On this page
- Half of US Adults Now Ask a Chatbot, and Legal Questions Go There Too
- Asked What the Law Says, ChatGPT Reads Courts and Law Libraries, Not Firms
- Asked for a Lawyer, ChatGPT Hands Over a Rated Shortlist of About Six Firms
- Five of the Directories Under the Shortlist Share One Owner
- Each Line of the Card Leads Back to Someone at Your Firm
- Two in Three Firms Did Not Answer an Emailed Inquiry
- Frequently asked questions
ChatGPT can put your firm beside five rivals before a client visits your website, and a firm can make that shortlist and still lose the client in its own inbox.
We read the answers ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, Google's chat-style search answers, gave in September 2026 to everyday questions from people hiring a lawyer for themselves, and to questions about what the law says. That is one month, and Google AI Mode's sample was too small to put percentages on; the consumer and test figures come from the Pew Research Center and from Clio, which sells law firms the software they run their matters in.
Half of US Adults Now Ask a Chatbot, and Legal Questions Go There Too
About half of US adults (49%) now use an AI chatbot, up from a third in 2024, in the Pew Research Center's survey of 5,119 adults in February 2026.1 ChatGPT is the one most of them use: 44% say they use it, against 24% for Gemini.1
ChatGPT Use Among US Adults Has More Than Doubled Since 2023
% of US adults
42% of US adults use a chatbot to search for information, which Pew counts with work among the two most common uses.1
Questions about the law are part of that searching.
In Clio's own consumer survey, 24% of US adults had already used AI to answer a legal question, and another 40% would consider it.6
So for some people the first step of finding a lawyer can happen in a chat window, and it can happen twice: once to ask whether the problem needs a lawyer, and once to ask which one.
Asked What the Law Says, ChatGPT Reads Courts and Law Libraries, Not Firms
We compared everyday lawyer questions asked from US locations with legal-information questions asked from the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia.
ChatGPT cited a court, a government agency, a legislature, a bar association, a law library, or a legal aid site in 95.56% of its answers about what the law says. A law firm's own page barely appeared:
of ChatGPT's answers about what the law says cited a law firm's own website
The sources it leaned on most were public ones, led by Cornell's Legal Information Institute:
ChatGPT Reads Courts and Law Libraries When Asked What the Law Says
% of answers
View the data
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Cornell Legal Information Institute | 14.22% |
| US federal courts | 10.22% |
| EEOC | 7.56% |
| American Bar Association | 7.11% |
| US Department of Justice | 6.22% |
| GOV.UK | 5.78% |
| California courts' self-help | 5.33% |
| Justia's law library | 4.89% |
Google AI Mode behaved differently on these questions: it cited law firms' own explainer pages far more often, and it left more of its answers without any source. Our sample of its answers is too small to put a figure on either.
A firm cannot edit the public sources behind ChatGPT's legal explanations. Its opportunity to appear comes when the person asks which lawyer to contact.
Asked for a Lawyer, ChatGPT Hands Over a Rated Shortlist of About Six Firms
83.72% of ChatGPT's answers to everyday lawyer questions opened with a local card: nearby firms, each with its name, a star rating, its type of practice, and whether it was open. A typical card listed six firms. Every star rating ChatGPT printed sat on one of these cards.
OpenAI says ChatGPT may use an approximate location from the IP address to give local results, and may share that location with third-party providers of nearby business listings.7 It doesn't name the providers.
The ratings on those cards run high: the median firm showed 4.9 stars, 79.69% showed 4.5 or more, and 37.35% showed a perfect 5.0. At the other end, 7.23% sat below 4.0, printed beside the 5.0s.
No entry showed how many reviews its rating rested on, so the client could not tell a 5.0 earned from a few reviews from a 4.9 earned from hundreds.
Most Firms on ChatGPT's Lawyer Cards Show 4.8 Stars or More
% of firms listed
View the data
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Under 4.0 | 7.23% |
| 4.0 to 4.4 | 13.08% |
| 4.5 to 4.7 | 15.66% |
| 4.8 to 4.9 | 26.68% |
| 5.0 | 37.35% |
At 4.4 stars, a firm sits below most of the list. Above 4.5, the narrow differences give the client little to choose on.
Google AI Mode rarely answered this way. Most of its answers to the same questions opened by saying the right lawyer depends on where you are and what happened, then sent the person to directories, peer rankings, and bar referral services.
It printed a rated local list in only a handful.
Five of the Directories Under the Shortlist Share One Owner
The citations under ChatGPT's lawyer answers show which pages it read; the firms on the card come from the companies that supply local business listings, which OpenAI doesn't name. 86.82% of those answers cited a directory or a bar association page, and 35.66% cited any law firm's own website.
Reddit and YouTube appeared in none of them.
Directories Lead the Sources Under ChatGPT's Lawyer Answers
% of answers
View the data
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Any law firm's own website | 35.66% |
| Avvo | 27.91% |
| Super Lawyers | 26.36% |
| Justia | 25.58% |
| Any bar or lawyers' association | 25.58% |
| Expertise.com | 14.73% |
| Lawyers.com | 9.30% |
| Best Lawyers | 8.53% |
| FindLaw | 7.75% |
The leaders were commercial directories: Avvo (27.91% of answers), Super Lawyers (26.36%), Justia (25.58%), and Expertise.com (14.73%), then Lawyers.com (9.30%), Best Lawyers (8.53%), FindLaw (7.75%), and Martindale (5.43%). Bar associations and lawyers' associations, the state bars' find-a-lawyer pages among them, appeared in 25.58%.
Avvo, Martindale, FindLaw, Super Lawyers and Lawyers.com share one owner, Internet Brands234, and at least one of its directories sat under 48.06% of ChatGPT's lawyer answers.
Google AI Mode pointed to the same kind of page from another angle: Best Lawyers, the American Bar Association's lawyer-finder pages, and Super Lawyers led its citations.
Each Line of the Card Leads Back to Someone at Your Firm
Read the card the way the client does, and each line on it leads back to a person at your firm, whether or not anyone has told them.
| What the client sees | Where it comes from | Who at the firm works on it |
|---|---|---|
| The star rating | Client reviews on listing services OpenAI doesn't name | Whoever asks clients for reviews when a matter closes |
| The directory pages cited underneath | The firm's profiles on each directory | Whoever keeps the lawyer roster and offices current |
| The firm's own pages, when they are cited | Practice area and lawyer pages | Whoever runs the website |
| Not on the card: how fast you answer | The first reply to an inquiry | Intake |
The rating is the line the firm controls least.
A firm can ask every client for a review when a matter closes; each new review is averaged with all the old ones, so the rating moves slowly.
Different practice areas and cities produce different shortlists. Daily questions show whether your firm keeps appearing and which directories the answers cite; one check only shows one day.
Two in Three Firms Did Not Answer an Emailed Inquiry
In 2024 Clio had people posing as clients contact 500 law firms by email and by phone:5
A firm can make the card and still lose the client in its own inbox, and a report that counts new matters, rather than inquiries and replies, won't show the loss.
The card shows stars but says nothing about reply speed. The reply is the line on a client's path that a firm can fix this month.
Frequently asked questions
How many people use AI to find a lawyer?
No survey we trust measures it directly. The closest figures: about half of US adults (49%) used an AI chatbot in Pew's February 2026 survey, and 44% used ChatGPT.1 In Clio's own consumer survey, 24% had already used AI to answer a legal question and another 40% would consider it.6
Does ChatGPT recommend specific law firms?
Often, yes. In our September 2026 reading, 83.72% of ChatGPT's answers to everyday lawyer questions opened with a local card of named firms, usually six, each with a star rating. Google AI Mode more often explained how to find a lawyer and pointed to directories and bar referral services.
How high are the star ratings on ChatGPT's lawyer cards?
High. The median firm showed 4.9 stars, 79.69% showed 4.5 or more and 37.35% a perfect 5.0, while 7.23% sat below 4.0.
Do ChatGPT's lawyer cards show how many reviews a rating rests on?
No. No entry on the cards we read showed its review count, so a 5.0 earned from a few reviews looked the same as a 4.9 earned from hundreds.
Does Google AI Mode recommend law firms the same way?
Rarely. Most of its answers to the same questions said the right lawyer depends on where you are and what happened, then sent the person to directories, peer rankings and bar referral services; it printed a rated local list in only a handful.
Where do the star ratings on ChatGPT's lawyer cards come from?
OpenAI says ChatGPT may use an approximate location and listings from third-party providers for local results, and it doesn't name the providers.7 The practical check is to ask ChatGPT the question your clients ask, from the city they ask it in, and read the rating it prints next to your firm.
Which websites do AI answers cite when someone asks for a lawyer?
Mostly directories. In ChatGPT's lawyer answers, 86.82% cited a directory or bar association page, led by Avvo (27.91%), Super Lawyers (26.36%), and Justia (25.58%). A law firm's own website appeared in 35.66%.
Who owns Avvo, Super Lawyers, and FindLaw?
Internet Brands owns Avvo, Martindale, and Nolo and bought FindLaw from Thomson Reuters in December 2024;2 FindLaw places Super Lawyers in the same portfolio,3 and Lawyers.com is a Martindale-Avvo brand.4 At least one Internet Brands directory sat under 48.06% of ChatGPT's lawyer answers in September 2026.
Does a law firm's own website matter for AI search?
It matters, and directories are cited more. A firm's own site appeared in 35.66% of ChatGPT's answers to lawyer questions and in 1.33% of its answers about what the law says, where courts, government sites, and law libraries dominated. Google AI Mode cited firms' own explainer pages on legal questions far more often.
How fast should a law firm respond to a new inquiry?
Fast enough to be among the firms that answer at all. In Clio's 2024 test of 500 firms, 33% replied to an emailed inquiry and 48% could not be reached by phone, even after a message.5
Are these statistics independent?
The adoption figures come from the Pew Research Center; the consumer and test figures, from people posing as clients, come from Clio, which sells practice management software to law firms. The AI-answer figures are our own September 2026 reading of ChatGPT and Google AI Mode; they show what the answers contained, not why.
Should a law firm check AI visibility by practice area?
A firm taking injury matters in two cities and estate planning in another faces different shortlists. Keep those questions separate so an appearance for one practice does not hide an absence for another.
What does ChatGPT cite when someone asks what the law says?
Public sources: a court, a government agency, a legislature, a bar association, a law library or a legal aid site in 95.56% of those answers, led by Cornell's Legal Information Institute (14.22%). A law firm's own site appeared in 1.33%.
How many law firms can be reached by phone?
About half. In Clio's 2024 test, 48% of the 500 firms could not be reached by phone even after a message, and 73% of the people who got through would not recommend the firm.5
Sources
- Pew Research Center: Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact (2026)
- Thomson Reuters: Thomson Reuters sells FindLaw business to Internet Brands (2024)
- FindLaw: FindLaw in the Media (2026)
- Martindale-Avvo: About Us (2026)
- Clio: Are Law Firms Failing at Marketing and Client Engagement? (2024)
- Clio: Legal Trends Report (2025)
- OpenAI Help Center: Searching the web with ChatGPT (2026)
