It goes to an assistant — "do I need a solicitor to change a will", "how long does conveyancing take", "what happens to the house in a divorce". It answers. And then, often, it names two or three firms. We can tell you whether one of them is yours.
For most people, instructing a solicitor has always been preceded by a period of not quite knowing whether they need one. That period used to be spent asking a friend or reading a forum. It is now spent asking an assistant, in private, at length, often at night. The person arrives at your door already informed — or already told that a different firm is the one to ring. That conversation is the new front door, and almost no firm has looked at what is said inside it.
"We provide a comprehensive range of legal services tailored to your needs" says nothing a machine can match to a question. The firms that get named are the ones that answer the actual question plainly, in the words a worried person would use.
Almost every legal search has a place in it. If your site names only the city your office is in — and not the towns your clients actually come from — you cannot be matched to most of them.
"Private client" and "matrimonial" are what you call them. "Writing a will", "sorting out probate", "getting divorced" is what they call them. Both should be on the page; usually only the first is.
How long does conveyancing take. Do I need probate. What does a will cost. Answering these plainly is the single most effective thing a firm can do here — an assistant cites a clear answer, and the person reading it is exactly the person about to instruct.
A legal problem does not keep office hours, and the first firm to actually answer is frequently the firm that gets instructed.
Your average matter, your conversion, your numbers.
Roughly a residential conveyance. Change it to yours — a probate, a commercial matter or a contested case is a multiple of this, and a conveyance frequently arrives with a will and a lasting power of attorney behind it.
We ask the four assistants the question your clients ask and send you their answers word for word. One report, no charge, no account. You cannot fix a thing you have not measured.
One answer is a coin toss; they vary by day, wording and location. So we ask the SAME questions again every 7, 14 or 28 days and show you the line. That is the difference between a curiosity and evidence.
A UK number for the business, live in minutes, that is not the phone your family rings. And when you are ready, Optiman Answered picks it up when you cannot — takes the enquiry, takes the message, and tells you straight away.
We are not promising to put you top of anything, and we are careful about claims for a specific reason: your advertising is regulated and ours should not create a problem for you. Nothing we publish about your firm says more than what the assistants actually said. We do not touch the Law Society finder, ReviewSolicitors or your directory entries. And one thing worth knowing before you look: assistants sometimes state legal points that are out of date or plain wrong. Seeing what yours says about your area of law is frequently the more useful half of the report — because that is what your client read before they rang.
It is answering the questions people were never going to pay for anyway — and then, very often, saying "you should speak to a solicitor" and naming some. That referral is the opportunity. The risk is not being asked; it is not being one of the names.
Frequently not, and it is one of the more common surprises in this trade. Assistants read what is written on the open web, and a hundred-year-old firm with a careful, corporate website often has less matchable text than a two-year-old competitor who wrote plain answers to common questions.
It should not, and it is built not to. We report what the assistants said, verbatim, and we make no claim about your firm that you have not made yourself. Anything you then choose to publish is yours, and yours to run past your COLP in the usual way.
The ones people research before instructing: conveyancing, wills and probate, family, employment, personal injury and immigration. Highly specialised commercial work is a different market with a different route in, and we would say so rather than take the fee.
Nothing, and no account. Your firm name, your town and your area of law is enough.
A number of your own that takes the name, the matter and the urgency when the office is shut.
How a number worksTell us your firm name, your town and what you do. We put the question your clients actually ask to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, send you what each one said word for word, and tell you what it would take to change it.