AI SEO and EEAT - For Lawyers in 2026

Meg Hoerner (00:09)
So most attorneys should know that in New Jersey last year, the Supreme Court of New Jersey announced a requirement that every attorney have one ⁓ credit, one CLE credit in a technology related subject per two year reporting cycle. That goes into effect

in January of 2027. There was also a notice to the bar at the end of this past December that proposes a change ⁓ to the ⁓ CLE regulations. right now it's in the stage of requesting comments from the bar. And that change to the regulation ⁓ would specify what technology related subjects are.

and it specifically mentions the use of artificial intelligence in the practice of law. So before we start into this conversation, because I think, you know, lot of the court decisions that I'm reading these days, and I, you know, I do teach ⁓ on the graduate level. I'm also teaching a lot of ethics CLEs with Melissa Rosenblum. And I think that with the cases that we're hearing about, they relate to

attorneys who are getting slapped on the wrist ⁓ for improperly using AI in the practice of law, right? And so the CLE requirement and the proposed amendment to the regulations, which I won't read right now, ⁓ as I read them, all relate to the practice of law. So let's make a distinction as to what we are going to talk to today, because I do think that there are a lot of lawyers out there who recognize that

the use of AI is a good tool, ⁓ if it's used as a tool. And we could spend a lot of time talking about that, but that's not exactly what we're gonna talk about today. Am I correct?

Thomas Ritter (02:11)
So not the practice of law, more the business of law and how AI tools decide which lawyers or law firms get treated as the authority and what that means for smaller firms.

that are highly skilled, that have a great pedigree, that have community attachment involvement and genuine jurisdictional savvy that wins case types, and that literally being translated from real world qualifications into whether or not you're the firm of the lawyer who gets the citations in Google's AI summaries and

the nuances of how to connect through those channels to the fear-driven or emotion-driven search journeys that are unique to various practices of law. For example, criminal and injury. When you find out the intent-driven type searches of a potential client, they are not generally

Meg Hoerner (03:03)
.

you

Thomas Ritter (03:26)
who's the best criminal attorney in town they are things like what are the charges for acts in new jersey you know what are what can i expect if i was just arrested why in hudson camp

And the fears and the language and the lingo that is very specific not only to those case types but very often to the geography in which these people live. And AI having enough information about the firms to draw a line not from the biggest presence or the biggest advertiser or the biggest billboard bully.

Meg Hoerner (03:47)
you you

Thomas Ritter (04:08)
but to see, this firm's in that town. and this is a multi-generational firm that's been in the Chamber of Commerce for 87 years. And the father was the president of not only the local bar, but the state bar at one point. And he's got these certifications. That's the level of intelligence we're using to actually make the decision about who gets treated like the authority or not.

Meg Hoerner (04:32)
Okay, so I mean just you

just to break it down in some very basic terms for lawyers who, like me, probably don't know a lot about AI and how it can help their business. ⁓ I would say that most lawyers know if they go out into private practice, and I was in private practice for five years after being a prosecutor for 18, didn't really know much about the business side of law, knew that you needed a website, right? So let's start with the basics. Most small firms,

either have a website that they've generated on their own through Wix or they've gotten a friend to help them with, or they've even paid a chunk of change to get a website that lists all of their qualifications and all the reasons why somebody who's looking for a lawyer in their practice field might want to hire them. Most of them probably know enough to be dangerous about SEO, search engine optimization and how.

somebody types in, I'm looking for a criminal defense attorney in Cape May County or Atlanta County or wherever, ⁓ they want their name to be kind of at the top. Some of them even pay for that. ⁓ So what is it that you do now with small law firms to optimize these search engine results? Because I think, you know, I give you a lot of credit, you're a lot smarter in this area than me, but I don't want to lose the listeners. What is it that you do

to help small businesses gain business at an affordable price.

Thomas Ritter (06:03)
So you,

that's a fair question. And let's, we all agree that the top of Google has completely been reinvented in the last year. So let's start there. The firms you're talking about who, you know, some of these people may have owned SEO results at the top of Google for the last decade, and maybe they own that because they're really the guy or the gal in their niche, or maybe they own that because they had a bigger checkbook.

now Google's using AI summaries at the top of the page. Those AI summaries are made up of information that is on law firm or the state ⁓ court or judiciary websites that gets cited for whatever the query might be.

But that's literally now the top 30, 40, 50 % of space on Google. So you could call what we do SEO. Right now, that's pretty confusing because there's SEO companies that don't at all do what we do. We do this. The top of the page is different, so we do the top of the page. And then the second step is LLMs.

Legal clients will get enough information from the top of the page Google summaries with citations from law firms or citations from, you know, the state courts dot org.

And then they'll take that over to a chat GPT or perplexity or Claude and try and really hone in on their case. So these people are doing that sort of research now without having to click through to a website at all.

So they can do 70, 80, 90 percent of their investigation. And it's Google bringing website content forward, putting it at the very top of the page and answering the question entirely that prevents the click through from ever needing to happen for the consumer who's doing the investigation. That's the, if you're a firm who's spent a million dollars on SEO in the last decade, that's the headache. And if you're a new firm,

in family or criminal and, you know, you're a young attorney and you just hung out your shingle, that's the unbelievable opportunity for you. Because depending on your pedigree, depending on how specialized you are related to those case types being the type that local jurisdictional savvy wins, definitely criminal.

Definitely family and you can make a list. You know which ones they are where you're never been in the county before. You're at a huge disadvantage. You don't even know how the clerk does business, much less what the judge thinks. So.

It could be the pain of a big firm who's like, my God, we just lost our dominance, or it could be the opportunity for a small firm who's really got local authority to literally elbow, you know, the John Morgans of the world out of the way and own that top of the page and then own the further research in the LLMs because they'll surface you as that authority. So it's that specialized, what we're addressing, and it works best with people who've done a good job.

with some of this digital marketing before. They need to be present on the web. But more importantly, it's merit. Did they win cases in the real world? Have they ever been president of a bar association? They ever argue in front of the Supreme Court? You know, the real world qualifications are gonna make much more of a difference than if their website is new.

if their website is fancy, or even if their website is as fully architected for SEO as the competition. Their real world authority makes a bigger difference in AI, and SEO is all about just the mechanical difference and or the being big. So it's merit versus, it's quality versus quantity in a quite literal sense.

Meg Hoerner (10:11)
So talk to me in very basic terms like nuts and bolts. How right now, how is AI already picking lawyers for someone who does a search, a Google search for a certain type of lawyer in a certain area? How's it work? Take us behind the curtain so that we can understand what it is you're talking about.

Thomas Ritter (10:31)
Well.

It's, the AI is looking at the entity. SEO is looking at your digital optimization. So the entity again goes back to how many offices do you have? If it's a jurisdictionally savvy case type and you hold two firms up to this light in terms of AI judging them and one firm has all 50 states plastered at the top of every single page on their website.

And this firm says 75 years in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. These guys could have spent $10 million on SEO and ads and billboards every month for the last 50 years. But if that's a local jurisdictionally savvy case type.

The AI can see this business registration. They see that it's only got one location. They can see that it's got community ties. If this business has been sponsoring a little league team, things like that are going to destroy the ability of the big billboard firm to ever claim it's an authority in that geography if it's a case type that's dependent on jurisdictional savvy. So it's

Meg Hoerner (11:37)
you .

Thomas Ritter (11:49)
Literally checking when your business was formed and where your business is. Those two things indicate are you a real local resource or not. So just starting there weeds out a ton of just big

budget or nationwide or even statewide type firms where again,

all 50 states at the top of the page is literally selling against you being the authority in a little jurisdiction where jurisdictional savvy matters.

Meg Hoerner (12:20)
So this sounds to me a lot like an analogy would be

Meg Hoerner (12:25)
where you are helping attorneys optimize their resume, i.e. their website, so that AI will choose them.

Thomas Ritter (12:39)
Their website's part of it, but their website can be, the website is a showcase for their knowledge, their pedigree, and et cetera. Our job is to make sure that Google AI summaries can grab any bit or piece of that website and surface it at the top of the page easily, super accessibly, and with great confidence that they're citing the real source. Because.

We know 70 % of searches are happening now without a click through to the website. So the whole point is not to, it's to take your website and project it onto the top of Google by letting Google know that it's accessible, it's correct, you're the authority they should trust. And so, it's so merit.

Meg Hoerner (13:10)
What?

Thomas Ritter (13:27)
meritocratic. that's what's cool and the little guy versus big guy theme is really kind of neat and does come up in these conversations. Not to say it doesn't apply to multi-location firms, but in some case types, you really want the guy around the corner who probably golfs with the judge.

Meg Hoerner (13:45)
So what's the biggest gap though, do you think, between how lawyers think these searches are happening and how they're really happening?

Thomas Ritter (13:54)
There's a lot of lawyers that know exactly what's going on. This is, and the ABA discusses this. You know, I often cite an article from late last year where the ABA is breaking this down exactly the way we do and says, this is your best practice for 2026. If 70 % of research is never gonna click through, you need to make sure that when you're really the authority, your website is architecture and content.

projects out onto Google so that people looking for real expertise and help in probably one of the more difficult periods of their life if they're looking for a lawyer aren't going through nonsense, aren't going through lead aggregators, aren't getting the all 50 states guide just because he's got a million dollars.

Meg Hoerner (14:49)
So we're just to make the distinction once again, we're distinguishing now between using AI for the practice of law, which we all know as attorneys needs to be dealt with very carefully and the business of law. And so you were explaining to me who

Again, caveat, I don't know a lot about artificial intelligence other than it is a tool. You were telling me about how a small firm can utilize Jornio and all the skills that you have to be able to harness, you know, it's not that just any attorney can do this. This is taking someone who has got

certain skills and qualifications in certain practice areas and certain geographic areas, I would imagine, and making sure that all of the information that needs to be on a website is there such that a potential client who is conducting a search is going to find them. I is that really it in a nutshell?

Thomas Ritter (15:55)
Correct.

It's making it easy for the AI to A, recognize that it's legitimate authority content, and B, to surface it in bite-sized chunks as necessary. Like we've seen, ⁓ it'll take three different pieces from the same website because those three pieces best answer the question of the person.

⁓ it is looking at the google a summary verses them just saying hey go to this web page and read google a i summaries are literally taking justice bullet justice bullet and justice bullet and sink that's the right answer throwing the rest of your page out of the way

Meg Hoerner (16:28)
you

Thomas Ritter (16:35)
and surfacing just that content in front of the person who's doing the query, say, look, we narrowed it down. And that's why the heck these consumers are spending 75 % of their time and climbing without

Meg Hoerner (16:36)
you

Thomas Ritter (16:50)
clicking through to your site. They're just not going to because they don't need to. And if you don't, to your point, not everybody's going to be able to do this. It's going to be the ones whose real world pedigree resume

business registration and so forth mates them to it. And it's not every area of practice on your website. Like when I look at a firm, looked at a firm yesterday, they do family criminal, personal injury, and ⁓ some wills and estates, but mainly an overlap with family. And so the undeniable opportunity for them was family.

Meg Hoerner (17:09)
Hmm.

Thomas Ritter (17:33)
family only, their pedigree was family. Their current website supports family above all else. So for me to...

Meg Hoerner (17:41)
Well, I'll just get out

of here really quickly. There was a school of thought not that long ago that an attorney would put every single thing under the sun on their website so that, you know, they may not do any personal injury, but they'd have the word personal injury on their website that so that somebody was looking for an attorney would get to their website. Are you saying that that

old school thought process is out the window.

Thomas Ritter (18:06)
that's such a great example because that's a micro example of what I was just describing with the nationals. The people who are bragging about, 50 states, 50 states, I'm so big. That's literally a negative in some conversations when you're looking for a lawyer. So big. It's going to be the first thing that disqualifies that firm.

to your point. And so the step down from that national firm is you've seen all these firms who they're statewide, they're statewide. When all they are is loosely affiliated people running their own law firms and using my name because I've got a bigger advertising budget and maybe some more admin.

next to the all 50 states pitch which works against you as a local authority in case types where jurisdictional savvy matters there's a bunch of

Meg Hoerner (18:57)
Right. I think they're

doing that though so that they can ⁓ get a referral fee when they kick it out the door.

Thomas Ritter (19:02)
But let

me round this out. So then you've got nationals who are bringing about all 50 states. You've got a guy who should have one office in New Jersey who has 12 because he thought that was like, how I'll get big. None of his 12 locations are gonna get surfaced for a damn thing.

now and that's a that's a the same exact application is where you're saying they've got too many things on their menu i'm saying they've got too many addresses on their contact page

So it's literally all about diluting the value of one for the value of 20, whether it's the menu on your website saying, we do everything. At a glance, that's all Google needs to see to know you are not an expert at anything. And in the same respect, this guy who pretends he's got a statewide firm because he got a bunch of people to use his name and give him new mailing addresses.

Google's going to see that in a heartbeat and say, this guy is definitely not the South Jersey expert. This guy's definitely not the Monmouth County expert. he's not the Bergen County expert. If he's handling case types where local jurisdictional savvy matters, he absolutely shot himself in the foot, if I haven't described him well enough by now.

Meg Hoerner (20:19)
Well,

and let's face it, think most, you know, most small law firms anyway, just don't have the time to devote to

worrying about this. So it's, it's nice to be able to understand why it is important to offload this ⁓ aspect of their marketing. They, they want to, they, if they are the best, they want to be recognized as the best in their practice area, in their geographic area. So let's switch gears a little bit and kind of get into the nuts and bolts, because if somebody is going to offload this to a company such as yours,

⁓ They want to understand it and they want to understand why. So I have a question. I follow you on LinkedIn and I see a lot of ⁓ posts about EEAT. I know nothing about what that is. Can you explain to me what EEAT is and why you're talking about it on LinkedIn and why it's important?

Thomas Ritter (21:21)
⁓ Yeah, and so I'm grinning. I should have maybe injected that in the conversation. But, so that's the acronym that in four words encompasses what it took me 10 or 12 minutes to explain so far, which is...

Again, I think it's meritocratic. think this is really about identifying who can genuinely help the consumer. And in that vein, EEAT stands for Experience Measurable. They can measure your experience. They can see when your firm was founded. They can see when you passed the bar. Expertise. They can see, again, what's on your website menu. If it's one thing, you're probably an expert. If it's 15 things, they know you're not.

Meg Hoerner (21:53)
you you ⁓

Thomas Ritter (22:09)
Authoritativeness, so we're at EEA, authoritativeness is public speaking will be on the record and that will show up when they're looking. So if I've got an attorney who's been the head of the Bar Association

Meg Hoerner (22:23)
.

Thomas Ritter (22:23)
and done a bunch of public speaking at bar events and maybe done some CLEs,

game over. They're going to beat the one who's got no record of that on the State Bar Association website or doesn't have that case type on the statejudiciarywebsite.org. So the authoritativeness comes from...

Are you this thing or are you everything? And then the T

is trustworthiness. So you're going experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. And trustworthiness is going to be how long have you been around? Is this a multi-generational family firm that's, know, there's streets in the town named after your grandfather?

That's trustworthy for a case type where you want a lawyer who knows the jurisdiction.

Meg Hoerner (23:15)
So this is

a

But this is a substantive analysis of who is the most credible in terms of the best in their field, in their geographic area. This is not, this this goes from the way you're describing it beyond ⁓ SEO optimization, which is just like, how many times can you get different words on your website so that you rise to the top of the searches? This is an actual substantive analysis by AI as to

who that potential client should actually hire for the particular ⁓ issue that they have, assuming that they search properly, right?

Thomas Ritter (23:54)
Well, what is properly?

Meg Hoerner (23:58)
Well, I guess.

Thomas Ritter (24:00)
In New Jersey,

is searching properly, does that mean I need to use indictable offense instead of felony? Is that proper? Or is it the attorney's responsibility to know the language that their clients use most frequently and simply write to address it? So like we wrote an article for Melissa Rosenblum where we know the prospective client is going to be searching felony. But we know Melissa Rosenblum

If I start posting content about felonies on a New Jersey, on a Supreme Court certified trial attorney's website, Melissa Rosenblum is going to read me the riot act. So then putting literally in the introduction of the article, the difference between felonies and indictable offenses and it's that level of intelligence in the sort of local home cooking aspect of any of these conversations that you have to have. But then also,

like I mentioned a few minutes ago, and you're right, this is all merit-based, like real world, because that information is out there. So when you think about it, it's not that hard to say, of course they can see when this firm was incorporated. Of course they can see if this firm's in the local news for the last 20 years doing community projects or sponsoring soccer teams. You can't over...

Meg Hoerner (25:07)
Yeah.

Yeah,

this sounds to me like, I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit that I remember when attorneys used to advertise in the yellow pages, right? Or in a directory. So this sounds to me almost like, and I like my analogies, but ⁓ the difference between ⁓ throwing your name a ton of times in the ⁓ end, but instead making sure your name gets in the table of contents.

Is that a fair analogy if I'm making sense? ⁓

Thomas Ritter (25:56)
That's a pretty good analogy.

in one of the things about ⁓ creating content for AI is we almost always answer the whole question immediately. Like if somebody, and that's what Google's doing. They want to answer that person's question entirely. That's why nobody's clicking through the websites anymore.

Meg Hoerner (26:18)
Right, and so this is not

manipulating AI, this is understanding how it works so that you're, you you are ⁓ including things that you know that AI is going to look for.

Thomas Ritter (26:32)
Exactly. Yeah, that's true. And we're able to see in any geography what your competition is doing. If you have a real shot, like are you really the authority? You know, I'm generally not soliciting firms that aren't like these real feel-good ⁓ Andy Griffith local hometown powerhouses. ⁓

Meg Hoerner (26:58)
Right. But how does

real world authority turn out a turn into being cited by AI as the authority? How does it work?

Thomas Ritter (27:05)
Well, again, go back to it's all out there. So if you were going to take a snapshot of a business, what would matter to you? Would it be how long they've been around? Are they mentioned in case types?

in decisions that match up with what I'm doing or they only mention in case types that are 10 different areas of practice. Again, it's all about whittling down what's out there. And AI does a scan of everything that's out there about the firm. Just look at it like that. AI's scanning everything about the firm. And if they find tons of testimonials and those testimonials are only DWI,

Meg Hoerner (27:38)
Right.

Thomas Ritter (27:46)
they're going to say, oh, we need to find his site, get the info off his site, and put it out there. Because he's the only guy in the county where every single one of his testimonials is DWI.

Meg Hoerner (27:57)
Right. And just as an aside for our attorneys that are listening, there have been some recent ⁓ court decisions in New Jersey in the field of ethics related to testimonials and what you can and can't include in your website in terms of an individual's name. Come to one of my CLEs and we'll talk more about that. how does, ⁓ you know, because I think what at the end of the day, right, somebody is looking for an attorney that's going to give them results.

measurable results. They don't want to go to somebody that has no track record. They want to go to somebody who wins. And so how does that real world ⁓ experience translate ⁓ into what you're doing? How do you do it?

Thomas Ritter (28:40)
Well,

you or I and Google are smart enough to know the difference between like a dog bite case and a domestic or a aggravated assault. That's the starting point for the

narrowing it down, those three topics eliminate 95 percent of the law firms out there. So as soon as you put in, you know, criminal appeal cases, not only does that eliminate 95 of the lawyer types, that eliminates 95 of the criminal practitioners in the real world.

Meg Hoerner (29:17)
Well, it sounds like you're making

an argument for an attorney not to wear too many hats, right?

Thomas Ritter (29:25)
100, not only that, I'm making the argument for them to definitely don't pretend to wear too many hats. If you really are thriving, you know, we both know a law firm up in North Jersey, it's got four or five areas of practice, 15 lawyers or something like that, strong in each area of practice. Like, that's fine. And their lawyers came from long distinguished careers and are running these different areas of practice. So it's almost like a firm can have five areas of authority.

if they have five lawyers whose names are associated with that, whose resumes and cases and testimonials and references on the, you know, statecourt.gov site all match up with that. The firm can have multiple areas of practice, but you can't have one guy or one gal associated with that area, all those areas of practice. Google will catch you.

Meg Hoerner (30:15)
.

Thomas Ritter (30:20)
That's the difference. That's how I'm saying it's just smart enough. You know by the very initial query,

almost immediately who the right type of authority would be. Like I said, if you've got a criminal appeal, guess what? I can tell you for sure. 19 out of 20 criminal firms are wrong for you. So if I know that right off the bat, A, I can certainly surface it. So for the firm who, like you said, like don't wear too many hats,

Meg Hoerner (30:30)
Right.

Thomas Ritter (30:50)
If you're wearing those hats and backing them up with cases and testimonials, you're fine. But if

you're the guy who really only does criminal, but you're like, I'm going to put P.I. on my site and just hope I get some referral fees, you are killing your criminal business by guileless.

Meg Hoerner (31:06)
Well,

not only that, but there are, you know, we can just take a little side tour here into the field of ethics in New Jersey. And there are a number of ⁓ opinions related to advertising, proper advertising. ⁓ We're not going to get into that today.

But it sounds like the overarching ⁓ commitment that is made here is that there's not just going to be, hey, I'm an expert in X, Y, and Z, which, you you're, have to be very careful about what you put on your website. ⁓ It sounds to me like this is a situation where you're protecting yourself by, you know, making sure that you are putting things out there that are

going to, you know, there is this, the reason why there are ethics rules related to attorney advertising is that you want to make sure you protect a consumer, right? You want to protect a client. And so this is a scenario where, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you are making sure that whatever you're putting out there is in fact, you know, experience, expertise, authoritative trustworthiness that is, that is measurable, that is supp...

portable by some underlying evidence. And so it's more than just saying, I'm the best, I'm the best, and this is why you should hire me. You're actually marketing yourself in a way that is in line with what New Jersey Supreme Court wants, Because I think that's also something that small law firms, especially somebody who's going into private practice that

Thomas Ritter (32:31)
Great word.

Meg Hoerner (32:53)
that maybe is coming from a prosecutor's office or maybe hasn't been out on their own. There's a lot of balls that they have to have in the air before they even get their first client. certainly, like I said, I started this by saying, everybody knows the website, but there's a lot of concern. AI, am I allowed to use it or not? How am I allowed to market? All of that. And so I think that's just another reason why you would want to

⁓ utilize a company that is an expert in this field. And you know, you had, we had talked about this before and I know that everything that you're doing is in line with all of those ⁓ ethics requirements. Is that right?

Thomas Ritter (33:42)
Yeah, and it's an ABA best practice. There's you can find articles on ABA about the nine ways. The nine ways to align your website for A.I. summaries and LLMs in twenty twenty six or something like that. If you Google that, you'll probably find the article and I'll put the link in whatever wherever we post this. But it's a best practice. Like if if I were pitching this two years ago, it would have been like the most

warm fuzzy purely based in ethics, purely based in merit idea, I would have walked into a firm and said, know what we should do? We should limit everything on your website to just the stuff you're best at. And we should only try and serve the people who need that stuff and serve them better than anybody else. Like that's literally how corny this is. Now you get to mix in, by the way, the reward is

the top 40 % of Google. So like, that's where the rubber meets the road for them is, but we're...

Meg Hoerner (34:49)
You're utilizing AI

to reduce the risk that somebody is being misrepresented as something they're not.

Thomas Ritter (34:53)
100 percent. it's every single step of this to me so far I feel is meritocratic, levels the playing field in a way that's just.

Because it's not leveling the playing field saying we don't want big law firms. It's leveling the playing field saying there are situations and cases where local jurisdictional savvy matters more than all 50 states. And it's in those lanes where David beats Goliath in this conversation. I'm not claiming that local mesothelioma cases, unless you're very local to the Brooklyn Navy Yard or something. Like there would be examples where I can make a case that yeah, go up against a national.

Meg Hoerner (35:14)
you you

Thomas Ritter (35:36)
Go up against John Morgan. Go up against Perry White's at White's in Luxembourg because

you're literally located next to the base where all these cases come from. But if you're not located right next to the base or right next to the factory where these mesothelioma cases are coming from, then you're not going to beat Perry White's because you don't have a real

Meg Hoerner (35:42)
⁓

Thomas Ritter (36:02)
world advantage that you or I or AI can identify. So it

does lend itself to sort of the more David Goliath set up. There are case types where this isn't going to be as strong of a play for the little guy to just elbow the big guy out of the way. But criminal, family, ⁓ certain injury cases, know, dog bites, not asbestos, that kind of thing where local jurisdiction matters.

Meg Hoerner (36:11)
Mm-hmm.

What does this

look like though? mean, because it sounds to me as though this could require a total revamping of someone's website. Is that true? Or what is it that you do? Do you audit their website and tell them what areas they could improve upon or what?

Thomas Ritter (36:42)
I don't

We audit their entire entity for authority and the website figures into that. And they do need blog functionality. We post articles and then we create social. And it depends on the firm. If the firm has a marketing person and there's certain different site types, we can just feed your posts in so that you can then approve them and send them live. ⁓

And then when you do that, you've got supporting social for every article. But it looks like, so actually, you'd.

Meg Hoerner (37:22)
What kind of time

commitment are you talking about for someone?

Or does it just depend?

Thomas Ritter (37:28)
This is content we created for Melissa Rosenblum in Atlantic City. Melissa's team will

in. It's just waiting for their approval. And once they go in, review the content.

⁓ and approve it for accuracy and you know we're never allowed to publish for a lawyer. have to review our work and they have to you know well you know it's for goodness sake lawyers don't just put stuff out there's literally ethics punishments related so this is a I'm still scrolling by the way this is a long form article

Meg Hoerner (38:02)
Mm-hmm. I do.

Thomas Ritter (38:16)
And so, Melissa had been blogging a little bit here and a little bit there for last couple of years. So all we did was get in line with Melissa and her paralegal, Siobhan, about what their main topics are. We start building clusters.

of content around these topics. Like, for example, if you're facing a domestic violence charge, that's not one article. That might be a bunch of articles that address the

stages of the domestic violence charge, because my searches facing any type of charge are going to be very different the day I get charged after my first appearance.

in the interim between my first and second appearance. And so you want to break down in very great detail.

how the confused, scared consumer is going to go through their own case timeline, and we write to that.

Meg Hoerner (39:16)
And certainly with the caveat that you're not giving legal advice and it's not meant to be construed in that way, I would imagine.

Thomas Ritter (39:21)
No, often it's things like, you know, it's not legal advice. It's more just like legalpedia for your own little

Meg Hoerner (39:27)
educational.

Thomas Ritter (39:30)
case types. what happens if I get charged in New Jersey with a gun when I'm out of state and I was just confused about the rules? There, that has a very specific step-by-step, those people in that case type go through a predictable range of steps to that case and emotions and fears to that case. And

If you're missing any of those steps, when they're searching and going into getting AI summary results or even chatting with an LLM, because they're freaked out, you know, and that's pick an area of practice, not just criminal. If you're dealing with a lawyer, there's a 50 % chance you're freaked out and under stress. That's identifiable because

These consumer cases, there's enough search volume to identify the types of fears and the types of steps that people identify as their own journey and when they start searching to address those fears. So...

Meg Hoerner (40:28)
Does AI recognize

the number of times ⁓ a consumer hits on a website and does that increase the EEAT of that person's website or not?

from a standpoint of EEAT.

Thomas Ritter (40:46)
No, because there's enough sources of traffic that have nothing to do with authority. This is like the one merit-based source of traffic. So, it's almost like those other channels of people arriving at your website would cloud your ability to judge quality because that could be

ads that could be you've got a genius social media person ⁓ that could be really good-looking and more people click on your legal videos than the next guy because you're handsome so I would not use traffic

as a qualitative measurement, and I know AI does not use traffic as a qualitative measurement. you'd rather have the people who are going through a specific step of a legal process and answer their questions. You'd rather have five of them this week than a hundred people on your website reading about some generalized higher level topic that isn't a real pain point for a real person at a real phase.

Traffic is, especially when 70 or 80 percent of people aren't even clicking through the websites anymore. going to require a rocket scientist to even derive meaning from.

Meg Hoerner (42:12)
Yeah, the way you're describing it is like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. AI is

gatekeeper for ⁓ ensuring that consumers basically are offered the best for what they're looking for.

Thomas Ritter (42:30)
Kind of, and I don't mind the comparison. It just seems like the wizards, so far the wizard's very interested in genuine merit. I've got no negative critiques of these wizards so far. And like I said, it's not, ⁓ David's just gonna beat Goliath everywhere. But it's really neat to identify certain case types where you can call a criminal firm, or you can even call a personal injury firm in one of the richest counties in the country. And you can say, you know what?

I can run an unbelievable campaign for you. I hesitate. We did an analysis. We can run a campaign for a personal injury attorney in one of the richest counties in the country for as low as $3,000 a month to dominate.

Meg Hoerner (43:01)
Okay.

Thomas Ritter (43:20)
lucrative case types and you know why? Because she's

the only one in town who's got a 30 year history of serving the Spanish community. She is teed up to absolutely in the most competitive marketing space in legal. In a place where in Philadelphia, in Atlanta, we're talking to people with $15,000

personal injury budgets a month just to own AI summaries, just to own LLMs for their case types. She, by the basis that she's 30 years as the Spanish speaking personal injury only attorney, anybody does a search anywhere near her en Espanol, she might as well be.

a planet in terms of her ad budget, in terms of billboards. That's how much of an advantage she has over everybody who's got 15 lawyers. What's that?

Meg Hoerner (44:21)
Who is this we're talking about?

Who is this we're speaking about?

Thomas Ritter (44:26)
⁓ no names. No names, no geographies in this particular conversation, ⁓ in that example yet. ⁓ but it's, it's a woman in, in one of the richest counties in this country wanting to win personal injury cases. And like I said, I go into Philly for personal injury. It's, it's going to be a five figure monthly cost to dominate this woman.

Meg Hoerner (44:27)
Okay, got it.

Got it. Okay. ⁓

It sounds

like, it sounds to me like ⁓ there's an argument that could be made that the best way to find an attorney for a particular need is through word of mouth, right? Hey, you know anybody who does X, Y or Z? It sounds to me like this is harnessing that.

⁓ Is that right? This is harnessing that type of substantive qualitative analysis.

Thomas Ritter (45:17)
Maybe better.

Well, if

the word of mouth referrals that you're describing are the kind where it's like they've worked with that lawyer and they know that lawyer and they know that lawyer's authority and that's why they recommend them, 100 % that's what it is. Like, I'll bet there's people out there who just recommend John Morgan because they see his billboards all day and say, you should call Morgan and Morgan, which is exactly the opposite.

Meg Hoerner (45:51)
Okay.

Thomas Ritter (45:51)
of the way the AI summaries would do it. you have, like, there's definitely a human element to referral passing where they're just like, ugh, whatever's easy. AI is very much only doing a qualitative measurement, and I think it's based on that, probably even

higher quality than your average sample of word of mouth.

Meg Hoerner (46:16)
Okay. So let's just wrap up here with like one or two takeaways ⁓ for, you know, a small lawyer that might feel invisible in this AI world and is new to it and doesn't really understand it and may feel nervous about it. What's the one takeaway that you would suggest that they could do? One small thing they could do this week.

to make a change.

Thomas Ritter (46:42)
Well, ooh, that's a tough one. One small thing. You know, I would say take a look at the story you're telling everywhere. Does the story you're telling on your website, does the story you're telling on your social, does the story that's being told in your Google Business reviews match up exactly with what your real

Meg Hoerner (46:45)
Call you. I'll you.

Thomas Ritter (47:10)
core competencies are? Are you in any way diluting your core competencies with too many things in your website menu?

I'm describing not confusing Google so that two weeks from now they know what you do. I can't improve your pedigree, but anybody this week can make sure they're not selling things that they don't focus on. Just stop talking about things that you're not really the authority in. That's all I'm saying is a small firm

can take a couple things off of their website menu this week if those things were meaningless last year.

Meg Hoerner (47:54)
That's interesting

to me because it's almost opposite advice from what you heard 10 years ago.

Thomas Ritter (47:58)
And I might have been one of the people 10 years ago, I might have been sitting in my office at Weitz and Luxembourg saying, hey, we ought to add some shit to the website menu here. ⁓ You know, I can I'm not judging anybody for the tactics that worked up until now, but I do see urgency, especially if you're a real authority. I do see urgency in making sure that gets translated. And if you're not the real authority, I do see urgency in.

finding the focus that you want to present yourself as the authority in and building on it. But those are really the two classes of opportunity. It's ⁓ for people to do something this week. It's either, what should my focus

Meg Hoerner (48:40)
Wear

the hat that fits best.

Thomas Ritter (48:44)
That's a great way to put it. Just, yes, stop. You look like an idiot walking around with six hats on. First of all, let's be real.

Meg Hoerner (48:51)
because nobody

buys it, right?

Thomas Ritter (48:54)
Yeah, real good way.

And like I said, it's kind of corny. This all boils down to simply representing yourself honestly. It really honestly, because not.

Meg Hoerner (49:03)
Right. Which is ethically

an obligation that you have as an attorney.

Thomas Ritter (49:08)
Yeah, so I mean, it all does kind of circle back to like these ABA best practices, mind your P's and Q's. And then, you know, you leave your bar association meeting where they're telling you it's about P's and Q's and you call me and I'll explain how those P's and Q's translate into, dollars and cents. Like it's, but mind your P's and Q's and optimize to present who you really are.

Meg Hoerner (49:25)
you you

Thomas Ritter (49:35)
So that you, going back to the analogy of what was it, a job site or matching up the right employee with the right employer, it's just finding all the touch points that mesh in the best way between the case type, the person

who's doing the searching, where they're searching from and what phase they're in of that case, and then who has information to meet them in their journey. ⁓ Kind of, and it's kind of common sense,

Meg Hoerner (49:57)
It sounds like common sense.

Thomas Ritter (50:02)
rah rah, ethical, apple pie, and honestly the best way for a little firm to full-blown elbow a billboard giant out of their territory in terms of that Google summary, especially for stuff like family criminal. There's a number of cases that obviously lend to local jurisdiction. But you're right, it's like, it's kind of.

Meg Hoerner (50:26)
common sense and

then it affords that attorney the time and energy to do what they do best and that is represent their clients as best as they can.

Thomas Ritter (50:37)
Yeah, get another referral that

mentions that specific case type and it just continues to build your authority.

Meg Hoerner (50:41)
Yeah, think.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you talk you speaking with me about this today. I I'm a big believer in starting with the nuts and bolts of any topic, and I think that we all hear so much about AI these days that ⁓ it's it's it's a great conversation to have to understand how AI can be ethically harnessed to highlight the skills.

⁓ for any practicing or even non-practicing attorney. ⁓ And so I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today. Anything else you want to leave us with?

Thomas Ritter (51:19)
What's that?

you've been talking to me about this for a couple of months. So a real hardcore breakdown was overdue, at least for you. we're doing especially for criminal right now. But really, anybody in New Jersey, I would make this offer to while I'm here is to do sort of an analysis, ⁓ an authority map, see

where they're judged against what they really do, and then weigh that against all the other people who might be taking up space as genuine authorities overlapping in that geography. So we can do sort of an authority map that can show firm the path of least resistance to dominate AI. And the path of least resistance is based up on, again, that sort of feel-good.

ethical way of being as honest as you can about what you do and matching up with that person better than anybody else in an honest way because to tell you the truth, that's the quickest way you're going to build a catalog of testimonials that are so specific in keywords and topic and stuff. But we can literally have a firm spend 30 minutes with us, 25, 30 minutes, we'll do an assessment of their topics in their area.

a gap analysis with their competition and we can point out what the strategy would be and they can walk with it. If they've got a marketing person in-house, they can start working on that right away and make their own content. If they're a two-lawyer firm, they don't have a full marketing team, maybe they want us to do 10 articles a month and 60 social posts a month. But anybody who does a walkthrough with us, a walk away with like a free content cluster example based on the analysis we did and that's a full

$1800 worth of content, it's like a 2500 word article. You'll probably set it Thomson Reuters. It's a 2000 word LinkedIn article, long form. It's a LinkedIn post, it's an X post, a Twitter post, a Facebook post, a Google business listing post. And anybody who just does the walkthrough, they'll leave with that whole content package. So actually, I'm glad you asked. Let's do that if anybody's interested.

Meg Hoerner (53:40)
Yeah, well, think the value there is is the conversation about kind of an overarching plan. ⁓ But good stuff. Use of AI in the business of law as opposed to the practice of law, which is a whole different conversation and needs to be handled very carefully. Comrade or Jornio, thank you.

Thomas Ritter (54:03)
Thank you. Hey, we'll I'll see you on the Bridgestone Beacon or the New Jersey Criminal Podcast or the Mighty MERP podcast.

Meg Hoerner (54:10)
it's talking about the Bridgerton Beacon. We've got our five year anniversary and NJ Criminal Podcast has its six year anniversary. So talk about look how far we've come in six years. NJ Criminal, we were walking around with the little Pod track. P4 is just doing audio and now doing all kinds of neat things to bring ⁓ education to attorneys in the state of New Jersey.

Thomas Ritter (54:36)
All right. Anybody who's interested in podcasting about criminal or otherwise, go to LegalPodcasting.com or just give me a call, 728-235-7812, my Florida number. But ⁓ especially if you're New Jersey criminal lawyer, you might want to get a walkthrough from Jornio, get a free $1,800 content cluster. And then if you've got a good story,

maybe we'll feature you on an NJ Criminal podcast and Meg or I'll interview you about your most interesting courtroom stories. So thank you Meg. Anything you've got in closing, anything to promote other than anniversaries for you?

Meg Hoerner (55:17)
Just yeah,

just keep an eye out. Melissa Rosenblum and I are have been handling quite a few CLE ethics ⁓ courses and trainings. We've got one coming up this spring at the Boardwalk seminar. We're doing one next month for the Cumberland County Bar Association. so, ⁓ you know, keep an eye on that so that we try to bring ethics to attorneys. Again, starting with the nuts and bolts and keeping people updated as to

things that change in the law that attorneys should be aware of, regardless of your practice area.

Thomas Ritter (55:49)
Awesome. All right.

Perfect. Perfect.

Meg Hoerner (55:55)
Great, thanks Tom.