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TL;DR We pulled 6,065 real answers from our ongoing AI Visibility study, across 15 cities and 25 practice areas, and counted every source the AI actually cited. Two directories account for six in ten of every directory citation logged. Several names attorneys pay for every month barely show up at all.
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The Short Answer
Every legal directory sells the same pitch: get listed here and AI will find you.
The data says something narrower. Two directories carry most of the weight. Super Lawyers gets cited in 15.65% of every source AI pulls when it recommends a lawyer. Justia is close behind at 13.22%. Together those two names account for 61% of every directory citation logged, out of 14,353 directory citations across the full dataset.
Below that, three names split a smaller share. Best Law Firms sits at 5.49%. Best Lawyers at 4.23%. BCG Attorney Search, a legal recruiting site most firms never think of as a directory, at 4.20%. Chambers and LawInfo trail further behind.
Several of the names attorneys pay the most for, including FindLaw, Martindale-Hubbell, and Avvo, barely register. Combined, they account for less than half a percent of every citation in the dataset.
What This Is Built On
This isn’t a guess and it isn’t a one-time snapshot.
Forward Push runs a continuous AI Visibility study across 15 U.S. cities and 25 practice areas, tracking what ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude actually say when someone asks for a lawyer. This ranking comes from 6,065 real, verified answers pulled from that study, the subset where the AI exposed its actual source links rather than a synthesized answer with no citation trail.
Those 6,065 answers produced 30,319 individual source citations. Every one got logged, every domain got sorted into directory, law firm site, or other, and each directory’s share got counted from there.
97.8% of those answers cited at least one legal directory. Almost every AI answer about a lawyer runs through a directory somewhere along the way.
The Full Ranking
| Rank | Directory | Share of All Citations | Share of Directory Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Super Lawyers | 15.65% | 33.05% |
| 2 | Justia | 13.22% | 27.93% |
| 3 | Best Law Firms | 5.49% | 11.59% |
| 4 | Best Lawyers | 4.23% | 8.92% |
| 5 | BCG Attorney Search | 4.20% | 8.87% |
| 6 | Chambers | 2.05% | 4.34% |
| 7 | LawInfo | 0.94% | 1.98% |
| 8 | Avvo | 0.13% | 0.27% |
FindLaw, Martindale-Hubbell, Expertise.com, and Lawyers.com all appeared in the dataset too, each under a tenth of a percent individually.
Two Directories Do Most of the Work
Super Lawyers and Justia alone account for 28.87% of every citation in the dataset. Every other directory combined, including the well-known names, adds up to less than 19%.
That’s not a slow taper. It’s a cliff. If a directory budget only covers one line item, this is the line item.
The Famous Names That Barely Show Up
FindLaw shows up in 6 citations out of 30,319. Martindale-Hubbell in 3. Every attorney in the country has heard of both. AI has barely noticed either one.
Avvo does slightly better at 39 citations, still under a quarter of one percent.
This matches a pattern across the whole study. Brand recognition among lawyers and citation weight with AI are two different things, and they don’t move together.
Where Directory Dependence Shifts
Directory reliance isn’t flat across practice areas. Family Law, Appellate Law, Construction Law, Intellectual Property, and Insurance Defense all sit at 100%. Every AI answer logged in those areas cited a directory somewhere.
Personal Injury is the outlier. It’s the most competitive, most fought-over practice area in legal marketing, and it has the lowest directory citation rate measured at 89%. Civil Litigation is close behind at 89.1%.
The takeaway isn’t that PI firms can skip directories. 89% is still nearly 9 in 10 answers. It’s that PI is the one practice area where non-directory sources, firm sites, editorial coverage, community mentions, carry slightly more relative weight than everywhere else.
City matters too. Charlotte and Dallas sit at 100%. Miami is the lowest market tracked at 91.7%, with Houston close behind at 92.9%.
See How AI Recommends Law Firms In Specific Cities
See How AI Recommends Individual Practice Areas
What This Means for Your Firm
Maintain two directory profiles above everything else: Super Lawyers and Justia carry more combined weight than every other directory in this ranking put together.
Best Law Firms, Best Lawyers, BCG Attorney Search, and Chambers are worth a complete, accurate profile. They won’t carry a citation on their own the way Super Lawyers and Justia do, but they add up.
Everything below that line is optional. A directory that shows up in 3 citations out of 30,000 is not where a monthly budget should be going.
