Legal Case Study
How Meridian Legal Partners captured 47% of AI search in their three-state market
Client: Meridian Legal Partners · Multi-State Personal Injury Law Firm · United States
Meridian Legal Partners is a regional personal injury firm operating across Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. We helped them dominate AI-search citations for high-intent legal queries and add 71 signed cases over a six-month engagement.
Share of AI citations
New signed cases
Inbound consult requests
Engagement length
The Challenge
Meridian had spent years building a strong local SEO and PPC program — they ranked in the Google 3-pack in most of their cities and ran a six-figure monthly Google Ads budget. But their pipeline was getting more expensive every quarter, and consult requests had plateaued.
When their managing partner started asking ChatGPT and Perplexity "who's the best personal injury lawyer in Phoenix?" or "what should I do after a car accident in Austin?" — they didn't appear in a single answer. National brands like Morgan & Morgan and a handful of legal directories owned every AI-generated recommendation.
Worse, their internal data showed that 38% of new consults reported "asking an AI" somewhere in their research journey. The firm was paying premium PPC rates for clicks that AI was already trying to direct elsewhere.
AI Citation Rate by Platform
Before vs. after engagement, measured across high-intent buyer queries
ChatGPT
Citation rate
Perplexity
Citation rate
Claude
Citation rate
Gemini
Citation rate
Our Approach
We built a six-month GEO program tailored to multi-jurisdictional legal practices, with strict compliance against state bar advertising rules and a focus on the specific intent patterns that drive consult requests.
Month 1
Jurisdictional Citation Audit
Mapped 142 high-intent personal injury queries across all four major LLMs in each of the firm's three states. Identified 89 queries where Meridian should have been the answer. Benchmarked against 14 regional and national competitors.
Months 2–3
Authority & Trust Layer Build
Restructured every practice area page around AI-extractable definitions and outcomes. Built attorney bios with full E-E-A-T signals (bar admissions, certifications, verdicts, settlements, publications). Deployed Person, Attorney, LegalService, and FAQ schema sitewide.
Months 3–4
Off-Site Citation Engineering
Earned mentions in legal directories that AI weights heavily (Justia, Avvo, Super Lawyers, Martindale-Hubbell), placed expert commentary in regional news, and built city-level practice area content covering each office's full service area.
Months 5–6
Monitoring, Iteration & Scale
Weekly LLM citation tracking by query and jurisdiction. Adjusted content monthly based on which queries were converting. Expanded into adjacent practice areas (truck accidents, premises liability) once core categories were dominant.
Work Delivered
The Results
By month 6, Meridian was being cited in 47% of all relevant AI-generated recommendations across their three-state market — up from 6% at baseline. They became the top-cited regional firm in Phoenix and Tucson, and second in Austin and Albuquerque.
More importantly, the firm signed 71 new cases attributable to the AI-search channel, with an average case value 22% higher than their PPC-sourced cases (consistent with research showing AI-referred users arrive more qualified). The firm has since reallocated 35% of their PPC budget to expanding the GEO program.
"We were skeptical that AI search could move the needle for a regional firm. Six months in, it's our best-converting channel — by a wide margin. The cases come in already half-sold."
Managing PartnerMeridian Legal Partners
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