Claude Recommends Martindale. ChatGPT Recommends Avvo. 600 Queries Expose the Split.

Avvo leads in 8 of 10 legal specialties. Martindale leads in zero. Super Lawyers leads in one (Medical Malpractice). Chambers leads in one (Corporate Law).

This is the directory breakdown from our 600-query Legal AI Citation Study across 10 specialties and 5 US cities. We asked Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity how to find, verify, and compare lawyers. Every directory mention was unprompted. We never used the word "directory" in a single query.

The Full Ranking

Avvo's 258 mentions is 33% more than Martindale and Super Lawyers tied at 194. It's 3.4x Yelp (76) and 11.7x FindLaw (22).

For comparison: in our general AI Citation Study across 50 industries, Yelp was the #1 directory at 115 mentions. For legal, Yelp drops to #9. Lawyers have their own trust infrastructure and AI engines fully recognise it.

Avvo Wins 8 of 10 Specialties

Two exceptions stand out.

Medical Malpractice: Super Lawyers leads (28), Martindale second (27), Avvo third (25). All three within 3 mentions. Med mal is the most credential-heavy specialty. Peer review ratings from Super Lawyers and Martindale carry more weight than Avvo's consumer-facing profiles. AI engines reflect this.

Corporate & Business Law: Chambers (21), Super Lawyers (20), Best Lawyers (20) all outrank Avvo (15) and Martindale (15). Corporate law operates in analyst-driven territory. Chambers rankings and Best Lawyers peer reviews are how Fortune 500 GCs select outside counsel. AI engines absorbed this hierarchy directly.

Each AI Engine Has a Favourite

Claude prefers Martindale. 141 mentions vs 129 for Avvo. Claude is the only engine where Martindale outperforms Avvo. Claude's training data weights peer review infrastructure (Martindale's AV Preeminent rating system) more than consumer review platforms.

ChatGPT prefers Avvo. 79 mentions vs 37 for Martindale and just 8 for Super Lawyers. ChatGPT leans heavily on Avvo's consumer-facing profiles. If your clients use ChatGPT to find a lawyer, Avvo is 2.1x more likely to be recommended than Martindale.

Perplexity prefers Super Lawyers. 81 mentions vs 45 for Avvo and 12 for Martindale. Perplexity's live search pulls from Super Lawyers' ranking pages, which are heavily SEO-optimised and frequently appear in Google results. Martindale barely registers at 12 mentions.

This means your directory priority depends partly on which AI engine your potential clients use. A consumer using ChatGPT sees Avvo. A researcher using Claude sees Martindale. A buyer using Perplexity sees Super Lawyers.

Verification Queries: Where Avvo Dominates Most

We used four query templates. Avvo's lead was strongest on verification queries ("How would you verify a lawyer is legitimate?").

Verification queries are the money template. When AI tells a buyer "here's how to check if this lawyer is real," Avvo appears 106 times. Martindale appears 62. AI engines treat Avvo as the default verification tool for lawyers the same way they treat Yelp for local services.

Top-Rated queries flip the order. Super Lawyers leads at 99 because its brand name literally matches the query pattern: "top-rated" maps to "Super Lawyers" in AI training data.

Comparison queries are where both Avvo and Martindale disappear. Expertise.com (32) and Super Lawyers (29) lead here. When AI engines build structured comparisons, they pull from ranking-style directories, not profile-style ones.

The City View

Avvo leads in every city. But Miami is the closest race: Avvo 53, Martindale 49. Miami has a strong Martindale presence because South Florida law firms have historically invested in Martindale ratings more than other metros.

NYC has Avvo's weakest showing (45) and is the only city where all three directories score within 10 points of each other (45/36/35). The NYC legal market is so saturated that no single directory dominates AI recommendations.

What Yelp, FindLaw, and Justia Got Wrong

Yelp scored 76 mentions across 600 legal queries. In our general study, Yelp scored 115 across 750 queries covering all industries. Yelp's consumer review model works for restaurants and plumbers. It doesn't work for lawyers. AI engines know the difference.

FindLaw scored 22. Once the dominant legal directory, FindLaw has lost AI visibility to Avvo and Super Lawyers. AI engines cite FindLaw less than Justia (58) and less than Nolo (21). FindLaw's profile-heavy model without peer ratings or consumer reviews gives AI engines less signal to work with.

Justia scored 58. Respectable for a free legal information platform, but Justia functions more as a legal encyclopedia than a verification directory. AI engines cite Justia for legal information, not for lawyer recommendations.

The Minimum Viable Legal Directory Stack

Based on 600 queries across 10 specialties:

All lawyers: Avvo + Super Lawyers + Martindale. These three cover 646 of the 1,776 total directory mentions (36%). Missing any one reduces your AI visibility across at least one engine.

PI, Criminal Defense, Family, Bankruptcy, Employment, Immigration, Real Estate: Avvo first. It's the #1 directory in all of these. Add Super Lawyers and Martindale.

Medical Malpractice: Super Lawyers first (28 mentions), Martindale second (27). Avvo third. Peer credentials matter more than consumer profiles in med mal.

Corporate & Business: Chambers first (21), Best Lawyers second (20), Super Lawyers third (20). Avvo and Martindale tie at 15. Corporate is the only specialty where consumer-facing directories don't lead.

Estate Planning: Even spread. Avvo (23), Martindale (21), Best Lawyers (21), Expertise (21), Super Lawyers (20). This specialty rewards broad directory coverage more than any other.

Data from DirJournal's Legal AI Citation Study. Full dataset available for download.