llms.txt for law firms: what it is, what it does and does not do

What the file is

The filename is a community convention, alongside robots.txt. A person can open it in a browser. There is no login and no feed, and the file is meant to stay short. The URL is public, so write every line for a stranger and a crawler. A usable shape is a title, a short description, and a list of absolute URLs, so a reader can see the firm name, the place, and which pages to open.

What a law firm can put in it

Name the firm, the cities the public site covers, and the practice areas those pages discuss. List absolute https URLs with one line each. The home page, the practice pages, a short-answer page, and a contact line that matches the contact page are enough. Say that the pages are general information and that reading them does not create an attorney-client relationship. Do not claim a mention in an AI answer or a volume of new matters. Add a line when you add a page, and remove the line when you remove the page. A link that returns an error tells the reader the map is stale.

What the file does not do

Publishing llms.txt does not insert the firm into ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google AI Overviews. Those products choose sources on their own. The file is not a fee and not a form you submit to a vendor. This page does not cite a Google ranking document that lists llms.txt as a ranking factor. A pitch that says the file places a firm inside an answer is a claim without a source. The file does not control crawlers: robots.txt does that. A sitemap is the longer URL inventory used for indexing. A firm can publish all three, because they do different jobs. The file also does not review a person's case. A model can still misstate the city or the practice, so compare a generated summary with the file.

A short example

The block below is an example for the fictional firm Northwind Sample Law. It is not a live file, and the links use example.com so they are not a real practice's pages. Copy the shape, then replace every line with your own firm, cities, and URLs. It has a name, a city, a practice, a limit on what the pages are, and four URLs. It does not ask an engine to cite the firm.

# Northwind Sample Law

> Estate planning practice in Portland, Oregon. This file lists public pages on this site.

Northwind Sample Law publishes general information about its estate-planning practice in Portland, Oregon.

Reading these pages does not create an attorney-client relationship.

## Pages

- https://example.com/ : Practice overview
- https://example.com/estate-planning : What the estate planning pages cover
- https://example.com/answers : Short answers to common questions
- https://example.com/contact : How to reach the office

## Contact

- Web: https://example.com/contact

How to publish it

Save the text as llms.txt in the site root so the public URL ends in /llms.txt. Serve it as text a browser can show, use https links, and open the URL in a private window to confirm a logged-out reader sees the full file. Click each link. Leave out client names, case facts, internal fees, and any sentence that promises a mention, a rank, or a volume of work. If a vendor offers to tune the file for citations, the file can change the map of the site. It cannot change what an answer engine writes. Tell the people who edit the site, so a redesign does not break the list unnoticed.

How the file relates to a mention check

A firm can publish llms.txt and still be unnamed in an AI answer, and a firm can be named with no llms.txt file. The file answers "what does this site say it contains?" A mention check answers "did this engine name the firm, on this question, on this date?" Do not read one as proof of the other. The free AI Citation Scorecard is a 20-point self-check you score yourself. FirmCited does not run prompts on that page. Monitor repeats a 25-prompt list each month on up to 4 engines, sends a report when at least 2 engines answer, and emails a private portal link. The pricing page lists the fee in US dollars. This site's llms.txt describes FirmCited, software from BizLegal AI. FirmCited is not a law firm. The Northwind block is the example for a fictional law firm.

Check the file after you publish it

Open /llms.txt on the firm domain. Confirm the name, the cities, and each URL, and confirm the file does not offer a result the firm cannot produce. If a practice area was dropped, take it out in the same change. Reread the file when the site changes, as you would reread the footer. Serve one current file. When the file and the home page disagree, update the stale one.

Related pages

• This site's llms.txt

  The live file for FirmCited. It describes software, not a law firm.

• AI Citation Scorecard

  A free 20-point self-check you score yourself. It does not run prompts.

• Monitor

  A monthly 25-prompt list on up to 4 engines, with a private portal link by email, when at least 2 engines answer.

• Pricing

  Current fees, in US dollars, for the audit, Monitor and the other plans.

• AI citation tracking

  How to record whether AI answers mention a firm, and what that record leaves out.

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