AI names a lawyer for most US legal questions, but often a person rather than a firm. Claude with live web search named someone in 45 of our 50 questions (90%), 5.0 names per answer. A third of those names (32.9%) were individual lawyers; counting firms only, 84% of answers named a firm, with 3.6 per answer.
Law was the most directory-driven industry in our US study. 55.9% of sources were directories, led by LawInfo (59 citations), Avvo (47) and Abogado.com (31), and 48 of 50 answers cited at least one. Spanish worked better here than anywhere else: 62.2% of the sources behind Spanish answers were Spanish pages. And the field is open: 93.8% of the 209 firms and lawyers named appeared in only one answer.
What we asked
50 questions written the way US clients ask them. The 40 English questions were set in eight cities, 5 each: Houston, Denver, Miami, New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix and Boston. By intent: 20 specific, 12 compare, 4 price and 4 trust. The 10 Spanish questions were set in Dallas and Orlando, 5 each, tagged "mixed". Six of them, word for word:
| Question | Language | Intent |
|---|---|---|
| Who is the best divorce lawyer in Miami? | English | compare |
| How much does a DUI lawyer cost in Houston, and who is good? | English | price |
| Best tenant rights lawyer in Phoenix? | English | specific |
| Which criminal defense attorney in Denver has the best reviews? | English | trust |
| Mejor abogado de inmigración en Orlando (best immigration lawyer in Orlando) | Spanish | mixed |
| ¿Cuánto cobra un abogado de divorcio en Dallas? (how much does a divorce lawyer charge in Dallas?) | Spanish | mixed |
How often AI named a firm
Claude named at least one firm or lawyer in 90% of answers, against 93.8% across all industries, and hedged on 10%, the second highest after med spas. With people removed, 84% of answers named a firm (85% in English), with 3.6 firms per answer.
| Question type | Questions | Named anyone | Names per answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compare (best divorce, personal injury, startup lawyer) | 12 | 92% | 5.8 |
| Specific (green card, wrongful termination, tenant rights) | 20 | 90% | 5.3 |
| Trust (criminal defense with the best reviews) | 4 | 100% | 6.0 |
| Price (DUI lawyer cost) | 4 | 100% | 4.0 |
| Spanish (all types) | 10 | 80% | 3.3 |
Price questions behaved differently here. All 4 DUI cost questions named someone, against 82.4% for English price questions across the study. The names came from directory profiles (Avvo in Houston, FindLaw in New York) and from firms' own pages in Las Vegas, where one firm's page gave fee ranges by offense. The Boston answer named one firm and said most "Boston" listings were for Boston, Kentucky and Boston, Georgia.
The 5 hedges were tenant rights in Denver and Phoenix, the best divorce lawyer in Miami, and both Spanish questions about divorce fees. All three English hedges were built mostly on LawInfo pages (6, 7 and 10 of their sources). Our reading: the pages matched the question, but the parts the search could read showed no lawyer names. Of LawInfo, the Phoenix startup answer said "The results don't name the attorneys".
Where the answers came from
Claude cited 458 sources, 9.2 per answer, from 132 websites, sorted into the main study's nine types.
| Type of source | Law firms (458) | All 10 industries (4,587) |
|---|---|---|
| Directories, marketplaces and "best of" list sites | 55.9% | 37.3% |
| Firms' own websites and other sites | 28.2% | 29.0% |
| Off-topic hosts (spam-style pages on unrelated sites) | 12.2% | 15.9% |
| Review platforms | 1.5% | 3.2% |
| News and media | 1.1% | 11.0% |
| Press releases | 0.7% | 1.2% |
| Social media and forums | 0.4% | 1.6% |
| Government sites and Wikipedia | 0.0% | 1.0% |
Two gaps stand out. News was almost absent (1.1%), and not one source was a state bar or court website, although many answers told the reader to check the state bar. These were the sites cited most:
| Site | Citations | Answers | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| lawinfo.com | 59 | 10 | Lawyer directory; cited only for Denver, Miami and Phoenix |
| avvo.com | 47 | 12 | Lawyer profiles with ratings and reviews, in 7 cities |
| abogado.com | 31 | 7 | Spanish-language lawyer directory (Dallas and Orlando) |
| expertise.com | 23 | 11 | "Best of" lists by city and practice area |
| lawyers.uslegal.com and lawyers.findlaw.com | 16 each | 10 each | Lawyer directories |
| vasquezlawnc.com | 14 | 4 | One firm's site and Spanish blog, cited for Orlando |
| bestlawyers.com | 11 | 6 | Peer-review lawyer lists |
The spam layer was lighter than average: 56 sources from 30 unrelated websites, in 25 answers, and most of the sources in 2. Described without naming the sites: a beauty salon chain's old website carrying "Top-Rated Divorce Lawyer Miami Gardens" pages (8 citations in 3 answers), the paid guest-post section of a news site with Denver divorce and Houston car accident tips, a survey server listing "Top Denver, CO Immigration Lawyers", and a children's charity's site listing Houston car accident lawyers. The Miami divorce answer noticed: it called the salon pages "generic content" about a different city.
Review sites barely came up. 1 answer mentioned Yelp and 5 pointed to Google reviews; 2 cited a Google business page. In at least 33 answers Claude warned its sources were marketing, sponsored or low quality.
The firms named most often
The 50 answers named 209 different firms and lawyers in 224 mentions, and 93.8% were named only once. These were named most often in our answers:
| Firm or lawyer, as named | Answers (of 50) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Morgan & Morgan | 3 | Houston, Boston, and Orlando in Spanish |
| Vásquez Law | 3 | Orlando only, all in Spanish |
| Baker Law Group | 2 | Denver and Las Vegas |
| Thomas Bark (a lawyer) | 2 | Denver and Phoenix startup questions |
| Jones Bay (his firm) | 2 | The same two answers |
The top five took 5.4% of mentions. Morgan & Morgan's site was cited 8 times in 4 answers through city pages, but the Houston, Boston and Las Vegas answers all noted that attorneys shown on those pages were licensed in Florida. Vásquez Law was cited 14 times, mostly through Spanish pages; in the Orlando immigration answer, 8 of 9 sources were its own. Thomas Bark and Jones Bay came from one UpCounsel profile that appeared for two cities, and the Phoenix answer said the results "don't confirm where most of these attorneys are based".
Not a ranking. Counts from one assistant on one day, 21 October 2026, not our ranking or an endorsement. A firm missing here may be excellent, and the lists change from day to day.
City by city
Each city had 5 questions, so these are notes, not rankings.
| City | Questions | Named anyone | Per answer | Directory sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix | 5 | 80% | 6.0 | 82.6% |
| Miami | 5 | 80% | 4.3 | 78.3% |
| Denver | 5 | 80% | 7.3 | 77.8% |
| San Diego | 5 | 100% | 6.2 | 62.2% |
| Boston | 5 | 100% | 5.0 | 44.7% |
| New York | 5 | 100% | 4.6 | 44.7% |
| Houston | 5 | 100% | 4.2 | 34.8% |
| Las Vegas | 5 | 100% | 5.8 | 26.1% |
- Phoenix, Miami and Denver: the three cities where LawInfo was cited, and the only English cities with a hedge.
- Las Vegas: the least directory-driven city; 56.5% of sources were firms' own and other sites.
- New York: the most spam (23.4% of sources off-topic hosts), yet every answer named someone.
What the Spanish questions showed
| English (40) | Spanish (10) | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers naming at least one firm or lawyer | 92.5% | 80% |
| Names per answer, when any | 5.4 | 3.3 |
| Hedged | 7.5% | 20% |
| Sources with a "best" or "top" style title | 32.3% | 5.6% |
Law is the one industry where Spanish pages existed in quantity. 56 of the 90 sources behind Spanish answers (62.2%) were Spanish pages, 8 of the 10 answers cited at least one, and 9 of the 10 cited Abogado.com or Vásquez Law's site. None of the Spanish legal answers drifted to another country in our hand check. The cost was variety: Spanish answers named 3.3 firms against 5.4 in English. The Dallas car accident answer took 8 of its 9 sources from Abogado.com and named a single firm. Both divorce fee questions, in Dallas and Orlando, found no concrete fees and named no one.
Three real answers
Best tenant rights lawyer in Phoenix?
The search didn't turn up a ranking of the "best" tenant lawyer in Phoenix. It returned a LawInfo directory with many Phoenix-area tenant rights attorneys, and some of its listings are labeled sponsored.
How much does a DUI lawyer cost in Houston, and who is good?
The search didn't turn up a specific dollar figure for Houston DUI defense fees. It did show how pricing works and which attorneys are listed.
Tyler Flood (Houston, 24 years licensed): Avvo shows a 5.0 score from 121 client reviews. Those reviews are self-reported and unverified.
Mejor abogado de inmigración en Orlando
Vasquez Law tiene una página para Orlando con servicios que van desde tarjetas verdes hasta defensa en deportación, y ofrece atención bilingüe y consulta inicial gratuita.
What a law firm should do
- Complete Avvo, LawInfo, FindLaw, USLegal and Expertise.com profiles for the firm and every lawyer, with practice areas, city and state. These were the backbone of the answers. For business law, add UpCounsel: its profiles supplied the lawyers named in the Denver and Phoenix startup answers.
- Make names readable on directory pages. All three English hedges were built on LawInfo pages that gave the answer no names. A listing that shows the firm and lawyer name in plain text is one the answer can use.
- Publish one page per practice area and city, such as "Tenant rights lawyer in Phoenix, Arizona", naming the lawyers who handle it and the state where each is licensed. Three answers flagged city pages showing lawyers licensed in another state.
- Say how you charge. Flat fee, hourly, contingency, and the length of a free consultation. DUI cost answers quoted exactly these fields from Avvo, and the Spanish divorce fee questions found nothing to quote.
- Link every lawyer to the firm. A third of names were people, so each bio and profile should name the firm and link to it, so a mention of the lawyer also counts for the firm.
- If you serve Spanish speakers, build a Spanish practice on Abogado.com and on your own site, one Spanish page per practice area. Vásquez Law, cited mostly through its Spanish pages, was named in 3 of the 5 Orlando Spanish answers.
- Skip paid "best lawyer" placements. Answers called one firm's directory award "self-promoted" and noted that another's "Voted Best" award named no award body; paid guest posts landed in the spam layer. Measure the same questions monthly on ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude instead.
What we'd do for you, and what we don't promise
We do this work for US firms, remotely from Dubai, with traditional SEO included and ChatGPT and Gemini (Google AI) tracked on every plan. It starts with a free AI check: 10 real client questions and the firms AI names instead of you. The AI Visibility Audit (30 questions, 4 AI tools, 3 competitors, screenshots and a 90-day plan) is USD 549. Monthly plans are USD 1,249 (Foundation), USD 2,349 (Growth) and USD 4,399 (Authority), month to month, with no lock-in and no setup fee. Details at adjoltz.com/us.
In the first 30 days of any plan, if AI does not name you for at least 3 commercial questions on the list you approved, or you are unhappy for any other reason, we refund 100% of what you paid, in cash, within 7 working days (guarantee rules). We don't promise a top spot on any assistant, rankings, paid places on "best of" lists, cases or clients, or a US office. We do not have one. We do not give legal advice, and your bar's advertising rules still apply to every page.
Method and limits. 50 legal questions from our 500-question US AI visibility study 2026, each sent once, word for word, to Claude with Anthropic's live web search tool on 21 October 2026, between 21:31 and 23:12 UTC. Named lawyers were kept and the firms-only figures remove them. Source types were coded by us with hand-checked lists, so the off-topic share is a floor, and simple name matching may make the "named once" share slightly high. One assistant, one day, one run: Pew Research Center found 44% of US adults use ChatGPT and 6% use Claude. We did not check that every named lawyer is licensed or in good standing. Every question and its numbers: study data (CSV).