Is publishing legal content this way an ethics problem?

Bar rules on advertising and on anything that reads as a guarantee vary by state, and they apply to this exactly as they apply to any other marketing. Today the question is simpler than it sounds: nothing is published by us at all — the report produces a list, and every word that reaches your site is put there by your firm. When publishing does arrive it will be behind an approval queue for this reason, and there will be no fully automatic mode.

We already get mentioned by ChatGPT. Is there anything to do?

Look at what it cites. Being described in the prose while every link goes to a directory means your visibility depends on those directories continuing to rank you. The work is turning mentions into citations of your own pages.

Do you write legal content for us?

Not today: the report names the pages that are missing and your firm writes them. When publishing arrives, we will generate drafts for those pages and they will wait for your approval. A law firm should never publish generated copy unreviewed, and the product is being built so that you cannot.

Our practice areas are very specific.

That helps. Narrow questions have fewer competing answers, and a firm that genuinely answers a narrow question in writing is easy to quote.

Does this replace our SEO agency?

No. If you have an agency, this is a report they can act on — and if you are an agency, this is the report you hand your client with your logo on it on the Agency plan. The free report carries our mark.

What does the free report include?

Three engines, who was recommended instead, what the site does not answer. No signup.

Law firms

What AI assistants say when someone asks for a lawyer

30 buyer questions across three engines, run against a real Chicago personal injury firm. It was named on two of the twenty-two questions that never mention it. The other twenty went to four larger firms in the same city and to Super Lawyers.

Real report

We ran this on Abels & Annes, Chicago, IL

Tested 30 buyer questions across ChatGPT (API), Perplexity, Gemini. 22 of them never name Abels & Annes — those are the ones a buyer who has not heard of them would ask.

Run on 2026-09-16 against ChatGPT (API) openai/gpt-5.4-mini, Perplexity perplexity/sonar-pro, Gemini google/gemini-3-flash. Engines answer differently over time — this is what they said that day.

2 of 22: questions that never name them, where they came up anyway
20: questions answered entirely without them

The questions, and who got recommended instead

Asked exactly as written below. The domains are the ones each engine actually cited.

“best personal injury lawyer for accident victims in Chicago, IL”
ChatGPT (API)
- profiles.superlawyers.com
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
Perplexity
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- corboydemetrio.com
- lawleaderboard.com
- schwartzjambois.com
- expertise.com
Gemini
- lawleaderboard.com
- prnewswire.com
- corboydemetrio.com
- levinperconti.com
- schwartzjambois.com
“most recommended personal injury lawyer in Chicago, IL”
ChatGPT (API)
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- profiles.superlawyers.com
Perplexity
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- corboydemetrio.com
- lawleaderboard.com
- schwartzjambois.com
- expertise.com
Gemini
- vinklerlaw.com
- cavanaghlawgroup.com
- thervo.com
“who is the best personal injury lawyer for small businesses in Chicago, IL”
ChatGPT (API)
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- profiles.superlawyers.com
Perplexity
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- corboydemetrio.com
- shealawgroup.com
- willenslaw.com
- larson.law
Gemini
- chambers.com
- phillipslytle.com
- bcm-law.com
- kavenysarmas.com
- primerus.com
“best personal injury lawyer for car accident claims in Chicago, IL”
ChatGPT (API)
named nobody in particular
Perplexity
- dispartilaw.com
- horwitzlaw.com
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- ontoplist.com
- attorneyatlawmagazine.com
Gemini
- cloudfront.net
- powerrogers.com
- rblaw.net
- lawleaderboard.com
“best personal injury lawyer for families in Chicago, IL”
ChatGPT (API)
named nobody in particular
Perplexity
- horwitzlaw.com
- attorneys.superlawyers.com
- schwartzjambois.com
- trapplaw.com
- walnerlaw.com
Gemini
- attorneyatlawmagazine.com
- powerrogers.com
- attorneyatlaw.com
- rblaw.net
“which personal injury lawyer is better for accident victims”
ChatGPT (API)
- horwitzlaw.com
- lawleaderboard.com
- forthepeople.com
Perplexity
- screened.com
- injuryattorneyfla.com
- ontoplist.com
- top100personalinjuryattorneys.com
- levininjuryfirm.com
Gemini
- lawdragon.com
- powerrogers.com
- superlawyers.com
- prweb.com
- lexinter.net

What the engines cited

Directories, threads and roundups — the pages holding the answer. The claimable ones are the fastest item on any report.

justia.comDirectory you can claim14 questions
3 engines
martindale.comDirectory you can claim12 questions
3 engines

Other domains the engines cited

Every other domain the answers named — competitors, directories and publishers alike. Cited by more than one engine on more than one question.

salvilaw.com20 questions
3 engines
malmanlaw.com15 questions
3 engines
cliffordlaw.com14 questions
3 engines
smithlacien.com12 questions
3 engines
bestlawyers.com11 questions
3 engines
horwitzlaw.com9 questions
3 engines

What the site never says

For each question, what the model needed to find on the site and did not — in its own words.

“best personal injury lawyer for accident victims in Chicago, IL”
The site would need to explicitly claim it is among the best or most recommended personal injury lawyers for accident victims in Chicago.
“most recommended personal injury lawyer in Chicago, IL”
The site would need to say that the firm is most recommended or top recommended in Chicago.
“who is the best personal injury lawyer for small businesses in Chicago, IL”
The site would need to mention representing small businesses or state that it is the best choice for them.
“best personal injury lawyer for car accident claims in Chicago, IL”
The site would need to explicitly say it is the best personal injury lawyer for car accident claims in Chicago.

The prescription

What the report told them to do

Generated from the questions they lost, not from a checklist. Each one names the questions it is meant to win back.

Answer "best personal injury lawyer for accident victims in Chicago, IL" on /
change16 questions
The site would need to explicitly claim it is among the best or most recommended personal injury lawyers for accident victims in Chicago.
Own your listings on justia.com, martindale.com, bbb.org
change15 questions
On 15 of the questions you lose, the assistants cite a directory rather than any business's own site. Those listings are the answer buyers are being shown.

Get this for your own client

Same city, same questions — and four bigger firms take the answers

Abels & Annes is an established Chicago personal injury firm, and it was named on two of the twenty-two questions that never mention it. The firms named instead are the largest in the city: Salvi Law's own site was cited on twenty of the thirty questions, Malman Law on fifteen, Clifford Law on fourteen, Smith LaCien on twelve. Every 'best personal injury lawyer in Chicago' variant — for accident victims, for families, for car accident claims — went to Super Lawyers profiles and to those firms' homepages. Reputation carries in legal, but only at the top of the market; below it the answer is assembled from directories. The report's list is two items long: answer the 'best for accident victims' question on the homepage, which describes cases and never says who the firm is for, and claim the Justia, Martindale and BBB listings that are already being cited without it.

What to do about it

This is the shape of every report we produce, split two ways: the changes we will make for you on WordPress once the plugin ships (as drafts, behind approval), and the ones only you can do — claiming a listing, fixing a profile, answering the questions a page has been avoiding. We mark which is which rather than pretending the second column does not exist.

01
Turn practice-area pages into answers
'What happens if I was partly at fault', 'how long do I have to file'. These are the questions being asked. A page titled after a practice area and written as a brochure answers none of them.
02
Claim the profiles that are carrying you
The report names them. Those pages are being quoted with or without you; the only question is whether they are current.
03
Put a person behind the writing
Named authors with credentials, on pages about the thing they practise. It is the cheapest credibility signal available and most firm sites publish unsigned copy.

FAQ

Questions

Run the same questions on your own firm

One client website. You get the questions they lose, who won them, and what the site never answers. Free, and there is no signup.

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