Clients ask AI which firm to call. It already has an answer.
Whether the matter is a commercial dispute, an employment claim or a cross-border transaction, prospective clients now describe the situation to an AI assistant and ask who handles it. CiteRank AI shows how the 8 major engines answer for your practice areas and jurisdictions — and what it takes to be named.
Vertical benches currently run 4 engines; full tracking covers all 8.
Legal buying starts with a question, not a directory.
Directories and rankings still matter, but the first filter is now an AI answer that names two or three firms and explains why — usually from whatever public material it can read and trust.
'Best employment lawyer for a non-compete dispute' resolves to a very short list per jurisdiction.
Answers change sharply by city, state and court. A firm cited in one jurisdiction may be invisible next door.
Departed partners, merged entities and renamed practices linger in engine answers long after the website changed.
Client alerts and insights are often published in formats engines cannot attribute back to the firm entity.
Bar advertising rules constrain claims, so the message must be precise, sourced and defensible.
Firms with several offices need per-office visibility, not one blended number that hides the weak markets.
Which firms the engines name for your matters.
A sample of the legal prompt graph replayed across engines, by practice area and jurisdiction.
| Category prompt | ChatGPT | Gemini | Perplexity | Claude | Answer concentration | You cited? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best commercial litigation firm in the city | Firm A, Firm B, Firm C | Firm A, Firm B, Firm C | Firm A, Firm B, Firm C | Firm A, Firm B, Firm C | 3 of 15 | — |
| Employment lawyer for a non-compete dispute | Firm C, Firm D, Firm A | Firm C, Firm D, Firm A | Firm C, Firm D, Firm A | Firm C, Firm D, Firm A | 4 of 12 | |
| Cross-border M&A counsel for a mid-market deal | Firm B, Firm E, Firm A | Firm B, Firm E, Firm A | Firm B, Firm E, Firm A | Firm B, Firm E, Firm A | 3 of 10 | — |
| Startup counsel for a seed financing | Firm F, Firm D, Firm G | Firm F, Firm D, Firm G | Firm F, Firm D, Firm G | Firm F, Firm D, Firm G | 5 of 14 | — |
Illustrative modelled data — not live client results. Names anonymised.
A two-office disputes practice, modelled end to end.
A disputes-led firm was cited only where a partner had recent press coverage, leaving whole practice areas invisible. We rebuilt the firm, office and practitioner entities and turned insight content into citable, attributable material.
- LegalService, Attorney and Organization schema published across firm, office and bio pages
- Partner bios normalised with consistent identifiers, admissions and practice-area mappings
- Client alerts restructured into question-led pages that answer matter prompts directly
- Jurisdiction pages created for each office with explicit court and venue coverage
- Weekly replays across practice areas to attribute each citation change
Illustrative modelled data — not live client results. Names anonymised.
Per-practice visibility in one view.
Visibility trend and share of voice, loaded with a legal-shaped dataset.
AI Visibility — Share of Voice over time
12-week trend, weighted across the tracked LLMs.
Tip: tab into the chart to focus a weekly data point, then use the left and right arrow keys to step through weeks. Press Escape to exit.
AI recommendation share — you vs competitors
Per-engine Share of Voice across the last 30 days of replays. Hover or focus a bar for the breakdown.
Illustrative modelled data — not live client results. Names anonymised.
Questions from legal teams.
Is this compliant with bar advertising rules?
CiteRank measures and reports; it does not publish claims on your behalf. Any recommended content is drafted for your marketing and compliance review before it ships.
Can we track visibility per office?
Yes. Prompt graphs are built per jurisdiction so each office gets its own visibility and share-of-voice reporting rather than a blended firm number.
Do you send any client or matter data to AI engines?
No. Only public-intent prompts are replayed. No client names, matter details or privileged information ever leave your systems.
How many prompts does a firm typically need?
Most firms start with 250 to 500 prompts covering their main practice areas and jurisdictions, then expand as new areas are prioritised.
What changes actually move citations?
In legal the largest movements usually come from entity consistency across bios and offices, plus question-led insight content that engines can attribute to the firm.
See which firms AI names for your matters.
Run a free audit and get the practice-area breakdown of where your firm is cited and where it is absent.