How do clients find a lawyer now? Law firm SEO for AI search
People now describe the matter, the deadline and the place in one long request. Google AI Mode or ChatGPT can only pass on what a firm's site says in plain text: the practice areas, the named lawyers, how a first meeting works and what it costs. Whatever the page leaves out, the AI cannot repeat.
Mr Rahman's severance letter has a Friday on it
Mr Rahman read the severance letter twice at his kitchen table. Then he opened ChatGPT and wrote the whole of it out:
I got a severance letter today and it says I must sign by Friday. Who in Singapore can review it before then, and what will it cost?
He has no wish to sign the wrong thing. ChatGPT does not phone a reception desk to ask who is free; it answers from whatever the firm sites say in plain words, and Mr Rahman rings the names it gives him.
That evening, an employment lawyer in Singapore had an hour spare before Friday. If the firm's site never mentioned reviewing a letter, ChatGPT had nothing to repeat and nobody dialled. Could a stranger quote your site on that point?
"Employment lawyer Singapore" used to carry a firm. Google reports that planning queries, the ones with a date in them, grew 80% faster than AI Mode overall, and that a US AI Mode question is triple a classic search in length 1. Nothing comparable exists for Hong Kong or Singapore, though Google lists Singapore for Gemini in Chrome 3. To see how many firms would make his list, we scanned 30 law firm sites.
Seven of 29 firm sites state a price, and none in Hong Kong
The second half of Mr Rahman's question is the cost, and that is where law firm sites go quiet. We read 29 of them as plain text. Practice areas and named lawyers are there, 25 each. The fee conversation mostly is not.
Whether to publish fees is the firm's call, and professional rules are not ours to interpret. As a client I would want the fee basis named (hourly, fixed, or a free first call) and how quickly someone replies. Asked "what will it cost", the AI has nothing to say about a page that says "contact us", so the next firm gets the sentence.
Declared as a firm in markup: median AI score 82, against 60
"Markup" is a short block of code that tells a machine: this is a law firm, this is its name and address. On 14 September 2026 we scanned 30 law firm sites: 20 Singapore firms from a sector list, 10 Hong Kong firms chosen by hand. 27 published; three fell below the coverage floor.
The median Search score was 72 and the median AI score 78, the highest of the three trades then measured. One check splits the trade. Where the firm is declared as a business (EN1), the median AI score was 82; where it is not, 60. That is 19 sites passing and 8 failing.
Every site allowed the citation crawlers (AI2). The failures sit elsewhere: contact routes (EE4: 20 pass, 6 fail, all six in Hong Kong) and headings that only appear once a script runs (R2: 7 fail, six of them in Hong Kong).
Each part of the question has one place on the site where it is answered
A long request is a list of facts the site has to hold. The table pairs each part of the Friday question with the rubric check that reads it. Fees and consultation terms we read as text only: the local-business module is not built.
| Part of the question | What the site must state | How we read it |
|---|---|---|
| "review my severance letter" | The practice area as a service: a page or heading for employment law, tenancy | R2: headings served without JavaScript |
| "in Singapore" | The jurisdiction and district, in the business node's address | EN1: a business declared in markup |
| "who" | A named lawyer with a page of their own | EE1: an author; EE2: an identifiable business |
| "before Friday" | A consultation or first-meeting route | EE4: more than one contact route |
| "what does it cost" | A fee policy or a from-price | Read as text only |
| "in Cantonese" | The languages the firm works in, in text | Read as text only |
| The AI itself | The citation crawlers allowed by name in robots.txt | AI2: citation crawlers allowed |
Google's guidance asks for no special writing style for its generative AI features, and says structured data is not required 2. Put on the page what a caller would hear on the phone.
Hong Kong has the identity links, Singapore the markup
Singapore firms scored a median 78 on Search and 83 on AI; Hong Kong firms 59 and 61. Behind that: 17 of 18 published Singapore sites declare a business in markup, against 2 of 9 in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong leads on one check: all nine published sites carry identity links (EN2, sameAs), against 4 of 18 in Singapore. Languages are the other gap: 1 of 10 Hong Kong sites states which languages the firm works in. A language switcher is not a stated fact.
What I would want to find on the page before Friday
If I were holding the letter, I would want five things, each a few lines of text rather than a project. The firm named once: legal name, jurisdiction, address and identity links, declared as an Attorney, LegalService or Organization block (EN1, EE2). That is the largest split in our data. Then each matter people type, such as employment, tenancy or probate, on its own page or heading in the HTML itself (R2).
Then the lawyers, named, with admissions (EE1). Then the fee basis and the reply time, in words; only 7 of 29 sites state a price. Last, two contact routes on every page (EE4) and the languages the firm works in, which 8 of 29 sites state.
"Employment lawyer near me" still works, a little less every year
A short search still sends a few callers to a firm that ranks. The number shrinks: in early 2026, 68% of US Google searches ended with no click at all, where in 2019 the share was 49% 4. More people now read an AI answer and ring the firm it names.
Friday is Mr Rahman's deadline, not yours. Yours is the plain task: practice area, named lawyer, fee basis and first-meeting route, written where a machine can read them. We do that work for clients, and a free scan of your site shows where it stands now.
Questions people ask
Will directories and the Law Society listing do this instead?
They answer the generic query, next to every competitor, at the level of a card. Your own site is the one source you control that the AI can read in full.
Should a firm publish fees at all?
That is the firm's call, and we give no advice on professional rules. Our count: 7 of 29 sites state a price, none of the Hong Kong firms. "Not stated" is also an answer to the visitor.
Is a LinkedIn profile enough as the named author?
It helps, but the check reads your own pages: a name, a page for that person, and an author declared in markup (EE1, EE2). In our batch 8 of 27 published sites carried no author at all.
Do I need special markup for AI?
No. Google's guide says structured data is not required for its generative AI features 2. What counts is that the facts, such as your practice areas, lawyers and first-meeting route, are stated on the page.
Will this get my firm cited?
Nobody can promise a citation, and we do not. The checks show whether the AI can read the facts a matter needs. Firms that declared their business scored a median 82 on the AI axis against 60. That measures readiness, not ranking.
Next: Can ChatGPT read your website? Why AI search is a lazy guest
Sources
- Google, How AI Mode is changing and expanding the way people search, 19 May 2026. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, 10 July 2026. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Google, We are expanding Gemini in Chrome to users in Asia Pacific, 20 April 2026. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- SparkToro, In 2026, less than one third of Google searches still send a click, 9 June 2026. Accessed 13 September 2026.
Our own counts come from our legal batch of 14 September 2026, 30 sites, one scan and one text read each, scored with the published rubric. Not a market survey.