Industry breakout
AI visibility for law firms in 2026: the national firms take the answers.
We scanned 50 Australian law firms as part of our 300-business national study. Law firms average 37.5 out of 100 for AI visibility, just under the national mean of 38.3, and 30% of the 23 firms with complete records from both engines were never named once by ChatGPT or Gemini.
Key numbers
Law firms, by the numbers
Fifty firms, drawn from five mainland capital cities plus recognisable national brands, scanned 30 July 2026. "Never named" means zero mentions from both engines across every question asked, counted over the 23 firms with complete records from both engines, because blank Gemini rows cannot be counted either way. The site checks are counted over all 50.
The mean AI visibility score for law firms. The median is 36. Only e-commerce and dentists averaged higher among the six industries.
The national mean across all 300 businesses in the study. Law firms sit just under it.
7 of the 23 firms with complete records from both engines were never named once by either ChatGPT or Gemini. Only e-commerce, at 9%, did better.
12% of the 50 law firm sites block AI crawlers in robots.txt, so the engines cannot read them at all.
28% of the 50 law firm sites have no structured data (JSON-LD) for the engines to parse.
88% of the 50 law firm sites have no llms.txt file, the highest rate of any industry we scanned. We report it as a legibility signal only: Google has said it does not use llms.txt.
Mean site readiness. Law firm websites score 73 for on-site AI readiness while the firms behind them score 37.5 for visibility.
The top law firm score in the study, held by Slater and Gordon Lawyers.
Recognition is not recommendation. Turner Freeman Lawyers, a recognisable national plaintiff firm, scored 40 out of 100: named in 1 of 5 ChatGPT buyer questions and 0 times by Gemini. That describes our questions on one day, not the firm's work. It is also how little a famous name guarantees on its own. The full method and caveats are in the national report.
Who leads
The five most visible law firms we scanned
Scores are AI visibility out of 100, summarising each firm's whole scan record across both engines, site readiness included. Three of the five are national plaintiff firms, and two are single-city practices that outscored most of the national names.
| Rank | Firm | City | AI visibility score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Slater and Gordon Lawyers | Melbourne (national) | 85 |
| 2 | Maurice Blackburn Lawyers | Melbourne (national) | 82 |
| 3 | Potts Lawyers | Brisbane | 81 |
| 4 | Shine Lawyers | Brisbane (national) | 79 |
| 5 | Barkus Doolan Winning Family Lawyers | Sydney | 71 |
Household names
How the national legal brands fared
The study seeded each industry with recognisable national anchor brands. "Named by ChatGPT" counts how many of the five ChatGPT buyer questions in a brand's cohort volunteered it; the Gemini column is the equivalent count from that engine's sweep. Being named in one question and not another describes our questions on one day, not the quality of anyone's work.
| Firm | AI visibility score | Named by ChatGPT | Named by Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slater and Gordon Lawyers | 85 | 4 of 5 | 5 |
| Maurice Blackburn Lawyers | 82 | 4 of 5 | 5 |
| Shine Lawyers | 79 | 4 of 5 | 5 |
| Turner Freeman Lawyers | 40 | 1 of 5 | 0 |
By city
Where law firms are most and least visible
Rows marked (national) are national firms, grouped by the city recorded against them in the dataset, separate from that city's local cohort. The national cohorts and Brisbane's local firms clear a mean of 40; every other local cohort sits under 32.
| Cohort | Firms | Mean score |
|---|---|---|
| Melbourne (national) | 8 | 45.8 |
| Brisbane | 6 | 45.5 |
| Sydney (national) | 11 | 40.4 |
| Melbourne | 6 | 31.8 |
| Perth | 6 | 29.2 |
| Sydney | 6 | 29.2 |
| Adelaide | 6 | 28.5 |
What it means
What this means for a law firm
When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini for a lawyer, the engines volunteer the firms the rest of the web already talks about, and in law that overwhelmingly means the big national plaintiff brands with years of press, case coverage and reviews behind them.
The data shows the gap and the way through it. Potts Lawyers and Barkus Doolan Winning Family Lawyers are single-city practices, yet both sit in the top five ahead of most national names, which says the engines will name a smaller firm when its footprint is strong in a specific practice area and city. Meanwhile 30% of the firms that could be measured on both engines were never named at all, and the site basics are far from universal: 12% of the 50 sites block AI crawlers and 28% carry no structured data. Both are fixable in an afternoon, and the 88% llms.txt gap matters less than it sounds, since Google has said it does not use the file.
For a suburban or specialist firm, the play is precision rather than volume: be the firm the web mentions for your practice area in your city, on top of a site the engines can read. What that work looks like is on our AI visibility for law firms page, the method behind every number here is in the full national report, and if the vocabulary is new the glossary covers it in plain English.
Keep reading
Where to go next
The full study
State of AI Visibility in Australia 2026
All 300 businesses across six industries, with the full methodology and the raw data free to download under CC BY 4.0.
Read the report →For your firm
AI visibility for law firms
What we check, what we fix and what it costs to get a law firm named by ChatGPT and Gemini.
See the service →Another industry
Tradies: 2026 study data
Tradies average 29.8 out of 100, and 76% of the trade businesses with complete two-engine records were never named.
See the breakout →Questions
Common questions about the law firm data
How visible are Australian law firms to AI in 2026?
Which law firms does AI recommend most?
How many law firms are never named by ChatGPT or Gemini?
Are law firm websites ready for AI?
Find out whether AI names your firm.
The same scan we ran on these 50 law firms is free for yours. See whether ChatGPT and Gemini name you, who they name instead, and you keep the report.