Why Your Firm Is Invisible to AI and What to Do About It

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dominate Law Podcast, where we empower attorneys as entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Donna Desha, and today's episode is one of the most timely conversations we have hosted since the relaunch of this show. We are asking a question. Every practice owner in 2026 needs an answer to why is your firm invisible to ai, and what can you actually do about it? Now, a quick note on today's guest before we dive in. Our sponsor and growth partner, Equa Marketing, is not doing a traditional sponsor read today, and that is because today's guest is Narin a Raja, the founder of Equa Marketing, and the founder of Dominate Law itself. Narin has spent 19 years helping law firms dominate their markets through search, and he is here to share the exact playbook he uses with clients every day. If what you hear resonates, and you want Narrans team to take a look at your firm, Equa is offering listeners a complimentary marketing strategy session worth $900, where their team spends six hours before the call auditing your online presence, your search rankings, and your top competitors, and walks you through a personalized plan.

You can book it at www.dominantlaw.com/msm now into the conversation. This episode is your field guide to the new rules of visibility, how AI search is reshaping, how clients find lawyers, why trust is now the biggest currency in legal marketing, what Google actually looks for when it decides whether to recommend your firm, and the practical steps you can take right now to move from invisible to unmissable to guide us the one person you would want at the table on this topic. Narin Aru Raja, founder of Equa Marketing and Dominate law, 19 years working with law firm owners across six countries. He has built his entire practice around one belief. When trust is at stake, people do not choose the lawyer running the ad. They choose the lawyer they trust, and in 2026, trust starts with showing up. Let's get into it. Yeah.

The why you firm is invisible to AI and what to do about it. I think this has become extremely important question to answer because I talk to, you know, actual clients of mine, and they tell me the people they get from AI have already decided to go with them. Like, for example, um, we have, uh, an attorney who specializes in certain types of corporate matters, and that person was looking for that. And, um, I, I don't remember the exact platform, perhaps Google or Chat, JPT said, Hey, you should check out this particular law firm, you know, what he's already sold. Um, so those people are coming in where the decision has been made for them or they've already made the decision thanks to ai. Um, for some reason we are starting to trust ai. I don't know if it's good or bad, but AI says, you know, turn left.

A lot of people are turning left. So, um, so I think if you are practice only in 2026, you really need to master search and definitely AI search. And, uh, most practices, unfortunately, they don't show up, so they have to rely on ads. And, um, you know, I do look at numbers. When you rely on ads, even Google ads, you are spending 10 times as much money to get the same amount of lift that you would with a strong, uh, search based, uh, AI search based marketing program. Of course, um, the trust is such a big thing, and I think we are gonna touch on that and why showing up organically where people trust you is the way to think about marketing in 2026.

Absolutely. Trust is such a human factor, even though AI is the buzz word of, I don't know, uh, the decade perhaps. Um, it's leading up to it for sure. So, uh, let's take a look at,

I wanna comment. Yeah, go ahead. I wanna comment on what you said about trust, right? Uh, let's be, let's kind of break this, you know, into, uh, smaller pieces that we can all digest. Most of us, when we call a lawyer, something is going wrong. You know, maybe a divorce, maybe we are getting sued, maybe we got into an accident and the insurance company is not doing what they're supposed to do. So we are under a lot of stress. When we are under stress, do we go with someone who put up an ad or do we go with someone we trust? Answer that question honestly, right? Let's say you have a family member who's, you know, who has stage four cancer. Are you gonna go with somebody who runs an ad for, hey, we treat stage four, or are we going to do find somebody that you trust, right?

You're gonna go looking really, really hard for, to find somebody you trust. And most people today, they start with ai, you know, Google, ai, you know, search. And if those platforms that are recommending you, the game is almost over. Like, in other words, the sale has already happened, or the pre-participation has already happened. So trust is so important. I mean, more so for anyone in the legal profession than you know, even in other professions. Yeah. You know, if I'm, you know, looking to buy some eyeglasses, you know, trust may not be a big deal, right? You know, eyeglasses, eyeglasses, eyeglasses, you know, life is not at stake here. You know, nothing seriously is gonna happen. Worst case, I, I lose a hundred bucks, but that's it. As opposed to things that your lawyers handle. They do make a difference in somebody's life.

It's a huge difference. Let's talk a little bit about the classic way. Uh, we used to look at trust, uh, digitally, and that is when we search our own name on Google, the practices name, the firm's name, uh, and we see our firm's ranking, are we actually seeing what our client sees?

That's a great, great, great question. Um, you know, I know most people will type in their business name and see if they show up on Google or on chat, JPT, on, on one of these AI search platforms, but that's not your pot. How your potential kind clients are finding you. The ones who are typing your business name or your name, they already know you. They already trust you. So we want those who don't know you, who don't trust you, meaning your people who are not your existing clients or your friends or your fans. You want those people to find you, right? So they go to Google. Google, by the way, is used, um,

Uh, just let me get the numbers right, 50, uh, sorry, 500 billion times a month. 500 billion times a month. Chat GPT is used, you know, they don't really publish monthly numbers, but they say they're used 800 million times a week. So even if I multiply it by four, that's, you know, uh, 3.2 billion times, right? So anyways, so they're used around 5 billion times at the high end, and Google is used 500 billion times. So even today, Google is so big, this is why Google is the most valuable company behind Nvidia in the world, worth $4.8 trillion. So you want to show up on Google, and Google has AI search, which is growing in, you know, in, in leaps and bounds. So a lot of times you may have seen something called AI overview, and then AI mode, AI overview is like Google giving you a direct answer. So I, I talk about my complex need and I say, I'm looking for a lawyer.

Google says, you know, in a paragraph format, here are the top two people I would recommend, and this is why. So you are like, okay, let me call this first person that Google recommended, right? That's called AI o view. Now you can click on AI mode, which will go deeper and go even deeper analysis for you. So this is built right into Google. You don't have to download anything, you don't have to sign up for anything. You know, people use Google 500 billion times a month, uh, you know, more than 15, you know, 14 to 15 billion times a day. So you get a huge lift. So that's where I would focus on, and you wanna focus on for the questions people are asking. In the old days, it used to be, you know, attorney near me, lawyer near me, or a family lawyer in EME. So that's how the world used to work.

But now they're talking, they're sharing their specific situation and saying, who do you recommend? I go see? So as they start doing these kind of things that AI is really good at, you wanna be the one that's showing up. And I, we will get into trust signals, which is I think one of the questions you had that I looked ahead, um, that we, we want to cover. So you wanna work on trust signals. And trust signals are like, how does Google know if you are the one they should be recommending or not, right? And these become really, really, really important in the AI world. So my standard is you need to at least show up for hundred different types of, you know, queries that your potential customers are typing in at any given time. The average practice doesn't even show up five or 10. We do what we call a marketing strategy meeting before we help anybody.

And most people we see in those meetings, like, don't even show up for, you know, the city name and you know, the type of law that they, they they do, but that's not enough. You have to show up for hundreds and hundreds. And many of our clients now with AI are showing up 300 times, 400 times. So you wanna make sure you are dominating. So when it comes to trust, when people are looking for someone like you, there is you, and then there is everybody else. When you start playing that game, the cost of acquiring a new client drops by a factor of 10, and these people are not second guessing. You not looking for, you know, going to a different lawyer for a third opinion, right? So life becomes easy, you know, you get to do fun, fun stuff that you know, you enjoy doing.

<laugh>, okay? Uh, really interesting perspective, uh, and mindset shift. You just started there. You know, uh, you don't want new, uh, cases that already know you by your firm's name. You really want them to find you out for what you do and how you, your, um, skills, uh, can really come into play and solve their problems. Now, let's talk a little bit about the connection between a firm's existing content reviews and whether they get cited by AI platforms.

Yes. Um, before I talk about that, let me talk about what I alluded to in my last answer. Trust signals. So what are they and why? Why are they important? You know, at the end of the day, these search platforms, Google being the, you know, the 95% market share leader or chat JPT or Perplexity, you know, they wanna make sure that the recommendation they're making makes the customer happy. So they're looking to make sure that you are the person they should be recommending. So how do they figure that out? Reviews is one of the things they look at, but before that, before they even look at review, they're looking for some basic things like nab, NAB stands for, name, address, phone number. If your business name and address and phone numbers are consistently mentioned in dozens and dozens of platforms, that's a good thing. That means you are an established provider, you pay attention to your brand, and you really work hard on, you know, preserving and building that brand.

Unfortunately, when we do this marketing strategy meeting, 80% of our clients, nobody's doing this on their behalf. So it sucks, meaning their business name is not consistent, even between their website and their Google My Business page, it, you know, but just those two sites, being consistent is not enough. You have to make it consistent across dozens and dozens of these sites that Google is looking at to decide if you're someone trustworthy. Another thing that has become really more important in 2026 when it comes to trust, is the credentials you have, right? You know, the degrees, the diplomas. Are you mentioning those the right way? It's called Google, EAT. So Google, when they read it, they know it's not some random person saying this. It's a really qualified, experienced lawyer with specific qualifications saying that. So of course, Google is like thinking, if I'm gonna surface an answer, would I surface it from someone who's qualified, someone who has credentials, or anybody else?

Of course, they're gonna favor the person who has earned that EA, um, points by doing all the things that Google is telling them to do. Uh, so that's another way to, you know, think about trust and finally, reviews, right? Those reviews, again, if you link the website to your Google My Business page and you do all the things Google is telling you can also become currency because Google wants to make sure the person is gonna be happy. So if you're getting reviews, I recommend getting, you know, um, 10 or more reviews every month, make sure Google can link it to your website, make sure Google can use that information to get you to show up, like I said, a hundred plus times on Google Maps, on AI search, on regular search. So let me answer your question about, uh, reviews, right? And why reviews are becoming more important.

Uh, remember, like I said, you know, the actual client that I was referring to, um, um, they had a, a, a, a potential customer who came in because they read something on, I think it was, uh, Google or Chat GPT, and they really, they were recommended to go see this particular lawyer for that particular need. They had a specialized field, this lawyer, we had created content for them, and Google therefore realized or saw them as the expert in that type of situation, and they recommended directly, like, go see, you know, Mr. Smith at this law firm, right? Um, and that was so powerful. Like, people just, it's like sale has already happened. Like, they're like, Mr. Smith, where's your retainer? Right? That's the conversation versus convince me that you are the right person, right? So a lot of the convincing thanks to AI is now happening. So reviews, it becomes important because it is one of those things that Google is also looking at to see, are you getting recent reviews?

Are you getting, you know, consistent new reviews coming in? And are these like deep reviews? Meaning there are paragraph reviews where people are explaining why they, you know, come to your law firm, why they appreciate your law firm, and why they, why they would recommend it to others. So reviews is something you need to work on, at least get, if you're not getting any reviews, at least set a goal of getting five reviews a month. You know, of course, if you're getting a few reviews, try to set a goal of 10 reviews a month. We have a whole program that we offer to our clients and we help our clients with. You know, you have to ask your happy clients to do these things. Of course, if some people don't wanna share their personal information about what the case is, that's okay. They can share what they're comfortable with, right? Uh, you know, they can endorse you as a lawyer. They can endorse your firm as a law firm without getting to the nuances of their cases. So all these things take nuance, take specific ways of doing things, and that's something we also help our clients with because just because we can get them to show up on Google, if they're not trusted, those people won't convert.

That's right. Now, uh, if a law firm owner wanted to do a quick self-audit today to see how they showed up in an AI search, where would they start?

Yeah, I mean, start Googling. You know, let's say you are a family lawyer, like, you know, family lawyer who specialize in child IES in Chicago. See, if you show up in AI overview in on Google, in regular search on Google Maps, right? You can even type in like family lawyer and EME, of course I'm using family lawyer as an example. It could be anything you want it to be, right? You know, car accident, you know, with serious injury lawyer in Chicago, right? See what happens? Are you showing up and you can search for like dozens and dozens of these search phrases to see are you at the top of Google results? Again, not ads organically, why? Like I said, when trust is at stake, people are choosing someone they trust. They don't want to go to somebody who is so bad that the only way they're getting customers is by running ads, right?

So you don't want to send them the signal. You are just like everybody else, you know, like one of those, uh, you know, <laugh>, all the images we have from movies and whatnot about the, the lawyers who are just chasing you, right? You don't want that. You don't wanna be chasing them with an ad. You want to be the one that's trustworthy and that shows up organically. Um, so start seeing how you're showing up. Like, like I said, the benchmark should be at least a hundred or more phrases and keywords in your community, in your city, in your zip code, all the different things you do, you better show up. And that's the benchmark we work towards. And, you know, we get our clients doing that by the end of year one. So within 12 months, it's not easy. We put like 600 hours worth of work. There's a lot of nuances, a lot of details, but if you do it right, it works.

Okay. Now, uh, for our attorneys listening in that are really, you know, packed up tight and are busy, uh, who aren't sure if their marketing is set up for how clients actually search in 2026, what would you recommend as a first step?

Yeah, I think I, I alluded to the marketing strategy meeting. Um, what is the link? I think our team set up Don, uh, is that

Dominate law.com/msm.

So dominate law.com/m for marketing strategy meeting dominate law, right? We want our clients to dominate. We only work with one client in an area and we help them crush the competition. You know, uh, I know a lot of lawyers have that mindset of dominating. So that's what we do for our clients. Again, we very much specialize on search, ai, search, Google Maps, you know, everything to do with search. Like I said, people use it 500 billion times, uh, a month. So we wanna make sure our clients in their community are the ones dominating. So what we do in this marketing strategy meeting, it's a $900 value. We spend six hours before the meeting looking at you, all the different search phrases and all the different things that people might be looking for and seeing if you are the one they see, or it's your competition is who they see.

And then we also look at the top players in the market, right? Usually in my experience, having done this for 19 years, there are a few who do really well and everybody else sucks. Uh, and the few could be five, could be 10, could be two, doesn't matter, depends on the area and the competition. But you wanna be get into that top club. You want to get into that top club that is ranking for a hundred or more keywords. Um, and the way we do it is, you know, I kind of alluded to it, right? We put 200 hours worth of work upfront, then 30 plus hours a month, the nap work, the <inaudible> content work, EEAT work, all the things that these search platforms are telling us to pay attention to, we pay attention to them. We have different teams of people paying attention to each component.

And when we do this over time, things start changing things. Things start getting better. Um, so that's, you know, really how I think about, um, marketing. So book that marketing strategy meeting, it's all give to you, you know, at the very least you'll get a plan, you'll get a report card on how you are doing and who your Tom Comp competitors are and how they are doing. And that, I think, um, would be really, really valuable. But yeah, at least now you know where you stand and what you can and cannot do, right? So it takes any year. So it's not gonna be quick, but we have seen results stack up within months if your competition is weak. Um, and, and unfortunately a lot of lawyers still spend a lot of money on ads. I wouldn't recommend ads for the issue I talked about with trust, right? You're getting people who don't trust you and you're having these contentious relationships. They're not listening to you, they're like hard clients. And for every four or five you go through, you'll only get one because everybody else, because they don't trust you because of the fact that they found you through ads, you know, they don't even become your long-term clients.

And that is a wrap on one of the most valuable episodes we have released this year. A heartfelt thank you to Narin, AUL Raja for opening up the playbook that has taken him 19 years to build. We covered the shift from an ad driven world to a trust driven world. The trust signals that Google and AI platforms actually reward the nap consistency. Most firms are quietly failing at the Google EEAT standard that separates the pros from the amateurs and the review strategy that turns happy clients into ongoing currency. The number that keeps sticking with me is this one Google is used 500 billion times a month, almost 15 billion searches a day. And your future clients are inside those searches right now asking AI who to trust. If your firm is not showing up for at least a hundred different phrases across your community, someone else is getting those calls for s.

So if you wanna stop guessing and see exactly where you stand, EQU marketing is offering listeners the marketing strategy session Naren described in the episode. $900 in value, completely free six hours of pre-work looking at your search visibility, a benchmark against your top competitors, and a custom plan for your market. And Equa only works with one client per area. So if your competitors book first, you are out, grab your session@wwwdominantlaw.com slash msm. Before we go, please follow the Dominate Law podcast and share this episode with one law firm owner who wants to grow smarter in 2026. I'm Donna Deisha. Get found, get trusted, and keep on leading. We will see you in the next.