How prospective clients are actually using AI to choose a lawyer

The old path was a search, a page of results, three tabs, and a form fill. The new path is a conversation. A client describes a car accident, asks what to do, and the assistant explains the claim process — then names a couple of firms that handle it locally.

That conversation compresses the consideration set from ten to two. If your firm is not one of the two, you were never in the running, and no amount of paid search rescues a client who never opened a search engine.

The practical takeaway: your firm needs to be describable. Models recommend entities they can characterize confidently — practice area, jurisdiction, case types, credentials — from consistent public sources.