A three-part series exploring what a firm built from the ground up with AI would look like
Part 3: How to Use AI to Attract More Clients
In this final instalment of the series, let’s return to the question my solicitor friend asked: If a firm uses AI to save billable time, how can it fill the extra capacity to maintain revenue?
This question is at the heart of the challenge firms face to adopt AI and I believe the answer is to use AI not just for efficiency, but to build a larger client base. A growing ecosystem of AI marketing tools makes this possible.
Importantly, having more clients in an AI-enabled practice does not mean working harder or longer. AI dramatically reduces the human input required for each client, especially by cutting down on repetitive drafting. This frees lawyers to focus on what clients most value: strategic conversations and expert judgment.
Here’s how, when managed well, AI can help bring more clients to your door:
1. Advertise That You’ve Upgraded Your Service with AI
Clients are looking for the smartest lawyers they can trust (and afford). AI adds intelligence to your firm and signals to clients that you care about their experience enough to challenge the traditional model.
Be explicit about how AI is improving your service. Tell clients you offer greater speed, visibility, and lower cost. Put it on your website, in your proposals and in your online conversations.
2. Let Market Dynamics Give You a Tailwind
Basic economics tells us that lowering the cost of a service increases demand. The coming AI wave in law could attract many of the 71% of Canadian legal consumers who currently face significant legal issues but choose not to retain a lawyer.
The open question is whether lowering prices through AI will expand or contract total revenue in the legal services market. If the demand curve is relatively shallow, reducing prices—a rightward shift in the supply curve—could actually increase total revenue, even as revenue per service drops.
Sample Legal Services Demand & Supply Curve
3. Get Serious About AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Search engines are losing ground to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, as more people ask AI directly for recommendations such as “Who is the best employment lawyer in my area?” rather than scrolling through search results.
But this shift brings new opportunity. Google reports that the web has grown by 45% in two years, fuelled by AI-generated content. LLMs now reference vastly more pages than traditional search engines. To ensure they find and recommend you, law firms should adopt these Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) practices:
- Engineer your reputation broadly. Ensure that consistent information gets published across citations, rankings, your website, Wikipedia, and social platforms. Respond to reviews with statements that reinforce your expertise and focus.
- Create a single source of truth. Maintain a long form, fact-checked page on your website for LLM’s with your founding year, location, practice areas, leadership bios and FAQs.
- Build structured trust. Communications strategist Gini Dietrich notes that “your structured trust lives in bios, case studies, and credibility in business media (think HBR, WSJ, and trade pubs). You’ll be invisible if you’re not consistently framed as an expert.”
- Write citation-ready content. Draft clear, factual, quotable content without fluff that AI systems can safely drop into an answer.
- Audit your LLM presence. Periodically test major chatbots to see how they describe your firm.
If AI models lack reliable data about you, they may default to outdated material—or worse, hallucinate. Treat your digital footprint as your firm’s public record.
4. Play in Advanced Mode
At the 2025 All-IN AI Conference in Montreal, IBM Vice President Manav Gupta described a future where internet users no longer visit websites; instead, their AI agents generate instant, personalized interfaces built from underlying data.
Some media companies are already experimenting with charging LLMs to crawl their premium content. Forward-looking firms should envision how their legal knowledge—paid or free—could be rendered in that future.
Perhaps create an agent that can advise other AI systems on compliance, or guide HR bots through local employment laws.
In Closing: Consider the Alternate Route
If much of the technical advice in this series doesn’t call out to you, that’s understandable and it doesn’t preclude other approaches. Some practice areas will remain deeply human. In criminal law, we will still rely on a person—not a program—to decide questions of liberty. In family law, genuine empathy cannot be automated. In multi-billion-dollar M&A, judgment and discretion are invaluable.
As the AI 2027 Report observes, those who work in the “bottlenecks” of automation—where human insight remains indispensable—will command premium fees.
So if it feels more intuitive, be the bottleneck. Enjoy it! In all sincerity, there’s something very satisfying in an honest day’s work reading the law and crafting a precise, compelling memo for a valued client.
Steve Lowry is a lawyer turned technologist, cofounder of the Artificial Intelligence network of British Columbia (AInBC) and the currently CEO of Broadsight, an AI-based workflow platform for communications professionals.
To continue exploring these topics and take part in the conversation, reach out to Steve on LinkedIn.
