The GEO digital revolution
When it comes to assessing the value of legal PR it is often difficult to quantify for law firms. Does a media campaign increase brand recognition? Of course. Does it drive new business? Probably. Is there a way of proving this? Not definitively, as there are a number of reasons why clients may come to your firm, such as your website or word of mouth.
As a result, legal PR is one of those things that you know is good for your law firm, but can sometimes be difficult to say just how good.
However, legal PR has been given a further boost in its visible value with the evolution of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), the new way of having your brand at the top of AI search engines such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. At its heart is generating independent media coverage and thought leadership. If your firm is doing PR then you should be achieving this already, making it worth its weight in gold for GEO. The more coverage your firm achieves in top tier publications, the more chance AI will cite you above others.
Law firms have traditionally been engaged in a digital battle for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), or in other words being at the top of your Google search. The understandable thinking is that who looks at the second page after you do a search? Not me, that’s for sure.
The difference between SEO and GEO is that the law firms are no longer shaping how the engine ranks a page, they have to shape how AI describes them.
Black Letter has had our eyes on this GEO revolution for a while so we thought we would carry out some research into how the legal sector is responding, and the results were eye opening.
We published The AI Reputation Index – in association with legal marketing intelligence platform Legmark. It lists the top 250 law firms that are most visible to AI and therefore most likely to be cited by it.
While Magic Circle giant Clifford Chance comes top, the most revealing aspect of the research comes in the lines below the headline act with a number of unexpected, less high-profile names near the top.
These include City-based Arc Pensions Law (seventh in the table), Cardiff firm Wendy Hopkins Family Law (ninth), top offshore practice Carey Olsen (10th), London white collar crime firm Corker Binning (11th), McAlister Family Law in the North-West (16th) and international arbitration practice Three Crowns (18th).
Obviously, none of these firms have the enviable resources of the Magic Circle firms, but AI is citing them for being recognised by third parties as experts at what they do.
As well as independent top-tier media coverage other factors such as reviews, directory entries and rankings are also relevant for AI recognition.
Another interesting aspect of the analysis, which looked at 5,300 law firms in total and gave them a score out of 20 against five criteria, leading to an overall score out of 100, is that most are indistinguishable from each other.
The average firm scores 57 out of 100, and roughly two-thirds sit in a band of 40–69. In other words, AI sees most law firms as the same as each other.
This offers a clear opportunity for those firms that are willing to embrace this new age of digital.
Whether you run a boutique firm with 20 employees or a mid-range regional firm, opportunity knocks. If firms invest in authentic storytelling then they can stand out from the crowd. Those that don’t will simply be left behind.
