ChatGPT's Most Recommended Personal Injury Attorneys

A 100-city study of which personal injury law firms ChatGPT recommends, what it cites, and what the recommended firms have in common.

Optimize My Firm | 3,000 ChatGPT answers across 100 U.S. cities | Data collected October 18, 2026.

The short version for firms:

ChatGPT gives a different list almost every time, but it has a clear favorite in nearly every city.
Google reviews track more closely with ChatGPT’s picks than Google Maps rank or brand search volume.
ChatGPT builds its lists from directories, especially Avvo and Expertise.com, plus Google Business Profiles. It cites a recommended firm’s own website in only 27% of answers.
One ChatGPT screenshot proves little. Visibility should be measured as a share of many answers.

Key Findings:

ChatGPT has a clear favorite in almost every city. Only 3 of 600 city-and-prompt combinations returned the same list all 5 times. But each city’s most-named firm appeared in a median 90% of that city’s answers, and in 79 of 100 cities it appeared in at least 80%.
Five firms per city get most of the attention. ChatGPT named a median of 16 firms per city across 30 answers, but the top 5 took 77% of all mentions.
Google Maps rank is not the deciding factor. ChatGPT’s #1 firm was in the Google Maps top 3 in only 28% of cities, and outside the Maps top 20 in 37%.
Google reviews track closely with recommendations. ChatGPT named 4% of Maps firms with fewer than 50 reviews and 52% of firms with 1,000 or more.
Brand search volume did not predict ChatGPT’s ranking. There was no relationship between a firm’s branded search volume and how often ChatGPT named it.
ChatGPT leans on directories, not firm websites. Avvo was cited in 70% of answers and Expertise.com in 63%.
ChatGPT searches for “best” and “reviews” even when the user doesn’t. 79% of the web searches ChatGPT ran included “reviews.”
Big national brands appear widely but rarely win. Morgan & Morgan was named in more cities than any other firm (21) but was #1 in none.

Finding 1: Individual answers shuffle, but the #1 firm barely moves

We asked ChatGPT the same 6 questions 5 times each in every city. The lists changed constantly: only 3 of 600 city-and-prompt combinations produced the same list all 5 times, and only 17% of named firms appeared in all 5 runs of the same prompt. Two runs of the same search shared about 49% of their firms.

Across all 30 answers in a city, a clear pattern appears. The most-named firm showed up in a median 90% of its city’s answers. In 13 cities it was named in every single answer, and the lowest share for any city’s #1 firm was 53%.

ChatGPT named about 4 firms per answer and a median of 16 different firms per city. 35% of those firms appeared only once. The top 5 in each city took 77% of all mentions.

Personal injury and car accident searches mostly surfaced the same firms: on average 3.7 of the top 5 overlapped, and the same firm was #1 for both in 49 of 100 cities.

Finding 2: ChatGPT's #1 personal injury firm in each city

This is the firm ChatGPT named most often across 30 answers in each city. The percentage is the share of those answers that named it. Google reviews are the counts ChatGPT displayed; Google Maps rank is the firm’s position for “personal injury lawyer” in that city on the same day.

City	State	ChatGPT's #1 firm	% of answers	Google reviews	Google Maps rank
Akron	OH	Perantinides & Nolan, Co. L.P.A.	100%	59	3
Albuquerque	NM	Gauthier & Maier Law Firm, P.C.	100%	342	15
Anaheim	CA	DK Law	97%	373	2
Anchorage	AK	Johnson Law, P.C.	80%	45	2
Atlanta	GA	Tobin Injury Law	77%	439	Not in top 100
Austin	TX	Anderson Injury Lawyers	63%	218	1
Bakersfield	CA	Chain Cohn Clark	97%	37	8
Baltimore	MD	The Law Offices of Nicholas A. Parr	97%	228	1
Baton Rouge	LA	Spencer Calahan Injury Lawyers	100%	1,224	3
Birmingham	AL	Collins Law, LLC	93%	243	Not in top 100
Boise	ID	The Advocates	90%	309	33
Boston	MA	Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers	100%	966	18
Buffalo	NY	Richmond Vona Injury Lawyers	83%	600	20
Charlotte	NC	Rosensteel Fleishman Car Accident & Injury Lawyers	93%	17	7
Chesapeake	VA	Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers	100%	221	3
Chicago	IL	Abels & Annes, P.C.	73%	251	9
Cincinnati	OH	Gile Injury Law	93%	276	22
Cleveland	OH	Obral, Silk & Pal Injury & Accident Lawyers	100%	214	5
Colorado Springs	CO	Ganderton Law	70%	125	65
Columbus	GA	The Law Offices of Gary Bruce	80%	7	1
Columbus	OH	GB Law	80%	682	9
Corpus Christi	TX	Herrman & Herrman P.L.L.C.	87%	1,204	14
Dallas	TX	Thompson Law	87%	35	17
Denver	CO	Frank Azar Car & Truck Accident Lawyers	93%	2,561	22
Des Moines	IA	Nicolet Law Accident & Injury Lawyers	73%	79	2
Detroit	MI	Christensen Law	90%	214	12
Durham	NC	Ricci Law Firm Injury Lawyers	77%	108	23
El Paso	TX	Cesar Ornelas Injury Law	90%	445	42
Fayetteville	NC	Brent Adams & Associates	90%	579	27
Fort Wayne	IN	Delventhal Law Office LLC	93%	149	4
Fort Worth	TX	Patterson Law Group	97%	460	26
Fremont	CA	GJEL Accident Attorneys	97%	19	4
Fresno	CA	Fowler \| Helsel \| Vogt	80%	366	6
Greensboro	NC	Auger & Auger Accident and Injury Lawyers	80%	73	34
Henderson	NV	Friedman Injury Law	90%	478	2
Honolulu	HI	Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner	87%	62	5
Houston	TX	DeHoyos Accident Attorneys	77%	341	81
Huntington Beach	CA	Younglove Law Group	97%	47	2
Indianapolis	IN	Ward & Ward Personal Injury Lawyers	87%	380	18
Irvine	CA	RMD Law – Personal Injury Lawyers	100%	274	3
Jacksonville	FL	Henry Gare Personal Injury Attorney	83%	374	25
Jersey City	NJ	Garces, Grabler & LeBrocq, P.C.	97%	607	10
Kansas City	MO	Foster Wallace Personal Injury Lawyers	70%	339	60
Laredo	TX	John R. Solis, Attorney at Law	73%	185	3
Las Vegas	NV	Benson & Bingham Accident Injury Lawyers	93%	359	20
Lexington	KY	Minner Vines Injury Lawyers	80%	418	1
Lincoln	NE	Berry Law	67%	2,551	23
Long Beach	CA	Law Office of Asher Hoffman, APC	87%	56	62
Los Angeles	CA	M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers	80%	576	Not in top 100
Louisville	KY	Stein Whatley Astorino, PLLC	87%	353	Not in top 100
Lubbock	TX	Glasheen, Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers	100%	808	3
Madison	WI	Nicolet Law Accident & Injury Lawyers	97%	169	1
Memphis	TN	The Porter Law Firm, PLLC	93%	502	75
Miami	FL	Steinger, Greene & Feiner	77%	738	14
Milwaukee	WI	Nicolet Law Accident & Injury Lawyers	87%	434	6
Minneapolis	MN	Nicolet Law Accident & Injury Lawyers	97%	439	5
Modesto	CA	Silva Injury Law, Inc.	100%	255	3
Montgomery	AL	Stokes Stemle, LLC	67%	186	2
Nashville	TN	Ponce Law	87%	409	4
New Orleans	LA	Sean Regan Law	77%	158	Not in top 100
New York	NY	Cohan Law Firm	87%	636	Not in top 100
Newark	NJ	Garces, Grabler & LeBrocq, P.C.	93%	280	10
Norfolk	VA	Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers	97%	516	3
Oakland	CA	GJEL Accident Attorneys	97%	62	33
Oklahoma City	OK	Cunningham & Mears	80%	715	25
Omaha	NE	Knowles Law Firm	77%	297	76
Orlando	FL	Weston & Pape Injury & Accident Lawyers	97%	360	1
Oxnard	CA	Focil Law Firm	97%	6	3
Philadelphia	PA	Liss & Marion	100%	310	Not in top 100
Phoenix	AZ	Kelly Law Team Phoenix	87%	382	1
Pittsburgh	PA	Edgar Snyder & Associates	63%	1,102	10
Portland	OR	Dawson Law Group	73%	105	21
Raleigh	NC	Osborn Injury Lawyers	93%	108	4
Reno	NV	Friedman & Throop, PLLC	93%	194	15
Richmond	VA	Cantor Grana Buckner Bucci	73%	224	57
Riverside	CA	Hanson & Mouri	87%	42	18
Rochester	NY	John Wright Personal Injury Lawyer	70%	185	6
Sacramento	CA	Demas Law Group, P.C.	100%	150	56
San Antonio	TX	Herrman & Herrman P.L.L.C.	80%	565	93
San Bernardino	CA	RMD Law – Personal Injury Lawyers	70%	84	24
San Diego	CA	HHJ Trial Attorneys	93%	299	24
San Francisco	CA	Sally Morin Personal Injury Lawyers	100%	147	8
San Jose	CA	Solution Now Law Firm	97%	535	13
Santa Ana	CA	Aitken Law: Orange County Accident and Injury Lawyers	93%	89	Not in top 100
Seattle	WA	Pendergast Law	93%	187	8
Shreveport	LA	Josh Clayton Law	93%	156	10
Spokane	WA	The Advocates Injury Attorneys	97%	211	3
St. Louis	MO	Schultz & Myers Personal Injury Lawyers	97%	880	7
St. Paul	MN	Sand Law, LLC	97%	412	1
St. Petersburg	FL	McQuaid & Douglas	87%	369	5
Stockton	CA	Roberts Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers	90%	276	1
Tacoma	WA	Sears Injury Law	87%	243	38
Tampa	FL	Martin J. Hernandez, P.A.	73%	4	60
Toledo	OH	Charles E. Boyk Law Offices, LLC	90%	136	1
Tucson	AZ	Bleaman Law Firm, P.C.	80%	161	1
Tulsa	OK	Edwards & Patterson Personal Injury Law Firm	87%	338	33
Virginia Beach	VA	Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers	93%	374	3
Washington	DC	Malloy Law Offices, LLC	53%	393	Not in top 100
Wichita	KS	DeVaughn James Injury Lawyers	97%	724	30
Winston-Salem	NC	McMinn, Fradin, Gray & Logan	100%	887	8

Finding 3: Google Maps rank helps, but it is not the deciding factor

We matched every firm ChatGPT named to the top 100 Google Maps results for “personal injury lawyer” in the same city. Firms near the top of Maps were named more often, but plenty of Maps leaders were left out and plenty of ChatGPT favorites rank much lower.

ChatGPT’s #1 firm was in the Maps top 3 in only 28% of cities and in the Maps top 10 in 51%.
It was outside the Maps top 20 in 37% of cities, and not in the Maps top 100 at all in 9%.
The Maps #1 firm was named at least once in 59% of cities, but usually only occasionally (a median of 6.7% of answers).

Finding 4: More Google reviews, more ChatGPT recommendations

Google review count was the measurable trait most closely tied to being recommended. Among firms in each city’s Maps top 100, ChatGPT named 4% of firms with fewer than 50 reviews and 52% of firms with 1,000 or more. Among the Maps top 20, firms ChatGPT named had a median of 185 reviews, compared with 48 for firms it skipped.

ChatGPT shows star ratings and review counts directly in its answers, and those numbers match Google’s (median ratio 0.99). Reviews still aren’t everything: 18 cities’ #1 firms had fewer than 100 Google reviews.

Finding 5: Brand search volume did not predict who ChatGPT picks

We pulled national monthly Google search volume for the brand name of each city’s top 5 firms. There was no relationship between a firm’s brand search volume and how often ChatGPT named it (Spearman correlation -0.03). The #1 firm had the highest brand volume of its city’s top 5 in only 21% of cities.

National brands show the same pattern. Morgan & Morgan was named in more cities than any other firm but was not #1 in any of them. The firms that won were mostly local or regional.

Firm	Cities where named	Cities in top 5	Cities at #1
Morgan & Morgan	21	2	0
Zinda Law Group	11	1	0
Monge & Associates Injury and Accident Attorneys	8	3	0
Moseley Collins Law	7	6	0
DK Law	7	3	1
Lowe Law Group	6	3	0
Isaacs & Isaacs Law Firm	6	4	0
Nicolet Law Accident & Injury Lawyers	5	5	4
Herrman & Herrman P.L.L.C.	5	4	2
GJEL Accident Attorneys	5	3	2
Law Offices of James Scott Farrin	5	2	0
Omega Law Group Accident & Injury Attorneys	5	1	0
Text Kevin Accident Attorneys	4	2	0
Samer Habbas & Associates	4	2	0
Crandall & Pera Law	4	2	0

Finding 6: Avvo and Expertise.com dominate ChatGPT's citations

ChatGPT cited about 7 sources per answer and read about 12 pages to build each one. Legal directories and ranking sites made up 43% of all citations, law firm websites 32%, Google Business Profiles 11%, state bars and other government sites 8%, and Yelp 5%.

Avvo was cited in 70% of answers and Expertise.com in 63%.
Google Business Profiles appeared in 29%, Yelp in 19%, Super Lawyers in 15%, and Justia in 13%.
ChatGPT often checks state bar sites to confirm licensing. In California cities, the State Bar of California was one of the most-cited sources.

Finding 7: When ChatGPT cites a firm's website, it is usually the homepage

When ChatGPT recommended a firm, it cited that firm’s own website in the same answer only 27% of the time. When it did cite a law firm site, 79% of those citations went to the homepage and 13% to a practice area or city page. Blog posts, attorney bios and results pages were rarely cited on these searches.

Finding 8: ChatGPT adds "best" and "reviews" to its own searches

For each question, ChatGPT ran about 1 web searches of its own before answering. Even for a plain search like “personal injury lawyer Austin,” those searches leaned heavily toward reputation:

79% included “reviews”
70% included “best”
26% added the current year

This helps explain why review platforms and “best lawyers in [city]” ranking pages show up so often in its citations.

What this means for personal injury firms:

Earn Google reviews steadily. Review volume is the measurable trait most closely tied to being recommended, and ChatGPT shows those counts in its answers.
Own your directory profiles. Avvo and Expertise.com appear in most ChatGPT answers. Complete, current profiles there, plus Super Lawyers, Justia and Yelp, put a firm into the sources ChatGPT reads.
Make the homepage do the work. When ChatGPT cites a firm’s site, it is usually the homepage. It should clearly state the city, practice areas, results and reviews.
Measure share, not screenshots. One ChatGPT answer is a sample. Track AI visibility by running the same searches many times and measuring how often the firm appears.

How the study was run

Cities	100 U.S. cities, the same list as our branded-search study
Engine	ChatGPT with web search on, collected through DataForSEO's ChatGPT scraper. Every answer reported the same model (gpt-6).
Prompts	6 searches: "personal injury lawyer [city]," "[city] personal injury lawyer," "best personal injury lawyer in [city], [ST]," "best car accident lawyer in [city]," "car accident lawyer [city]," and "[city] car accident lawyer"
Runs	Each prompt run 5 times in each city, all on October 18, 2026
Answers	3,000 ChatGPT answers (30 per city), with 11,795 firm mentions and 1,428 unique firms
Ranking	A firm's score is the share of its city's 30 answers that name it. Rank 1 is the firm named most often, with ties broken by average position in the list.
Google baseline	Google Maps top 100 for "personal injury lawyer" in each city, collected the same day
Brand volume	Google Ads national monthly search volume for each top-5 firm's brand name

Limitations

Location: ChatGPT’s location could only be set to the United States, with the city named in the prompt. Real users may get somewhat different, location-aware results.
Columbus, Georgia: Plain “Columbus” prompts returned Columbus, Ohio firms, so Columbus, GA was re-run with “GA” added to every prompt.
Single day: All data comes from one day and one model version. ChatGPT changes over time.
Maps matching: Firms were matched to Google Maps by website, then by name. A firm marked “not in top 100” may rank under a different listing name.
Brand volume: Approximate. It uses one brand term per firm and national volume, and 16% of top-5 firms returned no data.
Associations: These findings show which traits go along with recommendations. They don’t prove what causes them.

Related research

See our companion study, What AI Recommends & Cites for Personal Injury Lawyer Search Queries, which compares ChatGPT with Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity. Questions about the methodology or data: contact us.

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