The End of the Great Retainer Race: AIO for Family Law Firms
AIO: The Art of AI Referrals
For 16 years I practiced family law in the trench warfare of New Jersey divorce litigation. I stayed up until well past midnight preparing for trials, I placed my clients’ above myself, and I saw first-hand the vulture-like grip sludge marketers had on the industry. The PPC meat market, the SEO promises that drifted with the latest algorithmic tweaks, the commodification of what it means to even be a family law firm.
Eventually, I decided I had enough and started Books for Experts, a first of its kind AIO agency and publishing imprint that helps attorneys create real authority in the age of AI referrals.
In this extensive guide I will provide an overview of what is AIO, exactly, or what I call Authority Intelligence Optimization. To learn more about AIO in general, you can read my book AIO for Attorneys, which I posted live as blogs while writing. You can also learn more in my book The AI Content Paradox, which discusses the problem with shallow content in a referral economy soon to be dominated by AI.
In this guide I am going to get specific about what AIO and AI referrals mean, exactly, for family law firms. I know from firsthand experience how busy divorce lawyers are, so I am going to break this down to be as concise and actionable as possible.
SEO, PPC, and the Family Law Firm Marketing Status Quo
Ever stop to truly consider the difference between a real referral and a PPC or SEO click “lead?” The referred prospective client calls ready to hire your firm, convinced of your excellence, and with their checkbook open for the initial retainer. They ask questions like: what are the next steps, or how do we get started, or what do you think is the best strategy for this divorce?
The average PPC or SEO lead, on the other hand, is usually a tire kicker, are they not? They call ready to compare your firm, and more specifically the cost of your firm, against all other options. They ask questions like: do you offer free retainers, and how much is the retainer, and what is your hourly rate?
And the differences don’t usually stop once they move from prospects to clients either, do they?
The referred client trusts your judgment, treats you and your staff well, and is more likely to meet their financial obligations to your firm, to leave a positive review when the representation has ended, and to even refer you other, like-minded A grade prospective clients from their network.
The PPC or SEO lead, on the other hand, is more likely to distrust your advice, create major problems in their case and then demand you fix them, mistreat you and your staff, leave a negative review, and stiff you on the bill. Sometimes they will do all that and then refer you some of their own, like-minded tire kickers to wreak havoc on your law firm. These are the grade C or worse clients that infect a firm from the ground up, the way termites might your patio.
The difference between the A clients and the C or worse ones is the difference between a firm that is growing, and one that is slowly dying. Between health and satisfaction for you and your staff, and the pure nightmare fuel that can be a law firm filled with the wrong clients.
Meanwhile, you are paying your SEO or PPC marketing agency out the nose to rip apart the very foundation of your practice. Because you are spending so much, you need to keep taking on more C or worse clients, and you have no time to do the things that build up the A grade ones. You’re too busy to write a book in your practice area, to take on that bar leadership, to write articles or launch a podcast. And there is no money to pay a company like Books for Experts to produce authority assets on your behalf, because it’s all going to generating more grade C leads. You become dependent on the very sludge marketers who are hallowing out your firm. But if you ask them, they’ll tell you they’re doing a great job. Your phone is ringing after all, isn’t it? The less that’s said about who is on the other line, the better.
Commodification of Family Law Firms
This is how family law firms become commodities in the eyes of the public. Interchangeable, indistinguishable, not real authority no matter how much expertise the attorneys have. Commodification leads to interchangeability leads to depressed pricing, disrespect, and tire kicking.
The sludge “marketers” forget the most important part of marketing legal services: you are not selling “divorce law,” or “family law,” you are selling yourself. Your expertise, your authority.
Effective marketing is not casting a net for any breathing human with problems in your niche practice area. It’s about creating a signal that attracts the right clients, and repels the wrong ones.
Today, almost every family law firm is marketed the same way. Marketing for family law firms seems to consist of nothing more than throwing up indistinguishable PPC ads, web copy stuffed with keywords that were effective with yesterday’s search engines, not tomorrow’s AI referral platforms, shallow blog content that has been recycled or churned out from God knows where. Meanwhile, you’re still out there hustling lunches with referral sources because in your heart you already know that your best clients will rarely come from your most expensive marketing efforts.
Maybe you are ok with this arrangement. Maybe you have associate attorneys or junior partners who can handle all the C clients, and can you sit in your large office servicing the A clients you bring in. That’s not the worst business decision and I’m not judging you if that’s the plan.
But that leads us to the next catalyst: AI is about to disrupt the status quo. The shallow blog posts and keyword stuffed SEO is about to be actively harmful to your rankings, with AI and with search engines as they integrate more fully with AI. Your PPC ads are going to lose their efficacy because today, and a bit more every day hereafter, people are turning not to search engines but to AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google Gemini to ask “who is the best divorce lawyer near me.” You can no longer rely on the market pumping out C average clients, and the ensuing scramble is going to look downright apocalyptic for those firms who do not evolve fast.
AIO: A Better Way to Market Your Divorce Law Firm
Fortunately, the catalyst of AI offers far more hope than horror to the savvy family law firm. AI views the world in much the way your human referral sources do. AI is searching for authority, not noise. True depth and authenticity, instead of the shallow blog content of the sludge marketers who would have you draw with a white crayon into an endless sussurus of legal marketing noise. AI wants you to have a distinct Authority Philosophy™ and if you want to learn more about how to ground one in your own work, my book on Authority Philosophy for law firms is also being built live on this site, in real time. You can once again compete on value, not just visibility. Now is the time to toss off your same-same website copy with its “over one-hundred years of combined experience” and stock photos of unhappy families and move your practice forward into the new golden age.
The answer is AIO. But what, exactly, is “AIO,” you may be wondering.
Artificial Intelligence Referrals: The Battle of the Acronyms and Initialisms
You no doubt are familiar with the term SEO, or search engine optimization. AIO is the natural merger and extension of that core, though the DNA that remains is currently about 80% AI and 20% search engine. The reason being AI still relies on search engine data and information at this time for training. In the future, as AI becomes more bimodal and multimodal, incorporating training from videos, audios, images, and other sources, this will shrink.
I like to think of AIO as the merger between a new, dominant company and an older, fading one. Think if NVDA were to merge with Intel, per se. There would be some lingering DNA from Intel, but mostly a merger and consumption. So it is with AIO.
Now I hate to slow down this guide right now, because I know you’re beyond busy and you still need to call the court on that order to show cause and draft a Motion for Pendente Lite relief on the Smith file, but I do want to spend just a moment right now discussing the word soup that currently exists regarding AI referrals.
I prefer the term AIO, which is a universal standard apply to optimization of all AI. It stands for artificial intelligence optimization, though what we offer here at Books for Experts is actually our proprietary system of Authority Intelligence Optimization™. More on that below.
Some other terms you might see are AEO, which stands for answer engine optimization. Optimizing for ChatGPT type answers is no doubt a core benefit and purpose of the work we do here in AIO, but I believe the term is too narrow. AI will expand in ways few can currently even predict, so to pigeonhole the term makes no practical sense. We don’t want an end result that leads to confusion, such as when my daughters are perplexed when a great aunt refers to the remote control as a “clicker.” No, the best terms must be enduring. AEO is many things, but enduring it cannot be.
Another term being tossed around that fails for the same reason is GEO, or generative engine optimization. But what GEO is really trying to obtain is the same thing as AEO, to be the best answer for certain query’s. It may work today, because of the linger SEO DNA within AI, but it’s not going to hold up. Increasingly, only true authority will be sufficient to impress AI and gain its valuable, tailor-made referrals.
Other terms like AI SEO seems all wrong, like calling the NVDA Intel merger of non-equals NVDA Intel. This is just a tactic for scared SEO and PPC providers to attempt to bolt AI onto their current SEO tactics to keep their monthly retainers flowing. But it’s going to take more than a new coat of paint to trick the AI referral engines of the near future. The best time to start planting seeds for future harvest is right now, before everyone catches on that the game is about to change, now and forever.
AIO is the best general term, and what we offer via our proprietary Authority Intelligence Optimization™ services can only be found here at Books for Experts. The first national agency to offer AIO services that bridge authority signals, technical authority signals, and real-world validation. And therefore, the future of attracting A-level clients. I call these the Three Pillars of AIO™, and mixed with your Authority Philosophy™, they become an impenetrable fortress that fights commodification and humanizes your law firm brand.
AIO: Authority Intelligence Optimization™
Because AI will view the world in much the same way the human mind does, at least in terms of its pattern recognition, you will stand out by being distinct.
When I queried Google this morning asking if I was a good lawyer, here is the result:
Notice that it highlights the book I wrote on divorce law, mentioning it twice. “He has extensive experience, has published a book on New Jersey divorce, and serves as a leading voice in the family law community” is right there in the first paragraph. Later, my book has its own paragraph: “Legal Publications and Authority: He is the author of the book Happily Even After: The Guide to Divorce in New Jersey demonstrating his expertise and leadership in the field of New Jersey family law.”
Moving to the bottom portion of the AI overview (ignoring that the middle picture to the right is me in my younger years, but I have no idea why the Super Lawyer’s Profile for my bio links to the photo of another attorney), note that it discusses “my approach” to divorce law. “Tough but reasonable, advocating strongly for his clients while also being open to settlements and avoid unnecessary confrontation,” “client-focused…aiming for ambitious but realistic goals.”
Now, the Google of old would not contain these AI overviews, so my book and philosophy would be buried rather than highlighted at the top of the stack. What you see here is the result of years of cultivating my authority assets, authority philosophy™, and reputation even when it would be buried by PPC and SEO types. I did so because my goal was always to market to humans. To write for humans, not bots. AIO bridges the best of both worlds: you can now write for humans and increase your digital footprint and referrals. Because AI is discerning, and more so each day, it will provide you with A and B clients, narrowly tailored to your practice and distinct philosophy, and help divert away the C and below clients.
But first, you need to have an Authority Philosophy.
Authority Philosophy™
Said another way, your Authority Philosophy™ is the codification of your professional ideals. It’s not just a mission statement or something tired you would find in some 1980’s business book, it’s a modern approach to setting your firm apart so that when AI creates its intelligence dossier of your firm and each of its attorneys, it can understand exactly what type of family law your practicing.
Just saying you are “aggressive” is not enough. Just listing your credentials is not enough, though it is helpful.
You must show your authority.
My authority equation is as follows:
Authority = Expertise + Narrative + Authenticity
That means you must demonstrate what you know about family law, who you are, what the philosophy of your work.
When I was practicing family law in earnest all those years, I quickly settled on a professional philosophy, one now shared by my “digital twin” as you can see reflected above in the Google results.
My philosophy was to help clients find their happily even after. I wanted to leave my divorce clients in a better place than I found them, and to give them the tools to succeed not just in the terms of their settlement, but more holistically, to thrive in what came after. This meant sometimes taking a bit less to preserve a larger pie over all. Or compromising to not demolish a relationship with an ex, when there would be coparenting for years to come. Think about seeing your ex at your children’s weddings in the future, I would caution my clients. Do you want to have a decent enough of a relationship to not ruin that special day, or do you want it to be miserable because of what you’ve left unresolved?
I described the rest of my philosophy as “Dolphins, not sharks.” Everyone else was going around bragging about how “aggressive” they were, many of whom were paper tigers by the way. I turned that on its head by saying I am a dolphin, I can kick a shark’s ass if necessary, but I’m not swimming around looking for a fight. I’m far too intelligence and sophisticated for that.
AI has spit out that philosophy as well in some of its overviews. It even gets my back when I query “Is Carl Taylor a bad lawyer?”
Search engines rewarded the shallow because they lacked the sophistication to truly analyze your divorce firm from the inside out. The focus was on what you said about yourself, and the meta tags you used in that description.
AI, on the other hand, is more like an investigator looking through every window, walking right into your reception area to get a feel for the place, reading everything you’ve written or that has been written about you, even from third parties. Accordingly, the way to feed AI contains certain technical components to aid it in a productive search to finding what you want it to about your firm, while also taking steps to ensure third party authority signals are strong such as through publications, podcasts, and other what I call “authority assets.”
In sum, AIO is about building a deep, verifiable dossier of your expertise that AI can use to recommend your divorce firm as the only logical choice for the right client. We accomplish that via my proprietary Three Pillars of AIO™
Pillar One: Authority Assets
As demonstrated above, there is nothing that AI prefers more than a good book. AI is constantly reading everything, and our books tell AI that we are experts in our fields. Books are the crown jewel of authority building and the most important authority asset to bolster AI referrals, provided the book is human written, carries forward your DNA, and explains who you are, what you know, and your professional philosophy.
The book I wrote for my divorce firm is what changed everything around in my practice, and that was before AI, so the benefits were muted compared to what is to come. The difference in my professional reputation and the types of clients I could attract before versus after publishing my book were night and day. The success of that book, which is now in its third edition, helped provide me with the idea for this agency, once I got sick enough of sludge marketers and the commodification of humans to do something about it. Books are one of the most important tools you can have, and they will provide value not only today but for so long as you practice. It will probably even be one of the things your colleagues mention at your retirement dinner someday.
But there are other authority assets that are effective for divorce lawyers, and which can be implemented far easier. Remember, for each of these, it is important to write everything yourself or hire a real, breathing, human to do so. The key to AI referrals is to do the opposite of all the sludge marketers. They write with AI, we write for it. That is the key distinction that will give life and breathe to your practice and increase revenue. It’s also what is most appealing to other humans. There is no room for the uncanny valley effect in your legal marketing!
But let’s move on now, to the best options for those who find writing (or paying for a ghostwriter) too daunting.
First, start writing your own blog posts or hire someone with actual writing talent to do so. No AI generated sludge, no “Seven Things to Know About Summer Vacation Co-Parenting” garbage. Think about the pain points of your ideal client and start speaking to that avatar in everything you write. You can also outsource this, but only if you’re certain the agency your using understands writing, marketing, AIO, and the law. If you want to get ambitious, through our Authority Chapter Plan™ our agency offers a book written month-by-month, one chapter at a time, with extensive chapters that can be used as blog posts and articles along the way to build up both short term and long term authority.
Write articles on changes in palimony law, how cryptocurrencies impact divorce settlements, topical news stories that apply to family law, and so forth. Pick a sub-niche within the practice and become the very best attorney in the state on that subject. It can be something interesting and fun, even, like an expert on how royalties impact a divorce, or the divorce lawyer for entrepreneurs. Imagine if you practiced in a market with a ton of professional athletes around and you just spoke about that subject everywhere until you started to actually become the divorce lawyer for professional athletes. Or if you’re out in LA, the divorce lawyer to the stars. You can keep servicing other divorce clients as well, because if you’re good enough for Star X or Athlete Y then you’re good enough for old Dr. Smith whose husband is having an affair with his yoga instructor.
Create a podcast that deep dives into QDRO’s, or valuation practices. Go beyond just “divorce lawyer” and become the authority. Assign every attorney in your firm a way they can contribute and perform a blitzkrieg of authority. Right now, AIO is wide open and yours for the taking.
Pillar Two: Technical Authority Signals
This is where we bring in the lingering elements of SEO, mixed with AIO best practices. There are many technical shifts to consider, but the biggest bang for your book is something you can do this afternoon after responding to that pain in the neck adversary who keeps phoning you on the Henderson prenup.
Here’s the easiest thing you can do today to move your AIO significantly forward: redo your attorney profile. Right now, if you’re like 99% of family law attorneys, your profile is a liability. If you didn’t write it, or hire an agency such as mine, that means you probably outsourced it to a marketing “agency” that has less writing talent than you do and certainly far less subject matter expertise.
Look at your profile, does it only talk about yourself and your credentials? If so, add in some language about your ideal family law client. Make them the hero of the story, not you, which is basic marketing 101.
Next, determine if you address who you are, why you chose to practice divorce law, your philosophy as a family law attorney, and how you help people just like your ideal client. Include at least a couple of humanizing details.
There you go, in less than an hour you can have a top 10% attorney profile. One that actually appeals to humans, and will give you standing with AI. Perfect.
Regarding more specific technical authority signals, you will want to use “schema markup” to explicitly define your niche services such as “high net worth divorce” to tell AI both your general niche and any sub-specialties.
Schema markups are to AI what meta tags were to search engines. It’s a bit more complex, but is far better because you can write for humans on the outward facing pages and then implement the AI specific information via off-site meta. In addition, AI is far superior at actually reading and analyzing the material you created for humans. Again, there must be a duel purpose for all AIO, serving both humans and AI. Otherwise, it’s best to go back to the drawing board and find a strategy that can satisfy that objective.
With your authority assets in production and your technical signals fixed, you can now turn to real world validation.
Pillar Three: Real World Validation
If authority assets are the gift that you give to AI, and technical authority signals are the wrapping paper, then pillar three, real-world validation is the bow on top. More importantly, it is the distribution center in many ways of the entire operation.
AI looks to your reputation to determine how much weight to provide to your authority assets, but it also looks to your authority assets to help determine your reputation. The goal here is to create a virtuous circle, one that grows your authority and reputation in tandem, all tied your unique authority philosophy to create an unstoppable flood of AI referrals suited specifically for your law firm.
Make sure you are active in your legal community, and that you then post about it on social media and your website. Presenting CLE’s to the family law section of the bar are a perfect way to demonstrate real world authority. Community leadership such as serving on local non-profits helps provide real world validation. Media mentions and PR, provided they are positive, are also ways to help bolster your AI “Q” score. You do not need to be a celebrity, but you do need to be active. If you can become the go-to commentator for your region’s largest newspaper then that is pure AIO gold.
Become the next trustee of your bar association, sponsor a local scholarship for children of divorce graduating from high school, become board certified and join the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML). Focus on legitimate awards, not the type you just receive because you have four friends, and which later show up in your AI overview without your proper photo.
Thus concludes the Three Pillars. If you would like to learn more, there is a chapter on AIO audits that I created and would apply to divorce law firms as much as any other. And of course, our firm offers Authority Philosophy Sessions and AIO Audits using our proprietary system if you need a jumpstart into AIO.
The Economics of AIO for Family Law Firms
By now you may be starting to see the merit of AIO, and I’ve provided you with sufficient tools to get started. But you’re probably also feeling a bit conflicted. What if you go all in on this AIO thing and it turns out to be a big fad?
Ask yourself this: do you see AI platforms becoming more or less popular in the next decade? Do you believe people, and more specifically divorce clients, are more likely to ask AI or search engines how to find a family law attorney? Has your current legal marketing team even mentioned AIO to you yet, or AI referrals? If so, does it sound like more of the same, or something new?
You don’t have to go all in on AIO today if you’re not ready. You could shift a percentage of your marketing budget to the cause, or you could plow forward with it utilizing sweat equity.
If your marketing types try to scare you out of the idea, ask yourself what expertise do they actually hold. Have you ever asked for the credentials of your SEO or PPC “gurus”? Do they hold marketing degrees, or legal degrees, or English degrees? Are they merely middlemen taking your money and farming the work out overseas? Are they great at selling you, but not so great at selling your firm?
The truth is SEO and PPC have some of the lowest barriers of entry of any job. There are no real credentials, just the ability to sell data and sludge to harried attorneys. Which is not to say there are not good SEO companies, but if you hired one of them then you wouldn’t be this far into this article, I suspect. You would already know all about AIO, and already have a plan, and your website and blog would not be shallow and resemble 99% of all the other content out there for divorce lawyers.
The real value of AIO is that it creates authority, not just today but for years to come. PPC and SEO are faucets that will be shut off the moment you stop cutting a check each month. Nobody is going to take away your book, and no algorithmic change is going to take away being published in venues like Law 360, or the New Jersey Law Journal, or the Judge’s Journal: Three venues where yours truly has recently been published or will be published within the next three months. That is real authority, and that cannot be copied.
Authority is your moat against AI commodification. The divorce lawyers who not only survive AI, but thrive, are going to be the singular voices of authority. Everyone who blends in risks being ignored. Or worse, replaced.
The Ethics of AIO
Please note that when I stated AI “referrals,” what I mean is recommendations. You will no more be blamed for an AI agent recommending you then for a search engine doing so. It’s actually a very similar system, only one is far more sophisticated and of the future (AI) and the other (search engines) simplistic and of the past.
The incredible thing about AI referral marketing is that its rooted in the past. When lawyers obtained their clients not through clicks and PPC sludge, but by displaying their expertise and thought leadership through writing, and speaking, and networking.
There’s no shady tactics here, like how some marketing companies place pixel tracking software to follow those who visited your site asking if they’re ready to hire your divorce firm. Think about the potential real-life ramifications that can step from something like this, should a spouse later share that phone or computer. The ethical considerations aside, what about the moral imperative and public safety. What about decency?
The typical sludge marketing vendor does not care about ethics, they care only about being able to show they’ve obtained enough results to keep the checks rolling in month after month. But as the old cliche goes for lawyers: outsource your marketing, outsource your ethics.
Writing books are far more ethical, and its way easier to market a book than a law firm. A book is a dialogue, not a monologue. As you read this blog post you are engaging with it, formulating your own ideas, perhaps pushing back on certain concepts.
AIO presents far greater ethical compliance than any other type of marketing, and it’s not particularly close.
The Future of Marketing for Family Law Firms
As you can see, the future is no longer some far-off thing. It’s here, knocking on the door of your practice. It will not belong to those who are the loudest or the cheapest. The future of divorce law will belong to those who present the most trusted, the most credible, and the most authoritative voice for the clients you are uniquely positioned to serve.
AIO is not just a marketing system; it’s a return to the highest ideals of the profession. It’s about building a practice with purpose, attracting clients who value your wisdom and restoring dignity to both yourself and the practice of family law.
If you’re ready to move forward with an AIO audit, reach out via the button below. Let’s start a dialogue on how AIO can modernize your family law firm.