As large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini reshape how legal information is searched and summarized, law firms must rethink how they communicate with General Counsel (GCs) and Chief Legal Officers (CLOs). Increasingly, these senior legal buyers are turning to AI tools for fast, context-rich answers—bypassing traditional search engines, directories, and even firm websites.
According to a 2024 survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel, 61% of in-house counsel say they now rely on digital tools, including AI-based search assistants, to conduct initial research when vetting outside firms. OpenAI’s tools alone are now handling over 100 million queries per week, many from professionals seeking expert-driven answers without ever clicking on a search result.
In this new environment, your content isn’t just marketing—it’s data. If your insights aren’t structured, cited, and authored with clarity, your firm may not be surfaced at all by the systems GCs are increasingly relying on.
Here are a few best practices that we stick to for writing content to best perform in an AI-powered discovery environment, speaks directly to (and resonates with) general counsel and chief legal officers:
Write Like You’re Being Quoted—Because You Might Be
LLMs are trained on publicly available content, and when they answer user questions, they often paraphrase or synthesize from high-trust sources. That means content written with authority, attribution, and specificity is more likely to be reused, cited, or echoed by AI.
A 2023 Stanford Law School study on AI transparency and legal search found that expert-authored content with named credentials was 3.4 times more likely to be cited or quoted by legal AI models than anonymous or general marketing copy.
Best practice: Publish under attorney bylines, include credentials and clear topical expertise, and write with the expectation that your content may directly inform AI-generated summaries.
Structure Your Content for Both Machines and Humans
AI models prefer content that mirrors how lawyers naturally consume information: organized by topic, clearly formatted, and semantically rich. At the same time, general counsel want quick access to takeaways—not jargon or narrative fluff.
Google’s 2024 Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines emphasize the importance of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) in determining what content is prioritized—an approach increasingly echoed in AI retrieval systems.
Best practice: Use headers, bullet points, and question-based formatting. Include schema markup and structured metadata wherever possible to help both AI and search engines understand the context of your content.
Focus on GC-Relevant, Risk-Oriented Content
General counsel are not looking for surface-level content. They want insight into legal and regulatory risk, practical strategies, and forward-looking guidance—especially around fast-moving areas like data privacy, compliance, ESG, and AI regulation.
According to the 2024 General Counsel Content Preferences Survey by FTI Consulting, 72% of GCs say that “insight into emerging legal and regulatory issues” is the most valuable content a law firm can provide.
Best practice: Frame your content around the questions your clients are asking internally: What’s changing? What’s the risk? What’s the plan? Use headlines that reflect urgency and specificity, not generic observations.
Integrate PR and Content to Build Citable Authority
Generative AI systems prioritize content that’s been cited, shared, and published across multiple high-authority platforms. Internal blogs are helpful, but they don’t carry the same weight in model training or real-time retrieval as reputable third-party sources.
A 2024 analysis by LexisNexis found that law firms quoted in legal or business press were 2.6 times more likely to be recommended by AI-based legal research assistants than firms with a blog-only footprint.
Best practice: Turn media placements into content assets. Repurpose partner quotes in industry publications into blog posts, client alerts, or LinkedIn commentary. Build a content ecosystem that reinforces your credibility across channels.
Publish Consistently to Stay Top of Mind—and Top of Model
LLMs continue to evolve and retrain, and AI-powered search tools like Perplexity and Bing Chat are indexing live web content regularly. If you publish infrequently—or your content is buried—your relevance fades quickly.
The 2024 Legal Marketing Trends Report by Thomson Reuters found that firms that publish expert content at least once per month generate 3.7x more inbound inquiries from in-house legal teams than those with irregular schedules.
Best practice: Create a cadence of authoritative publishing, especially around high-impact events: regulatory changes, court decisions, enforcement trends, or industry-specific developments.
Final Takeaway
The buyer journey for legal services is being compressed by AI. General Counsel no longer need to visit ten firm websites or download five whitepapers—they ask an AI assistant and receive an immediate, synthesized response. The law firms that show up in those answers are the ones that have published clear, credible, and citable content across multiple trusted sources.
To remain visible and trusted in this new environment, legal marketers must write for both human readers and AI systems. That means writing for context, not just keywords. Publishing for authority, not just awareness. And ensuring your firm’s best thinking is where decision-makers—and their AI assistants—can find it.