Key takeaways
- We ran our live AI visibility audit tool against 25 established law firms and could scan 22. Average visibility was 23.6% across 110 live, grounded buyer queries. The median firm scored 20%.
- Nineteen of 22 firms were named in two of five queries or fewer. Eight were not named once, and no firm scored above 60%.
- A handful of global brands crowded the answers. Kirkland & Ellis was named as an alternative in 20 of 110 answers, Latham & Watkins in 15 and DLA Piper in 14, almost regardless of the question.
- AI leaned on third parties: Wikipedia alone was 113 of 880 citations (12.8%), followed by ranking and directory sites. A firm's own website was only 0.6% of what was cited.
- Problem-first questions, where the client describes a situation, named a firm only 31.8% of the time. Category questions did worst at 15.9%.
- This is a sample of established mid-size and larger firms that we chose. It says nothing about small practices, and it likely flatters them.
Why we audited law firms
Law is a referral business, which makes it an easy place to assume reputation is enough. Clients still ask someone they trust, and the firms in this audit are established, with decades of work behind them. But some prospective clients put the situation to an AI assistant and read the shortlist it gives them, so we wanted to see what they would see.
So we asked the obvious question. When someone describes a legal need without naming a firm, which firms get named? And does being an established name guarantee you are one of them?
23.6%
average AI visibility across 22 established law firms, measured by live grounded search on 110 buyer queries
Deligatr Law Firm AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
How the audit works
The tool reads each firm's homepage, classifies it in the words a client would use, writes five buyer-intent queries (one local-style, two category, one problem-first, one comparison) and runs each as a live, grounded AI search with the firm's own name left out. It is one run, five queries per firm, on one day. AI answers change between runs, so read every score as a snapshot. The full method is in our audit documentation, and all twelve industry audits are on our AI visibility research page.
A firm is either in the answer or it is not.
The distribution: nobody scored above 60%
Firms by AI visibility score
22 established law firms, each tested on 5 live grounded buyer queries. Number of firms at each score.
Deligatr Law Firm AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
No firm was named in four or five of its five queries. The best three, Bass Berry & Sims, McGuireWoods and Morgan & Morgan, reached 60%. Eight firms, including Mintz, Stinson, Husch Blackwell and Frost Brown Todd, were not named in a single query.
These are not obscure practices. They are long-established firms with strong reputations. Reputation among people, it turns out, does not transfer automatically into being named by AI.
What kind of question loses the most
How often a firm was named, by query type
Share of queries in which the firm was named. 22 firms, 110 queries.
Deligatr Law Firm AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
Category questions did worst: "employment law firm" or "commercial litigation firm" named a firm only 15.9% of the time. That is the broad, generic query that many firms assume they own.
The problem-first and comparison queries did better, at 31.8% each, which is still low. The takeaway is not that one query type is safe. It is that no query type was safe.
Who got named instead, and where the answers came from
When an established firm was not named, AI named someone else, and it was usually the same few names. Kirkland & Ellis appeared as a named alternative in 20 of 110 answers, Latham & Watkins in 15 and DLA Piper in 14. Employment specialists Jackson Lewis, Ogletree Deakins and Littler Mendelson also recurred as named alternatives. In short, the answer tended to default to the biggest brand in the category.
The sources behind the answers were concentrated, unlike what we found when we audited SaaS companies. Across 880 citations on 382 domains, Wikipedia alone was 113 citations, 12.8% of the total. Best Lawyers, Best Law Firms, BCG Attorney Search, Chambers, Super Lawyers, Clio, Justia, Vault and Legal 500 followed.
0.6%
of all citations pointed to the firm's own website (5 of 880), measured by matching the firm's name in the cited domain
Deligatr Law Firm AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
For a profession that markets itself mostly through its own website, that is the most important number in this audit. AI built its answers from rankings, directories and reference sites. If a firm is absent or inaccurate there, a very good website does not make up for it.
The three we could not scan
Three of the 25 firms we tried, Lewis Rice, Polsinelli and Spencer Fane, could not be audited. Our crawler was shown a bot-verification page or an error instead of the homepage. Bot protection is reasonable for a firm handling sensitive data, but we cannot tell from outside whether it also stops the crawlers AI assistants use. If it does, the firm's content is not being read at all.
What to do with this, if you run a firm
- Check what you are called in the directories. Compare your firm's name, offices, practice areas and attorney profiles across Best Lawyers, Chambers, Super Lawyers, Legal 500, Justia and your Wikipedia entry if you have one. Inconsistent or missing entries make you hard to place.
- State, in one plain sentence, who you act for and what you handle. "Employment law firm that represents employers in Texas" is easy to place. "A full-service firm" is not.
- Write for the situation, not the credential. Build pages that answer what clients ask before they hire: what happens, how long it takes, what it costs, what to do first. Have a partner review each one.
- Earn mentions that AI trusts. Rankings, legal media and professional bodies shape the answer. Pursue them openly, and within your state bar's advertising rules.
- Check whether your site can be read. Test what your security layer shows a plain automated visitor.
- Re-test regularly. AI answers change, so a single score tells you little.
Referrals still matter most for small firms, as we cover in how law firms actually get new clients. If you want this work done as a program, see our AEO, GEO and SEO service for law firms.
Book a free consultation and we will run your own constructed questions against live assistants and show you who is named instead of your firm. Inbound is $2,500 a month on monthly billing.
Book a consultationEvery firm we audited
Firm | Visibility | Appeared on | Top rival named instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bass, Berry & Sims | 60% | Category x2, Problem | Jones Day |
| McGuireWoods | 60% | Local, Category, Problem | Kirkland & Ellis |
| Morgan & Morgan | 60% | Category, Problem, Comparison | The Cochran Firm |
| BakerHostetler | 40% | Local, Category | Latham & Watkins |
| Edgar Snyder & Associates | 40% | Local, Comparison | Munley Law |
| Jackson Lewis | 40% | Local, Comparison | Littler Mendelson |
| Littler Mendelson | 40% | Problem, Comparison | Jackson Lewis |
| Nelson Mullins | 40% | Local, Category | DLA Piper |
| Ogletree Deakins | 40% | Problem, Comparison | Jackson Lewis |
| Fisher Phillips | 20% | Comparison | Ogletree Deakins |
| Foley & Lardner | 20% | Problem | Jones Day |
| Honigman | 20% | Comparison | Barnes & Thornburg LLP |
| Kutak Rock | 20% | Problem | Kirkland & Ellis |
| Taft | 20% | Category | Patout, Fontana, and Dellis PLLC |
| Dickinson Wright | 0% | None | DLA Piper |
| Dykema | 0% | None | Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC |
| FBT Gibbons | 0% | None | Redstone Law Firm |
| Husch Blackwell | 0% | None | Kirkland & Ellis |
| Levin Papantonio | 0% | None | Morgan & Morgan |
| Mintz | 0% | None | WilmerHale |
| Stinson LLP | 0% | None | DLA Piper |
| Williams Mullen | 0% | None | McGuireWoods |
Not scanned (bot-verification page or error): Lewis Rice, Polsinelli, Spencer Fane.
Check your own number
Every firm above was run through the same tool below. It takes about ninety seconds, and your firm's name is never in the query.
Do AI assistants recommend you?
Five buyer-style queries for your category, run through live AI search, show who gets named instead of you. Takes about ninety seconds.
Free. The full report arrives by email so the tab can close.
Methodology and honest limitations
What we did. On October 3, 2026 we ran the live audit tool that powers our free checker against 25 established law firms: one run, five queries per firm, visibility measurement only. The step-by-step method is in our audit documentation. A firm that disputes its result can ask us to re-run it.
The sample. We chose real, identifiable mid-size and larger US law firms across employment, corporate, litigation and personal injury work. It is a sample of established firms that we picked, not a random one and not a census. It likely flatters the average, because small and solo practices are not in it. A firm's score also depends on how our classifier read its homepage.
What it does not cover. Only the homepage was read, so a firm with a thin homepage and strong inner pages may be undercounted. Five queries per firm is a small sample of real client language. Results come from one run on one day, and AI answers change over time. We did not test whether any firm pays for directory placement.
On advertising rules. Nothing here is legal advice. Lawyer advertising and solicitation rules vary by state and country, and your own bar rules apply.
FAQ
How visible are established law firms in AI answers?
Not very. Across the 22 established firms we could scan, average visibility was 23.6% over 110 buyer queries. Nineteen firms were named in two of five queries or fewer, eight were not named at all, and none scored higher than 60%.
Which firms did AI name instead?
A handful of global brands. Kirkland & Ellis was named as an alternative in 20 of 110 answers, Latham & Watkins in 15 and DLA Piper in 14, whatever the practice area or city in the question.
Where does AI get its answers about law firms?
Mostly from third parties. Across 880 citations, Wikipedia was the single biggest source, followed by ranking and directory sites such as Best Lawyers, Best Law Firms, Chambers, Super Lawyers, Justia and Legal 500. A firm's own website was only 0.6% of what was cited.
Does this audit say anything about small or solo practices?
No. We audited established mid-size and larger firms that we chose, not a random sample. Smaller practices were not tested, and they are likely to fare worse on generic queries than this sample did.
Why could three firms not be scanned?
Lewis Rice, Polsinelli and Spencer Fane showed our audit crawler a bot-verification page or an error instead of the homepage. Firms that handle sensitive data often run strict bot protection, and we cannot tell from outside whether it also stops the crawlers AI assistants use.
Can a law firm pay for a better result?
We would not count on it. Some legal directories sell placement, and we cannot see how AI weighs that. Accurate profiles, clear practice-area pages and genuine third-party mentions are the safer route, within your jurisdiction's advertising rules.
