A new survey from Justice and the Administrative Fairness Lab has found that 16% of people who experienced a legal dispute in the past two years turned to an AI chatbot for help, information or advice before — or instead of — speaking to a solicitor. One respondent asked an AI tool to translate legal jargon into “normal person language.” Others used it to check whether their solicitor’s conduct was appropriate. This isn’t a future trend for law firms to prepare for. It’s already happening.
The bigger picture: AI has quietly become part of the client journey
The survey, which polled 3,287 people including 1,428 with recent experience of a legal dispute, didn’t just find that people were curious about AI. It found they were actively using it at multiple points in their legal journey — to understand parking fine disputes, to make sense of court procedure, to decode a letter from the other side’s solicitor, and even to seek reassurance when they felt anxious about a claim. As Ellen Lefley, Justice’s deputy legal director, put it: “The question is not whether AI becomes part of people’s legal journeys — it already is.”
What makes this significant for independent law firms is where in the journey this is happening. People aren’t only asking AI for help after they’ve instructed a solicitor — many are using it before they’ve chosen one, to understand their situation well enough to know what kind of help they need and who might be able to provide it. That puts AI chatbots squarely in the same territory as a Google search: an early, influential step in deciding which solicitor gets the call.
What independent solicitors need to know
The practical implication is straightforward but easy to miss: if prospective clients are asking AI tools to explain their legal problem, check whether a solicitor’s actions sound reasonable, or translate jargon into plain English, then the content those AI tools draw on to answer those questions matters enormously. Large language models pull from indexed, structured, factual web content — clear explanations, well-organised service pages, consistently accurate business listings. A firm whose website is thin, jargon-heavy or poorly structured isn’t just harder for a human to use. It’s less likely to be surfaced, quoted or recommended by the AI tools a growing share of prospective clients are now consulting.
This is exactly the gap that GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) exists to close, and it sits alongside — not instead of — traditional local SEO. A prospective client typing “is it normal for a solicitor to ask for mortgage funds without my consent” into an AI chatbot is asking a specific, answerable question. Firms whose websites contain clear, structured answers to the real questions clients actually have stand a far better chance of being the source an AI tool draws from, and by extension, the firm that question-asker eventually calls.
What forward-thinking firms are already doing
Firms that have grasped what this survey confirms are adjusting their content and visibility strategy now, rather than waiting for AI-driven enquiries to become impossible to ignore:
- Rewriting service pages as clear, factual answers to real client questions, rather than generic marketing copy about “decades of experience”
- Auditing and correcting every Google My Business for solicitors listing, since AI tools frequently draw on business profile data to answer “who should I contact” queries
- Publishing plain-English explainers on common client worries — what a completion statement means, what happens if a solicitor misses a deadline, how to query a bill — the exact territory this survey shows people are already taking to AI
- Testing what AI chatbots currently say when asked about their firm, their practice areas and their local area, and correcting any gaps or inaccuracies found
- Treating AI visibility as a standing item in marketing reviews, not a one-off project
How this connects to growth
Every one of these actions connects directly to the same goal as any other channel in a firm’s legal marketing mix: being findable, credible and clear at the exact moment someone is deciding who to instruct. The difference is that this particular moment is increasingly mediated by an AI tool rather than a search results page, and most high street law firms and regional law firms have no idea what those tools are currently telling their prospective clients — good, bad, outdated or simply absent.
This matters more for independent firms than it does for national brands, precisely because independents tend to compete on trust, local reputation and clarity rather than sheer marketing spend. Those are exactly the qualities that translate well into AI-readable content — a well-explained process, a transparent fee structure, a plainly written answer to a worried client’s question — if a firm takes the time to publish them in a form AI tools can actually use. Firms that get there first won’t just be visible in this new channel; they’ll set the tone prospective clients use to judge every other firm they compare it against.
Sixteen percent of people with a legal dispute already turning to AI is not a fringe statistic — it’s a fast-moving baseline, and it will only grow from here. Independent firms that wait for certainty before acting on it will spend the next two years playing catch-up against competitors who started building their AI visibility today. Explore GrowwithQS AI SEO services to make sure your firm is the one AI tools recommend.
