Law firmsCriminal defense lawyers
AI visibility for criminal defense and DUI firms
A DUI stop at 2 a.m. A call from the county jail. Before anyone calls a lawyer, someone asks ChatGPT or Google's AI what happens next and who to call. What comes back is a few sentences and a couple of firm names.
AEOptim checks what AI assistants tell people in your city about criminal defense firms, and whether yours is named. AEOptim is a Web Everything company.
- Free AI Check$0
- Search & Ask Workup$450one time
- Answer Kit$350one time
- AEOptim Visibilityfrom $350a month
The questions come when your office is closed
Arrests happen at night and on weekends, when nobody is at the front desk. The person asking is often a parent or a spouse, asking privately from a parked car or a jail lobby. Your website analytics will never show those questions.
The answer is a few sentences with a name or two in them, not a list of links to scroll. Ranking first for "DUI lawyer" doesn't put a firm in those sentences, and the biggest ad budgets don't always get named either.
The client's questions
One arrest, twelve days
Follow one DUI arrest from the traffic stop to the arraignment. Every person and question on this timeline is an example, not a quote from a real chat.
Asked of an AI assistant
2:47 a.m. · The call from booking
Example: a sister, on the couch, phone already in hand
"My brother just got arrested for a DUI. What do I do?"
rights
Asked of an AI assistant
3:15 a.m. · The jail lobby
Example: the same sister, now at the jail
"How does bail work, and how fast can I get someone out tonight?"
process
Asked of an AI assistant
3:40 a.m. · The search for a name
Example: the sister and a parent, each asking on their own
"DUI lawyer near me, open now, free consultation"
the name
Asked of an AI assistant
9:05 a.m. · The morning after
Example: the person arrested, at the kitchen table with the ticket
"Can a first DUI be dismissed or kept off my record?"
outcome
Asked of an AI assistant
Day 4 · The license clock
Example: the same person, rereading the paperwork
"How many days do I have to request a license hearing after a DUI arrest?"
deadline
Asked of an AI assistant
Day 12 · Arraignment
Example: the same person, deciding who stands next to them
"Do I need a private lawyer for an arraignment, or is a public defender enough?"
comparison
Check your own site
What AI needs to read before it names a criminal defense practice
What an assistant says about a defense firm comes from what it can read. These facts need to match on your website, your Google Business Profile and Avvo before one names you. Go down the list with your own site open.
- The charges you defend, by name. DUI or DWI, drug charges, assault, theft, weapons, domestic violence, juvenile cases, federal cases if you take them. Felony, misdemeanor or both. List any charges you turn away.
- The courts you appear in. The counties and courthouses, and whether you're admitted in federal court.
- How to reach someone tonight. An after-hours number, who answers it, and whether a family member can call for someone in custody.
- Your consultation and fees. Free or paid consultation, by phone or video. Flat fee or retainer, what it covers (through trial, or up to it), and payment plans. A range is fine.
- The case, stage by stage. Booking and bail, arraignment, discovery, motions, plea talks, trial, and for DUI, your state's license hearing deadline. Diversion and expungement where your state allows them. No forecasts about anyone's case.
- Who defends your clients. Names, bar admissions, years in practice, languages, prior work as a prosecutor if that's true. Verifiable specifics help most, such as board certification in criminal law or DWI defense with the certifying body named, or a book on DUI defense other lawyers cite.
- Office address, main line and hours, matching on every listing, separate from the after-hours number above.
Client vocabulary
Terms your clients type after an arrest
Nobody arrested last night knows these words. By Friday they do. When your pages use them the way people do, AI can match the question to your firm.
- DUI vs. DWI
- The same charge under different letters, depending on the state. People search both.
- Arraignment
- The first court date, where the charge is read and a plea entered.
- Implied consent
- The condition attached to a driver's license: refuse the chemical test and the license pays a price, case or no case.
- License hearing
- The separate, administrative fight to keep a license after a DUI arrest, often on a short deadline.
- Bail vs. bond
- What it costs to go home tonight, and who puts up the money.
- Diversion
- Programs that can resolve a first charge without a conviction, where the county offers them and the facts fit.
- Expungement vs. record sealing
- Erased from the record, or hidden from most background checks. People ask which one they can get.
- Felony vs. misdemeanor
- The line that decides jobs, licenses and how scared to be. Usually a family's second question.
Near me
Every county gets its own answer
Deadlines, diversion programs and courthouse habits change from county to county, and a license hearing deadline in Texas isn't the one in Michigan. Ask for a DUI lawyer in one county, then the next, and you get two different answers, each built from what AI can read about the firms there. Google's AI answers cite their sources, and a defense firm's site and listings are the sources it can control.
A firm that knows its courthouse can write that down better than a volume shop spread across many markets. But years in front of the same judges don't show up unless they're written somewhere AI can read.
Nobody can promise a firm a place in that answer. Treat anyone who does with suspicion.
What a clear site does
How your website helps AI help them
When your site is clear, an AI assistant can find your firm when someone asks about a DUI in your county at 3 a.m., repeat your facts correctly, and tell them whether you take their kind of charge before they call.
For a family in a jail lobby, the facts that matter are simple: do you take this charge, can I reach someone tonight, what does a defense cost. If your site states them, AI can repeat them.
No AI assistant has a booking deal with defense lawyers today. The assistants that reserve restaurant tables, ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity, have nothing like it for a defense lawyer. So the family still has to reach you directly: an after-hours number that gets answered or returned, and a consultation request form that asks what your intake person needs.
If your after-hours number is wrong on a directory, that's what AI repeats.
Platform facts last checked September 26, 2026.
What we won't do
The lines we don't cross in criminal defense
Your firm is never called "specialist" or "certified" without the certifying body's name beside it. We write to your state bar's advertising rules, which differ from state to state, with added rules in Florida, New York and Texas.
- No promised outcomes: no "charges dropped" or "case dismissed" as a promise, and no "best" or "top" claims. Penalty pages describe ranges and factors.
- Past results appear only where your state allows them, with the disclaimer your state requires.
- No client names, case details or mugshots. Reviews that describe a charge or an arrest don't get reposted.
- We don't use arrest records or booking lists, and we never contact anyone on your behalf.
- The source material is your firm's own published pages. Case management and client files are never connected.
- Nothing goes live under your name until you approve it.
The path, with prices
What the check shows, and what comes next
$0
Free AI Check
One live AI engine (Perplexity, which searches the web as it answers), one question someone facing a charge would ask, in your city. You see the answer as it came back, names included. About two minutes. No card.
$450, one time
Search & Ask Workup
Five engines, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, plus live Google search data: what people search, how often, where you rank, who's ahead. A fix list in order, yours to hand to your web person or your ads freelancer. +$100 per extra location, up to five.
$350, one time
Answer Kit
Your homepage and up to six practice-area pages. Answers to the questions people ask, drafted only from what your pages already say. You approve every answer. Facts about your services, not legal advice.
from $350 a month
AEOptim Visibility
Monitor ($350 a month) re-asks your questions on all five engines, several runs each, and tells you plainly whether a change is real. Standard ($950 a month) and Pro ($1,450 a month) add an AI assistant briefed on your firm that drafts pages and posts for your approval. Change or stop any month.
If you'd rather have it done for you: Web Everything. AEOptim shows you what AI says about you. Web Everything does the work to change it.
Owner questions
FAQ
Do people really ask AI instead of Google after an arrest?
Some do. There's no trustworthy number for legal searches yet, so we don't quote one. Run the free check and see what an assistant tells someone in your city tonight.
Half my calls come from a parent or a spouse. Does this reach them?
It can. Pages that say what the family can do tonight, and how a consultation works when the client is in custody, give AI something to tell them.
The billboard firms outspend me ten to one. Does that decide this too?
Not by itself. AI builds its answer from what it can read about the firms in your county. A focused firm whose pages explain its charges and its courthouse plainly gives it something to repeat. We can't promise that's enough in your county. The check names the firms that come back in your city today.
We already rank on Google and run Local Services Ads. Is this separate?
They overlap. Search rankings are one of the things AI answers draw on, so that work still counts. Don't drop the ads. Web Everything's Search & Ads can run them, Google Ads and Local Services Ads for law firms included, from $450 a month. The fee depends on your ad budget.
My practice is nearly all DUI. Can this get that specific?
It can. The questions shift to license hearings, breath and blood tests, first offense versus repeat, and your county's procedures. The Workup asks the questions your callers ask.
Can AI schedule a consultation or call my firm at 3 a.m.?
Not through a booking deal; no AI assistant has one with law firms today, and none calls a firm for someone. A clear site sends people to your after-hours number and your request form with the facts already in hand.
Could any of this put my license at risk with the bar?
It's built to stay inside your bar rules, and you approve every word. Rules vary by state, so check with your own compliance reviewer.
Will you need anything from our case files?
Only what your firm has already published. We don't connect to case management or client files, and we don't use client stories, case details or names.
This page is general information about AI visibility for law firms. It is not legal advice, it creates no attorney-client relationship, and it promises no case outcome, ranking, or citation. Every case and every county is its own set of facts.
Start here
Find out what AI says about your county
We don't guarantee rankings or AI mentions. Nobody honestly can. The free AI Check puts one question someone facing a charge would ask to one live engine in your city and shows you the answer. About two minutes. No card.
Questions first? Call us at 313-395-8171, or write to human@aeoptim.com.