Morgan & Morgan is #5 in AI in its own hometown.

Morgan & Morgan is the biggest name in personal injury law. In our latest AI for PI Index™ update, they’re the most-named firm in the country - AI names them in one of every 14 answers about personal injury lawyers, out of 21,139 answers we collected across 259 cities.

Then you look at Orlando, where they’re headquartered. AI names them fifth.

Farah & Farah shows up in nearly half of Orlando’s answers. Morgan & Morgan, one in five. And twenty miles down the road in Kissimmee, it flips: Morgan & Morgan is #1 there, named in over half that city’s answers, while three of Orlando’s top five drop off the list entirely.

All of this happens in the window between the injury and the first phone call. Part of the choosing is happening before your intake team knows the person exists.

We think most firms are seeing AI visibility wrong. The industry talks about it like one national scoreboard - who “ranks” in ChatGPT - because twenty years of Google trained everyone to think that way. The data shows 250 separate city contests instead, each with its own list of winners.

Ask the exact same question about two neighboring cities in the same metro, and the firms AI names share about 7 in 100. Reword the question inside the same city, and about a third of the firms repeat. The city in the question is doing almost all the work.

Here’s why we think that happens: the person asking got hurt somewhere specific. They ask about Kissimmee because they live in Kissimmee, and AI builds its answer from what it can read about Kissimmee. A national brand doesn’t buy recommendations one city over.

It also plays out differently on every AI. Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google the same question about the same city, and their lists agree on about 3 firms in 10. Each AI is running its own version of every city’s contest.

And almost none of those 250 contests have been won. 214 different firms hold a top spot, and the typical city leader is named in under half of its own city’s answers.

This looks like SEO around 2010. Nearly every market is still open, and we think the firms that move early will be the ones that are hard to move later.

The firms with the strongest positions in the index built them in small markets.

Munley Law is named in 87% of Scranton’s answers, and that strength, plus neighboring Stroudsburg, makes them the most-named firm in the entire Philadelphia DMA. Kline & Specter leads Philadelphia itself; Munley wins the region from its smaller cities.

Carlson Law Firm holds 81% of the answers in Killeen, Texas.

Cooper Hurley, the Norfolk firm Bill walks through on the companion episode, is named in about seven of ten answers in Chesapeake and Hampton - and those cities alone make them the #4 firm in the national index.

Meanwhile the Los Angeles leader tops out at 26%.

So if we ran a firm with offices in three cities, the smallest one would get our attention first. Appearing in half a city’s answers makes you its most-visible firm almost anywhere in the country, the demonstrated ceiling in smaller markets is 80% or more, and a regional lead can be assembled from the cities around the anchor. That’s happening right now in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

And read your market the way the injured person experiences it: city by city, never metro-wide. A metro-level number averages cities that share about 7 firms in 100. It can look fine while the cities your cases actually come from are naming other firms.

AI recommendations are won one city at a time - and our clients are proof.

Sarkisian Sarkisian & Associates is the most-visible personal injury firm in Indiana this update - #1 statewide, built city by city: #1 in Portage, #3 in Valparaiso.

Lopez & Humphries is #1 in Bartow, Florida, winning its home county first, Lakeland and Sebring included.

Everything in this report happens before a firm ever hears from the injured person. What happens in that window, from injury to intake, is what we call The Pre-Intake Problem™ - and it has been largely unserved until now.

Personal injury already converts only about 7% of the people who contact a firm into consultations - the lowest rate in legal (per MyCase’s 2024 Benchmark Report). When your firm is invisible in AI, injured people may never discover you, consider you, or enter your intake process at all. That means the opportunity can disappear before your team ever has the chance to convert it.

Through August 31, we are offering a complimentary Pre-Intake Revenue Strategy Discussion ($699 value).

In 30 minutes, you will:

• See where your firm stands in the AI for PI Index™.

• Get competitive intelligence on who AI recommends in your market - and where your firm may be missing.

• Receive an exclusive diagnostic showing what your AI visibility could mean for your cases, revenue, and growth.

You will leave with a personalized Pre-Intake Revenue Blueprint, including the gaps we uncover and prioritized actions your firm can begin taking now.

You’ll also get the Personal Injury AI Recommendation Playbook, built on recent data from the AI for PI Index™ and LawShift’s near-100% success rate in the real world. Request yours at LawShift.ai.

Reserve your complimentary Pre-Intake Revenue Strategy Discussion by August 31.

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