Somebody’s brother got arrested tonight. It’s eleven o’clock, they’re sitting in a car outside the county jail, and they’re typing “how much does a criminal defense lawyer cost” into a phone.
Google’s AI answered that question for us last week using two law firms. Not Avvo, not Justia, not Super Lawyers. A four-attorney shop in Maryland and a firm in Dallas, each one cited off a single page.
We read both pages. What they have in common is short enough to fix this quarter, and it isn’t what anyone selling criminal defense AI citations is telling you to do.
Two small law firms hold Google’s answer on what a criminal defense costs, and the pages that won it name their state in the H1, price by charge class, and commit to real numbers.
One of those pages runs 5,000 words and the other runs 650, so length is not the variable.
Which Criminal Defense Pages Google’s AI Cited
Scheuerman Law is in Maryland. Their cost page runs about 5,000 words, opens with a quick-answer block that puts a dollar figure in the first sentence, and carries a fee calculator, a ten-question FAQ, a named author and a sources section at the bottom. It’s the page every content marketer would tell you to build.
The Gallian Firm is in Dallas. Their version runs 650 words, has no FAQ, no named author, no answer block, and opens by saying the answer depends on several factors.
Google cited both. Same answer, same day.
So length didn’t do it. Neither did the calculator, the byline, the FAQ or the answer-first structure, because one page has all of that and the other has none of it and they both got quoted.
5 Things Both Cited Pages Share
Both pages do five things, and that’s the whole list.
Both put the state in the H1. Both give specific dollar figures rather than hedged ranges, and both attach those figures to charge classes, so a Class B misdemeanor has its own number and a first-degree felony has a different one.
Both explain flat fee versus hourly in a section of its own. And both pull DUI out and price it separately.
Here’s the mechanism, and it’s the part the tips never explain. The engine was asked for a number, and almost every page on that SERP refuses to give one, because giving one is uncomfortable and every lawyer’s instinct is to say it depends.
When a question wants a figure and only two pages will commit to a figure, those two get quoted. Reluctance is what’s clearing the field, and it’s the same opening that shows up across blog content built for AI citation.
We wouldn’t spend another dollar on schema markup until your cost page names your state and prices a Class B misdemeanor.
How Question Type Changes Which Sites Get Cited
Criminal defense questions sort into three groups, and each group hands its citations to a different kind of site. Nine questions, four engines, one afternoon in August.
Ask with a city and an intention to hire, something like “best criminal defense lawyer in Phoenix,” and you get named firms with their own websites cited underneath.
Ask what a defense costs and you get no recommendation at all, but firm content pages carry the citations. That’s the group Scheuerman and Gallian won, and it lines up with how client search journeys split before anyone types a firm name.
Ask how to choose a lawyer in the first place and law firms vanish.
The One Criminal Defense Question No Firm Wins
“How do I find a good criminal defense attorney” returned several hundred words from Google’s AI and not one law firm. The sources were Super Lawyers, a Reddit thread from 2021, two YouTube channels and an awards directory.
Nothing on your website is going to take that slot this year. The engine has decided the honest answer to how-do-I-choose comes from somewhere other than the people being chosen, and it’s hard to argue the logic. Directories hold that ground, which is its own argument for how the two work together.
Knowing that is worth real money, because it’s the query most firms would instinctively target first. Skip it. Spend the budget on the cost question, where two small firms just proved the door is open. That’s the difference between generative engine optimization and pattern-matching a keyword list.
What AI Visibility Advice Leaves Out
We checked fourteen pages ranking for criminal defense AI visibility terms this month, and thirteen were agency service pages written to look like analysis.
None ran a query. None named a domain that got cited. None linked a primary source for a single number.
Most of them sell schema markup as the lever. Google’s own guidance on generative AI features says structured data isn’t required for these features and there’s no special markup to add. Schema still earns rich results in classic Search. Different argument, different budget line.
We run the same check on our own pages, and this piece turned one up. A page on this site credits Bain with a figure about how many people research legal questions through AI tools, and that number isn’t in the Bain release. It’s being updated.
We mention it because the test we’re describing only means something if it applies in both directions. Hold whoever writes your content to it.
The scale is real even when the stats around it aren’t. Ahrefs put AI Overviews on 23.6% of legal SERPs across 146 million results, and Pew found Google users click a link far less often when an AI summary sits above them. Being the source inside the summary is the traffic now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do AI Engines Cite Criminal Defense Law Firm Websites at All?
Yes, on some question types. In our August 2026 audit, firm websites carried the citations on city-specific hiring questions and on the cost question, and were absent entirely from general how-to-choose questions.
Which Criminal Defense Questions Are Hardest to Win?
General questions with no city and no charge type. “How do I find a good criminal defense attorney” returned directories, a Reddit thread and YouTube videos, with no law firm cited anywhere in the response.
Does Schema Markup Drive Criminal Defense AI Citations?
Google’s AI optimization guidance says plainly that structured data is not required for generative AI features and that no special markup exists for them. Schema is still worth implementing for rich results in classic Search.
How Often Should a Criminal Defense Firm Re-Check Its AI Visibility?
Quarterly. Engine behaviour moves faster than that, but a quarterly check catches drift without turning into a research project, and anything you find in one run should be re-run before you act on it.
Where Criminal Defense AI Citations Start
Open the page on your site that answers what a criminal defense costs. If you don’t have one, that’s the finding.
If you do, check three things. Is your state in the H1. Is there a dollar figure a person could repeat out loud. Does a Class B misdemeanor have a different number from a second-degree felony.
Fix those three and you’ve done more for your criminal defense AI citations than a year of schema work. If you’d rather see the whole picture first, that’s what an AI search audit is for. When you want the pages built properly, every piece of criminal defense content we deliver is screened against ABA Model Rule 7.1 before it leaves the building. Book a strategy call or reach us on 877-486-8123, and ask for the cost-page check.
David Arato, JD is the founder of Lexicon Legal Content, an attorney-owned legal content marketing agency serving law firms since 2012. Lexicon was writing legal content for a decade before answer engines started deciding which pages get quoted. David is a frequent contributor to Attorney at Law Magazine and Attorney at Work and a recurring guest on legal marketing podcasts.
