White paper · October 2026

Your next client will ask AI about you.

More people now ask AI which lawyer to call. The AI names a few. If you are not one of them, you do not get the call.

Yesterday, an attorney we work with got a call about a $600,000 case. The investor found him on Google. Then he asked Claude about him. Claude said he was one of the best arbitration lawyers in his city. The investor called.

We see it ourselves. Personally, we have all but abandoned Google in favor of AI search.

The shift in four years

42%

of adults under 65 say they would use ChatGPT to find a lawyer.

2023
9%
2024
21%
2025
28%
2026
42%

Often it is the son or daughter, looking for help for Mom or Dad.

iLawyerMarketing survey, 2026, 1,110 U.S. adults ages 18 to 65. They were asked which sources they would use. In one year, Google fell from 87% to 72%.

What changed

Google only finds links. You type a few words. Google shows a list of websites with those words. You do the reading.

AI reads for you. ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and the others read many websites in seconds. They look for real information: who you are, what you have won, what others say about you. Then they answer with a few names.

People ask the whole question. “My broker put my mother’s retirement money into a risky fund. Who should I call?” Google shows links. AI gives names.

What this means for you

The AI names a few lawyers. Not ten pages. Just a few names. Sometimes it sends people to Avvo or Martindale instead. Be listed there too.

It reads what others say about you. FINRA awards, the bar, PIABA, Avvo, reviews and the news.

If your facts do not match, it may pick someone else. An old phone number on one website is enough.

Your website may be locking it out. We found this on one firm’s websites this month. A security setting, added years ago to stop spam, was blocking the AI too. Nobody knew.

What your website needs

  1. 1

    Answer the questions clients ask. One page per question: what it costs, how long it takes, what churning is. The first sentence is the answer.

  2. 2

    Put your facts in words. Your results, with amounts and dates, and your fee terms. Add the disclaimers your state bar requires. The AI cannot read words inside a photo.

  3. 3

    Same facts everywhere. Name, address, phone and bio match on your website, Google, Bing, Avvo, Martindale and your state bar.

  4. 4

    Ask how they found you. Add “AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.)” as a choice on your intake form.

Why WordPress and Justia sites fall short

WordPress is a dinosaur in the AI age.

Most law-firm websites run on WordPress or Justia. Both started in 2003. They were built to show up on Google. Not to be read by AI. More on Justia here.

Things the AI cannot see. Chat boxes, pop-ups and blog posts fed in by a marketing company. You see them. The AI often does not.

A locked door. Security add-ons often treat the AI like a hacker and turn it away. Most firms never check.

Slow pages. Piles of add-ons slow a website down. Slow websites show up lower on Google and Bing, and the AI starts with those results.

The same words as everyone. Template pages say what hundreds of other firm websites say. The AI has nothing to quote.

Rented, not owned. On Justia, stop paying and the website goes with it. Ask whether your pages come with you.

Still on WordPress or Justia? Now is the time to change. Wait, and you miss the AI shift, and the clients who come with it.

The old Google tricks do not work on AI

For years, marketing companies sold tricks to fool Google. AI reads like a skeptical client. It is not fooled.

The same words over and over. “Miami securities fraud lawyer” twelve times on a page looks like filler.

Fake city pages. Fifty pages that only change the city name. The AI sees through it.

Bought links. The AI trusts FINRA, the courts, the bar, PIABA and the press. Not websites nobody reads.

Padded reviews. Short five-star reviews with no detail look fake. The AI reads the words.

Piles of blog posts. Hundreds of short posts that repeat the news. One page with your real results beats them all.

What comes next

Higher-quality contacts. The people who call have already read about you, your results and your fees. Many have already picked you.

Real records win. FINRA awards and bar records are hard to fake. AI trusts them more every year.

Bottom line

The best approach is clean, modern code. A fast, simple website, with your facts right on the page, can be read by every AI.

No games. No templates.

Your checklist

  • Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Perplexity: “Who is the best FINRA arbitration lawyer in [your city]?” Ask a few times. The answers change.
  • Make your name, address and phone the same on every website that lists you.
  • Claim your free Bing Places listing, not just Google.
  • Put your real results on your website, in words, with the disclaimer your state bar requires.
  • Write a page for each of the ten questions clients ask on the first call.
  • Ask every new client: “How did you find us?”

Hand this to your web person

  • Do not block Bingbot or Googlebot. ChatGPT relies on Bing to find pages.
  • Allow OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User and PerplexityBot in robots.txt and the firewall. Check Cloudflare’s AI bot setting and any Wordfence or Sucuri rules.
  • Check key pages with View Source, not Inspect. If the words are not in the source, ChatGPT and Claude cannot see them. Same test for the blog.
  • Add LegalService, Person and FAQPage structured data (JSON-LD), with sameAs links to the bar, Avvo and Google Business profiles.
  • Pass Core Web Vitals on mobile.
  • Track referrals from chatgpt.com, claude.ai, perplexity.ai and grok.com.

Questions? Write to us at twb@diogenesgroup.ltd.