At Law-Di-Gras 2026 in San Diego, our CEO Colleen Joyce moderated a panel on a question we hear from firm owners constantly: when someone looks for a lawyer with AI, what actually happens, and what should a firm do about it?
The session was called AI Search: The New Frontier, and Colleen brought together three people who look at the shift from very different angles:
- Walid Romaya, CEO of Vikk AI, on the big picture: where legal conversations are happening now
- Ken Bosan, Chief Strategy Officer at Studio 3 Marketing, on the data: what AI answers cite when people ask for a lawyer
- Eric Transue, Director of Digital Marketing at The Simon Law Group, on intake: what a firm does once someone actually reaches out
Together they covered the whole path, from a question typed into an AI tool to a real conversation with a firm. This is our recap, written for solo and small firms who could not be in the room. It is education, not a pitch. [Kristin: optional one-line real moment from the session here, such as an audience question or the room’s reaction.]
Part I: Follow the client
Walid opened with the idea that framed the whole session: follow the client.
More people now start a legal question inside an AI conversation or with an AI answer at the top of a search page, often before they visit a single firm website. They describe the problem in their own words, get general information back, and only then decide whether they need a lawyer and who to call.
That does not mean search is dead. It means there is no single “new Google.” There are several front doors running in parallel:
- AI answers inside traditional search
- General AI assistants
- Legal-specific AI tools
- Social and community spaces
- Directories, reviews, and referrals, which still matter and now also feed what AI tools say about you
Walid drew a useful line between general AI assistants and legal-specific AI. General tools have enormous reach, but legal is one topic among many and it is hard to know a user’s state, practice area, or urgency. Legal-specific tools are smaller, but every session is a legal problem, often with location and practice area already known. His analogy stuck with us: a billboard on the freeway versus a sign inside the courthouse. Most firms will want both.
He closed with a reminder that matters for every firm testing these channels: if you pay to appear somewhere, pay for clearly labeled advertising, not recommendations, and check your own state’s rules before you try something new.
Part II: Does AI name you?
Ken brought the data. His team looked at what AI answers actually cite when people ask for personal injury lawyers, across the major AI platforms, and what happens when those answers send people to firms.
The question he put on the screen is one every firm should ask this week: When a potential client asks AI for a lawyer, does it name you?
What we took away:
- Your own website still matters a lot. Firm websites made up a major share of what AI answers pointed to.
- Practice area pages do the heavy lifting. Clear, specific pages about what you handle and where you handle it were cited far more than blog posts or FAQ pages.
- Each platform trusts different sources. Some lean heavily on firm websites. Others lean on directories, bar and government sites, and review platforms. Consistent firm details everywhere you appear is not busywork. It is how AI tools recognize you.
- AI referrals are growing, from a small base. For most firms, traditional search still carries most of the volume. But visitors who arrive from an AI answer tend to be further along in deciding they need help.
- The click often lands on your homepage. AI tools frequently name a firm and link straight to the home page, so that page needs to make the next step obvious.
Ken’s summary was simple: AI rewards the fundamentals, but each platform has its own trust sources.
Part III: Someone reached out. Now what?
Eric took the conversation from being found to being ready. His point: all the visibility in the world does not help if the first contact goes nowhere.
Convert more of the attention you already have. Before spending more to be seen, make it easy to reach you. Keep a contact option visible on every mobile page, shorten your forms and break them into quick steps, and offer more than one way in: call, text, or form.
Speed is the whole game. The firm that responds first is usually the firm that gets the conversation. Track how many inquiries get a real response within minutes, not an average that hides the slow ones. Send alerts to you or your intake team, not to one phone in one pocket.
AI catches. People close. Chat and voice AI make a strong safety net so no call goes unanswered after hours or during a hearing. The relationship still belongs to a person. Ring a human first, let technology back you up, and make the handoff warm.
Know where every inquiry came from. Ask “How did you hear about us?” Use tracking on paid channels. Treat AI tools as their own source in your analytics instead of letting them disappear into “referral” or “direct.”
Count people, not pings. Filter spam and repeat contacts. Judge each channel by what actually becomes a client relationship in your own case system, not by what an ad platform calls a “conversion.”
Keep a one-page Monday scorecard. Source, number of inquiries, response time, outcomes, and cost. Spend more on what turns into real client relationships, not on what gets the most clicks.
That philosophy is close to our own. At Lawyer.com, technology helps answer the first moment of contact so people looking for legal help are not left waiting, and real people stay at the center of what happens next.
How the three pieces fit together
Listening back, the panel told one story in three parts:
- Be present where clients now start: AI answers, assistants, legal-specific tools, and the directories and reviews that feed them.
- Be citable with strong practice area pages and consistent firm details.
- Be ready with fast, human intake and honest measurement.
Skip any one and the other two work harder than they should. Get all three moving and you are building for how clients actually look for help now.
Five things to do in the next 30 days
Pulled straight from the panel:
- Add one question to intake: “Did you use AI before calling us? Which one?”
- Search for your firm in two or three AI assistants the way a potential client would. Note what comes back and where the information seems to come from.
- Tighten your practice area pages and homepage, and keep your firm details consistent everywhere you are listed.
- Time your response to every new inquiry this week. If anything waits more than a few minutes during business hours, fix the alert path first.
- Start a one-page Monday scorecard and judge each channel by real conversations and outcomes, not traffic.
None of this requires a new vendor. Most of it is a conversation with your team.
This article is educational and is not legal advice. Advertising and referral rules vary by jurisdiction; check your state’s rules of professional conduct before changing how you market your practice. Panelist views are their own. Lawyer.com connects firms with opportunities to talk with people seeking legal help and does not promise signed cases or case outcomes.
