What changed for legal queries
Questions like whether a case has merit, what a fee structure means, or how long someone has to file now get answered in the Overview box. The searcher arrives at a firm site, if they arrive at all, already framed by Google’s synthesis. Firms cited inside that synthesis inherit its authority; firms below it inherit silence.
What changed for local intent
Local service queries increasingly trigger AI answers that describe what to look for and name the considerations before showing the map. The Overview shapes the shortlist criteria, which means the businesses whose strengths match the AI’s framing win before proximity even matters.
Who gets cited on legal questions
Overviews on legal topics skew hard toward pages with demonstrable authority: clear jurisdiction-specific answers, attorney authorship, consistent entity signals, and corroborating citations. Thin practice-area boilerplate never surfaces. The firms winning citations wrote the page that actually answers the panicked 2am question.
The compounding effect with assistants
The same person who read the Overview asks ChatGPT whether they need a lawyer and checks Perplexity for who to call. Our research shows these conversations forming the shortlist before any consultation. Legal visibility is now one fabric across Google’s AI surfaces and the four assistants, and it is won with the same quotable authority.
What firms should do now
Audit which of your money queries trigger Overviews and who is cited. Publish jurisdiction-specific, question-shaped answers under attorney bylines. Tighten schema and reviews. Then monitor weekly, because the box regenerates. Aethon runs this for law firms as part of the full AI visibility program.
