A competitor has the page, and you don't
When Google's AI named a firm in our research, it was usually a firm with a page about that exact situation. A practice-area page that lists everything you do gives the AI very little to match.
/ AI search optimization (GEO)
Be the firm ChatGPT names when your clients describe their situation
GEO is the work of getting your firm named in AI answers. We ask the AIs the questions your clients actually ask, build a page for each situation your firm handles, and ask again every month to see what changed.
What you get
- Your clients' questions, put to ChatGPT, Google's AI, and Gemini
- One page for each situation your firm handles
- Your credentials and your team, stated plainly
- Your existing pages audited and kept current
- A monthly report of who gets named, and why
I'm Joshua David Little. I've run my own consulting firm since 2004, I've helped attorneys prepare complex cases for trial, and I ran the first family-law ad on ChatGPT, before the platform allowed legal-services ads.
/ Why the AI names another firm
The AI recommends the firm whose context fits
More and more people open ChatGPT and describe their situation in detail. They have three kids, they own a home, they run a business. The answer can look past the best-reviewed lawyers in town for firms that deal with those specific things. That's what I call Context Marketing: building your marketing around the situations people are actually in, so the person searching and the AI recommending can both see that your firm fits.
The AI tells people what to look for, and your site doesn't say it
ChatGPT told people to look for a lawyer with experience in their exact kind of case, and to find out who would personally handle it. If your firm has nurses on staff, a physician-attorney, or a certified elder-law attorney, and your site doesn't say so, the AI has nothing to go on.
An old page tells the AI the wrong thing
A page with an outdated law, a changed figure, or a lawyer who left years ago can be repeated as fact, under your firm's name.
/ What it costs you
You can't fix what nobody has checked
Most firm owners don't know whether ChatGPT or Google's AI names them, and more of their clients may be asking one first. In one legal software company's 2025 research, more than half of legal consumers had used AI, or would consider using it, to answer a legal question.¹
If you've heard "GEO" or "AI visibility" in an agency pitch, ask two questions. What did they test before they sold it to you, and how will they count the cases it brings in?
/ How Aquila does GEO
AI search optimization, step by step
Ask the AIs your clients' questions
In your city and in the words your clients use, one question per conversation, in ChatGPT, Google's AI, and Gemini. We record which firms get named and the reasons each answer gives.
Build one page for each situation
The situations your firm handles and wants more of, each written for the person in it, answering their question in their own words.
State your credentials and your team
Who will handle the case, what they've done in cases like it, and any certification they hold. If the AI tells families to look for something your firm has, your pages should say so plainly.
Audit and refresh what the AI might repeat
We go through your existing pages for old laws, old figures, and old team members, and fix them before an AI repeats them to someone deciding whether to call you.
Spread your firm's context beyond your own site
Your Google Business Profile, legal directories, review sites, articles, interviews, and social profiles are all places an AI can draw from. Each one should tell the same specific story about the work your firm does and the people it does it for.
Count the cases AI sends you
A "How did you hear about us?" question on your contact form, with ChatGPT and other AI tools listed, so the people who found you through an AI answer get counted all the way to the signed client.
Ask again every month
The same questions, in the same AIs, every month. You get a report of who was named and why, and what changed since the last one.
Traditional vs. the Aquila approach
/ What to ask of any AI visibility offer
The traditional approach
Sell the package
"AI visibility" sold as a bundle of tactics, with nothing checked before and nothing counted after.
The Aquila approach
Ask, build, and ask again
Your clients' own questions put to the AIs, pages built for the situations behind them, the same questions asked again every month, and the cases traced back to their source.
/ What's included
What GEO looks like inside an engagement
What your firm gets
- Your clients' questions put to ChatGPT, Google's AI, and Gemini, in your city
- Situation pages, planned and written by us
- Pages that state your lawyers' credentials and experience
- An audit of your existing pages, with the fixes made
- A monthly report of who was named and why
What your firm gives
- Your lawyers' credentials, bios, and the kinds of cases each one handles
- A lawyer's review of every page before it goes live
- An AI option added to "How did you hear about us?" on your contact form
- Access to your website and profiles
- In my experience, 2 to 3 hours a month across the whole engagement
How it ties into the system
The pages GEO builds are the same pages that bring people in from search and give your ads somewhere useful to land. Each one leads to a resource, so a person who arrives from an AI answer can sign up, get help, and hear from you while they decide. As your Fractional CMO, I choose which situations come first, and the monthly report tells us what to build next.
By practice area
/ What we found in your practice
Family law
In family law, ChatGPT and Google's AI rarely agreed. In the three markets where both named family firms, they didn't name a single firm in common, so a firm has to be findable by each.
Personal injury
ChatGPT left out the national advertisers that Google's answers put forward. If your firm already pays an agency for AI visibility, I can be the second opinion on what it's selling.
Medical malpractice
This is where ChatGPT and Google's AI agreed most. In Phoenix, Seattle, Boise, and Charlotte, most of the firms ChatGPT named were on Google's list too.
Elder law
If your firm has a Certified Elder Law Attorney, one of over 500 nationwide according to the National Elder Law Foundation, every relevant page should say so. Families searching for help with a parent are usually the adult children, so write for them.
Business law and estate planning
ChatGPT named a firm for nearly every business and estate question we asked. For estate questions it told people to have a CPA or financial advisor working beside the lawyer, and Google's AI gave the same advice for business questions, so pages that show how your firm works with those professionals fit what the AI is telling people.
Mass tort
Pages that answer "Do I qualify?" and "Is this lawsuit real?" for your firm's own cases.
/ What we found when we asked the AI
The firms the AI named had a page for that exact situation
We asked Google's AI the questions people ask about their own situations. When it named a firm, it was usually one with a page about that exact situation, sometimes over firms with far more reviews.
We then put the same situations to ChatGPT. In estate, malpractice, and serious-injury questions, it often named firms for their own pages on the person's situation. It often played reviews down, too, telling people that the attorney's experience with cases like theirs counts for more than a prestigious name or a pile of reviews.
/ Client results
What a page worth landing on has produced
The situation pages GEO builds lead to the same resources and follow-up our clients run on every channel.
Brenda Clark Family Law
New clients at about $200 each, with leads at about $21.
The first family-law ad on ChatGPT
Over 20% of the people who clicked it signed up for the free resource it offered.
FAQ
How do you check what the AI says?
We ask ChatGPT, Google's AI, and Gemini the questions your clients ask, in your city, one question per conversation. We record who's named and the reasons each answer gives, then look for the pattern across many questions.
Does ChatGPT show the same firms as Google?
Mostly not. In family law, in the three markets where both named firms, they had none in common. Medical malpractice was the exception, where the two agreed on most of the firms they named.
Do reviews help with AI answers?
They help on the map. In our research, ChatGPT often played reviews down and told people to look for experience with their exact kind of case.
Does publishing our prices help?
Prices are one more thing an AI can use in its answer. When someone asks what a lawyer costs, a firm whose site says plainly what its work costs gives the answer something to cite.
Do we need an llms.txt file?
It's a file some sites add to guide AI tools. We haven't seen evidence that it changes what the AI says, so we start with the pages.
How will we know if AI sends us cases?
Two ways. Your contact form asks how each person heard about you, with AI listed as an option, and we follow those people to the signed client. And the monthly report shows whether your firm is being named, and what changed.
¹ Clio, a legal software company, Legal Trends Report, 2025: "More than half of consumers have used or would consider using AI to answer a legal question."