BigLaw AEO Leaderboard

What this measures — and what it does not

AI citations are the number of citation links to each firm's domain that Ahrefs observed in generated answers on each platform, as of the date above. The counts are domain-wide: every practice area, every geography, every page. They are a visibility proxy from one vendor's sample of AI answers.

They are not a measurement of whether AI recommends a firm when a buyer asks for counsel. A firm can earn thousands of citations from a popular client-alert blog and still never be named when a general counsel asks ChatGPT who should handle a matter. Measuring that requires asking the actual questions, repeatedly — see the note at the bottom.

Method

• Universe, four segments. Big Law: US firms of Am Law 100 scale (roster compiled from the 2025 Am Law 100 ranking; a handful of members may be absent until the next verification pass — "Am Law 100" is a ranking published by The American Lawyer, referenced descriptively). Global: internationally headquartered firms with major US practices. Mid-Law: selected mid-size and regional firms. Boutique: elite litigation boutiques.
• AI citations: Ahrefs Site Explorer AI citation data (citation links per platform), pulled per domain. "All AI" is the sum across the five platforms shown.
• The platforms: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google's assistant), Grok (xAI), Google AI Mode (Google's conversational search tab), and Google AI Overviews (the AI summary at the top of standard Google results). Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot are measured and archived but excluded from the table.
• The Claude column. Claude appears in no vendor's citation dataset, so there is nothing to pull. The only way to know what Claude says about a firm is to ask it directly, repeatedly, and count. That is measured here rather than reported by a vendor, it is a mention rate in percent rather than a citation count, and for that reason it is never added into the All AI total. It is available to members.
• DR and organic traffic: Ahrefs Domain Rating and estimated monthly organic search visits, same pull date.
• Cadence: refreshed monthly, matching Ahrefs's own data-refresh cycle. Only the current month is published. Every prior snapshot is archived privately, which is what makes month-over-month movement verifiable when it is reported.

Known data caveats

• mwe.com (McDermott Will & Schulte) and sheppardmullin.com show near-zero tracked organic traffic despite healthy Domain Ratings — consistent with site migrations or crawler restrictions. Treat those rows with caution.
• winston.com (Winston & Strawn) also shows unusually low tracked organic traffic relative to its citation profile.
• Recently merged or renamed firms are tracked at their current domains (FBT Gibbons at fbtgibbons.com, Kilpatrick at ktslaw.com, Hunton at hunton.com); citation counts largely reset after a domain migration, so their numbers understate the legacy firms.

Disclaimers

• Independence. This leaderboard is independent research by Joe Ashta. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or approved by any law firm listed, by any AI platform named, or by any data vendor. No firm paid to appear, and no firm can pay to move.
• Trademarks. "Am Law 100" and "The American Lawyer" are trademarks of ALM Global, LLC. ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI; Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode are trademarks of Google LLC; Grok is a trademark of xAI; Claude is a trademark of Anthropic, PBC; Copilot is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation; Perplexity is a trademark of Perplexity AI, Inc.; Ahrefs is a trademark of Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. All firm names and marks are the property of their respective owners. All third-party names on this page are used descriptively, to identify the entities being measured or the sources of data, and no endorsement is implied in either direction.
• Not a ranking of legal ability. Citation counts measure online visibility in AI-generated answers. They say nothing about the quality of any firm's legal services, and this page is not legal advice, not attorney advertising, and not a lawyer referral service.
• Data as-is. All figures are third-party estimates (Ahrefs) at a point in time. They may contain errors, and they change between pulls. Corrections are welcome — contact Joe and the row will be reviewed against the next snapshot.