answer first and the conditions right beside it. A fictional firm might write: "The first consultation for injury cases is free; for other matters, we explain the consultation fee when you call." That sentence still makes sense if it is quoted on its own, because its subject and its limits travel together.
Give the answer something only your firm can supply
Google's self-assessment for helpful content asks, "Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge." For a law firm, that material lives with the attorneys: how they explain a timeline, what they ask in a first meeting, which matters they decline and why. None of it should be made up at the keyboard, and a writer should not have to invent what the firm already knows. The job is to collect it, confirm it, and write it down clearly.
Here is a fictional brief for a two-attorney family law firm in Arizona that wants its divorce page to be a better source. It shows the inputs, not any real firm's process.
| Brief field | What the firm supplies |
|---|---|
| Question as clients ask it | "How long will my divorce take if we agree on most things?" |
| Attorney input | Which steps the firm controls and which depend on the court or the other side |
| Evidence | An approved, anonymized description of a typical sequence, with no promised timeline |
| Advertising check | No implied promise of speed or outcome; conditions stay in the same paragraph |
| Owner | The attorney who approves the answer and the date it gets reviewed again |
Keep the advertising rules in the same review
Pages written with AI search in mind are still communications about the firm's services. ABA Model Rule 7.1 says "A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services," and a communication is misleading if it "omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading." Model Rule 7.2(d) says a communication made under that rule "must include the name and contact information of at least one lawyer or law firm responsible for its content."
Those are the ABA's model versions. Each state adopts its own, and the ABA keeps comparison charts that "show how each jurisdiction has modified each of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct." Bring the specific page to whoever handles ethics questions for the firm and ask which state's rules apply. Our guide to law firm content and AI search lists the related questions in this set, including how the rules touch case results and reviews.
Record what you observe, then build from it
Pick a fixed set of client questions, check them on a schedule, and keep the records in one place. Over a few months that log shows which questions your firm appears for, which competitors appear instead, and which answers cite pages you could improve. It will not tell you exactly why a system chose one source over another, and it does not need to.
Hudson South's process runs in the same order. Authority Asset gathers the firm's approved knowledge and evidence. Hudson Twenty-One records how the firm communicates across 21 dimensions so the writing sounds like its attorneys. Market Intelligence researches the questions clients ask and the answers they currently find. AEO Creation turns those inputs into answer-first pages. None of those steps can promise a mention; they make the firm's pages a clearer source to consider.
If a specific answer left your firm out, the guide to why ChatGPT may not recommend a business walks through the diagnosis one step at a time.
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- AI features and your website. Google Search Central. Read 2026-10-15.
- Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search. Google Search Central. Read 2026-10-15.
- Publishers and Developers - FAQ. OpenAI Help Center. Read 2026-10-15.
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. Google Search Central. Read 2026-10-15.
- Rule 7.1: Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services. American Bar Association. Read 2026-10-15.
- Rule 7.2: Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services: Specific Rules. American Bar Association. Read 2026-10-15.
- Jurisdictional Rules Comparison Charts. American Bar Association. Read 2026-10-15.