Summary

• AI content can lower costs for law firms, but it also brings serious risks, especially in regulated and YMYL areas. Many firms underestimate these risks, which can affect both search rankings and legal compliance.
• Google’s 2025 updates focused on low-value, generic content, not AI as a whole. However, much of the content that was penalised was large-scale, AI-generated material. Law firms that published unreviewed AI content lost significant website traffic, and some have not recovered.
• The SRA Code of Conduct makes firms fully responsible for the accuracy and integrity of their published content. If AI-generated content has mistakes and is not carefully reviewed, it can lead to regulatory and legal problems.
• AI content that is not reviewed fails important E-E-A-T signals, especially Experience and Expertise. If you credit this content to qualified solicitors without a real review, it creates credibility gaps that Google can spot.
• AI works best as a support tool, not as a substitute for legal expertise. The safest approach is to use AI for structured help, followed by a full review from a solicitor. Agencies that rely mainly on AI with little oversight create bigger SEO and compliance risks.

AI writing tools have made it much cheaper to produce legal content. However, this does not mean you should use them without caution. For regulated Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) businesses (such as law, health, and personal finance), there is a real risk in relying on purely AI-generated content. We saw this with many law firms who saw their rankings and website traffic decimated following the SEO bloodbath created by the March and December 2025 Google core updates.

What Google Now Thinks of AI Legal Content

Google’s 2025 algorithm updates targeted what it called low-value, interchangeable content. These are pages that discuss topics in broad, general terms without the detail that comes from real legal experience. Many of these pages were large-scale, AI-generated content used by law firms and legal directories.

The update did not single out AI content as a category. Google has clearly said that AI-generated content is not automatically penalised. Content is penalised when it does not meet quality standards, and in the legal sector, AI content without legal knowledge or human review often fails these standards.

Law firm websites that used AI-generated content on many pages in 2024 and early 2025 lost a lot of organic traffic. Some of these sites still have not recovered.

The SRA Compliance Question

The SRA Code of Conduct says solicitors must act honestly, keep accurate records, and make sure their communications are not misleading. AI writing tools can make mistakes in legal content. For example, a tool might get a limitation period wrong, mention a court procedure that does not exist, or give the wrong eligibility criteria for a benefit. If this content is published without review, it creates a compliance risk.

The regulated firm is responsible for all published content, not the AI tool. If a client relies on inaccurate AI-generated content from your website and suffers a loss, whether a solicitor reviewed the content before it was published will matter in any regulatory or civil case.

The E-E-A-T Problem With Unreviewed AI Content

In my experience, Google’s E-E-A-T framework values real, first-hand experience with the subject. AI tools do not have first-hand legal experience; they only use statistical models to generate text. Content from these models does not show real experience, no matter how convincing it sounds.

The Expertise part of E-E-A-T needs a real, qualified author. If AI-generated content is credited to a solicitor who did not actually review it, there is a gap between the claimed expertise and the real quality of the content. Google is getting better at spotting this gap.

AI-Generated Versus AI-Assisted

There is a real difference between AI-generated and AI-assisted content. AI-generated content is made by a tool and only lightly edited before publishing. AI-assisted content uses AI for a specific task, like creating a first draft or an FAQ section, but a qualified person reviews and rewrites it before it goes live.

To safely publish AI-assisted content, a qualified reviewer must take responsibility for every fact in the piece. If they have checked the legal accuracy, updated it for current law, added practical details from their experience, and are willing to put their name on it, the content is up to standard.

Where AI Can Genuinely Help

AI tools can be helpful in certain low-risk parts of a law firm’s content process. For example, they can create an outline for a long guide, giving solicitors a clear starting point. They can also summarise the background of a law so the solicitor does not have to start from nothing.

The key difference is using AI as a tool to help qualified practitioners, versus using it to replace their input. Using AI as support makes sense. Using it as a replacement brings the risks already discussed.

Questions to Ask a Marketing Agency About AI

If you are choosing a marketing agency for your law firm, you need to ask about their use of AI content. Ask them directly: What role does AI have in your content process? Who checks the content for legal accuracy, and what are their qualifications? Is there a named, LLB-qualified person in charge of quality assurance for legal content?

If an agency cannot answer these questions clearly, or says it uses an AI-first process with only light review, it probably will not meet Google’s standards for legal websites. The content may cost less, but your website’s authority and SRA compliance are at greater risk.

Further Reading

Google uses the E-E-A-T framework to judge your legal content. Our E-E-A-T guide for law firms explains practical steps for building author attribution, schema markup, and credibility signals to help you avoid quality assessment penalties.

To learn how AI search tools impact law firm visibility, check out our GEO for law firms guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use ChatGPT to write blog posts for my law firm?

You can use ChatGPT to create a first draft. However, a qualified solicitor must review the text, check its accuracy, add insights from their experience, and put their name on it. Publishing a ChatGPT draft as-is, with only a solicitor’s name added, does not meet the required standard.

Will Google penalise my website for AI content?

Google says it does not penalise AI content just for being AI. Content is penalised if it does not meet quality standards. In legal, AI content without expert review often fails these standards. The link between unreviewed AI content and ranking penalties is strong enough to treat as a rule.

What is a human-in-the-loop content process?

A human-in-the-loop process means a human expert is involved in a meaningful way, not just as a final proofreader. For law firm content, this means a qualified solicitor checks the facts, adds their own legal insight, makes sure the content is up to date, and puts their name on it.

To find out more about how we can assist you in creating SEO- and AI-visible content, please get in touch with me at corinne@lawtelligence.co.uk or call 01691 839661.

Corinne McKenna is the co-founder and director of Lawtelligence, a specialist legal marketing agency serving UK solicitors and barristers. With an LLB degree from the University of Canterbury and over 25 years’ experience in legal services sales and marketing, Corinne brings substantive legal knowledge to marketing strategy and brand development. Her background includes roles at LexisNexis in the UK and New Zealand, where she managed key legal accounts and delivered training to law firms. Corinne has authored widely on legal marketing topics for publications including Today’s Conveyancer and Solicitors Journal, with particular expertise in E-E-A-T principles, AI-optimised content, and SEO strategy for legal services.