Why AI in Legal Marketing Matters in 2025
I know, I know. We’re tackling *that topic*. But hold your groans for just a second because we’re not here to talk about LinkedIn AI comments or chat bots. AI in legal marketing is no longer a “watch this space” trend gracing the stages of webinars and events in legal marketing. AI is here. The change is happening now and it’s quickly impacting how legal services can be marketed and delivered.
Whether you’re a solo marketer, part of an in-house team or a legal founder navigating digital strategy, AI tools for legal marketing can feel overwhelming. But when used with intention, they offer structure, efficiency, and creative possibilities.
This isn’t about automating humans out of the picture in the legal sector. Trust, nuance, ethical considerations and emotional intelligence are what makes legal what it is. It’s about using ethical AI tools to free up time for strategic work, client service, and content consistency.
You don’t need to go all out on using AI for your legal marketing; you can start by dipping your toe in the water. Create efficiencies in your (likely) small but mighty team by developing first drafts quicker. Document and deliver effective consistency across all your marketing assets and channels. Not sure where to start with SEO? It can feel like a minefield, but the right AI tool can give you a solid head start so you don’t need to invest in an expensive subject matter expert until you’re ready to scale. Start to use AI like a brainstorming partner to spark creative ideas that would never have been possible, especially when you’re a solo founder or marketer.
So let’s dive deep into the murky waters of AI in legal marketing so that you have total clarity about the why and the how of leveraging AI with integrity and creativity. I’m going to walk you through some practical tools and AI use-cases from within my own business. We’ll also look at some pitfalls to be aware of as well as the legal and environmental factors to take into consideration from the start.
Practical AI Tools for Legal Marketers
I’m on a mission to make marketing work for lawyers who refuse to be boring. So I lead the way in taking bold and brave action when it comes to legal marketing. I have been using AI in my own business as well as for my clients for a long time. Let’s dive into how I actually use AI in my legal marketing business and how you can apply the same strategies.
Custom GPTs
I use custom GPTs for law firm clients and for Saltmarsh Marketing. With the premium version of ChatGPT, you can create a private, and custom GPT then configure it by uploading core documentation like brand and tone of voice guidelines and content samples such as LinkedIn posts, blogs, and other kinds of copy. This will empower your Custom GPT to come up with content ideas or draft content for newsletters, blogs, presentations and proposals that are really, really, solid starting points. Where the content sounds 80% like you. You’re no longer starting from zero. You can start to automate the repetitive elements of your marketing and even better, use templates and frameworks that create structure, efficiency and consistency with your content creation.
Start by:
- Gathering 3–5 pieces of content that really feel like you, in tone and message.
- Then ask your GPT to analyse and record the inputs for tone, style, structure.
- Keep refining as you go —tell it when it nails your voice, and when it misses and how it could improve.
- Upload every finalised version of content you have worked on together, to continue training the model.
The key thing to remember here is that the better the inputs and the more you work with your GPT the better your outputs will be. Whether you’re using ChatGPT or Claude, the key thing is putting in the effort to continuously train and configure your AI Assistant.
Smart Research Using Perplexity AI
From my own experience, where ChatGPT is excellent for content generation, Perplexity thrives when it comes to research. It’s incredibly up-to-date, provides direct citations and it is great at summarising dense, nuanced topics. Use it best by getting really specific with your query or question. This is a different mindset to how we use Google! With AI it’s about getting narrow with your focus (you can ask really rather long-form, conversational questions) for the most relevant research. You can then gradually expand out if you need to, or go even deeper with follow up questions. You can also go into ‘deep research’ mode, where Perplexity will carry out multiple searches and pull together information from multiple sources. This can be a real stand-out use case when you need to craft authoritative content that builds trust, especially as Perplexity can provide source citations alongside its responses.
From Voice Notes to Content Using Letterly
If, like me, you often find yourself conjuring up new ideas for a piece of content or new service mid-walk or between meetings, Letterly is a great tool. Equally, if you’re struggling to find the words or need a hand to get out of the starting blocks with content creation, this is a brilliant way to talk through your thoughts and use AI to help structure them into fleshed out ideas and themes.
Within my own business, I use it to download jumbled thoughts or kernels of ideas that, with the support of Letterly, I can flesh out and turn into more output for blogs, presentations or social media content. Guilty of going to an industry event, taking loads of enthusiastic notes then doing nothing else with them? Yep, me too. Use Letterly to download all of your notes and pull together all the key takeaways and actions that you can feed into your marketing strategy. Better still, leverage this as brand new content for a post-event LinkedIn post.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Using AI in Legal Marketing
Assuming it’s plug-and-play
AI is only as good as you let it be. Bad input = bad output. Yes, it will save you time but you do need to be prepared to invest a bit of time, especially up front, to make it work for you. It shouldn’t just be about saving time but rather, about getting better results. Use your chosen AI tools to enhance your output, not replace it. It is still a piece of technology, after all. It’s not infallible and it’s not YOU. Don’t fall into the trap of adding to the sameyness of AI-driven LinkedIn posts whose creators haven’t taken the time to infuse their own voice, intuition and unique insight.
Skipping fact checks
AI doesn’t know what it doesn’t know and it can’t always be relied upon to be 100% accurate. It can only pull data from what exists already out there on the internet; it is never creating new thoughts or ideas. Skipping the quality assurance stage, or failing to source citations wherever relevant can be especially dangerous when handling complex legal topics. For example, when I give ChatGPT or Claude a prompt, I always ask: “Please check for hallucinations” – but then I also build this into the prompt as well. An AI hallucination is specifically an error or output that is misleading, inaccurate or often rather nonsensical. But the challenge we have is that these ‘hallucinations’ are often presented as fact. So it’s all the more important to ask it to check its own work and for you to review it, as a human!
Taking the human out
I would argue that there is no legal marketing task that you can use AI 100% for. You, the human will always need to add your input. Don’t fall into the trap of leaning heavily on tools like ChatGPT for creating strategic outputs, without reviewing it in detail. The nuances, emotional insight and psychology of the human brain can never be replaced by AI. But conversely, there isn’t a single strategy or marketing task you can’t use AI to give you a really great starting point for you to refine and finesse every time!
Legal Considerations when using AI in your marketing strategy
We’re all painfully aware that legal is governed by watertight regulation. You need to be transparent, accurate, and crystal-clear. So here are some sector-specific factors to bear in mind as you start to integrate AI into your legal marketing strategy:
Copyright, IP and Content Ownership
Let’s talk about the murky waters of IP and copyright. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, works “generated by a computer in circumstances such that there is no human author”, the ownership of AI-generated content remains legally ambiguous. In other words, content created solely by a machine may not be legally protected.
Best practice: Never publish raw AI content. Work on the assumption that it’s not copyright-protected until you’ve significantly adapted it.
Transparency and Misleading Claims
The SRA Code of Conduct mandates truthfulness in communications, via:
- Accuracy
- Clarity
- No misleading statements
You need to be really confident that your AI – generated content does not read or cannot be perceived as legal advice, when not written by a qualified solicitor. This can be deemed misleading, under the SRA Code of Conduct and / or breaching advertising standards.
Best practice: Use disclaimers wherever relevant. Get input from legal subject matter experts on nuanced or technical content to avoid marketing content veering into misinformation.
Confidentiality and Data Protection
AI tools process data in the cloud. This means, once again, that there is a risk of breaching the confidentiality required by the SRA Code of Conduct.
Best practice:
- Don’t ever upload client-specific data
- Don’t use confidential drafts or sensitive case notes
- Keep your prompts outcome focused but general when it comes to clients and contexts
The best sources of legal guidance for you here are Law Society, Advertising Standards Authority and Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Sustainability in AI Marketing Tools
We’ve all been underestimating for a long time just how large AI’s carbon footprint is. AI systems consume vast amounts of computer power and obviously with that, comes huge energy consumption. That’s not to say we shouldn’t use them, but we need to consider how to limit the environmental impact. It means we need to be purposeful and intentional about how we use them:
- Be intentional: use fewer tools, well. It bears repeating – take time to train them
- Be smart with templating: use AI to create repeatable, scalable templates and frameworks so that you can efficiently create and repurpose content
- Choose green tools: support companies investing in energy transparency or renewable-powered infrastructure.
Combining Creativity & Ethics in AI
There’s a lot of chat about “AI ethics,” but what does that actually mean in the world of legal marketing?
- Be transparent about your use of AI. It’s certainly nothing to hide or be ashamed of using but you must balance innovation with integrity. Transparency is going to be key in using AI whilst also maintaining trust with your audience and clients.
- Champion the use of ethical AI both internally and externally by regularly educating yourself on AI developments that are relevant to your business and clients – and sharing that knowledge widely.
- Don’t compromise your standards for speed. Using AI for creativity doesn’t mean taking shortcuts, it means working smarter. Stay abreast of legal guidelines and what that means for your use of AI.
Final thoughts: you don’t have to do it all – but you do need to start
The fast pace of AI adoption can feel overwhelming, but it should also feel exciting.
The tools are here and the use cases are growing. For legal marketers, the risks are manageable and are certainly outweighed by the opportunities in front of you – to shape how AI is perceived by and used by the legal sector. Remember – start small and commit to training the tools you use. Let them learn from you, just as you’ll learn from them. Now onwards to a future where your legal marketing is smarter, bolder and braver than ever before.
If you’d like to learn more about how to create and use your own Custom GPTs for your legal marketing, join the waitlist for new services coming soon: The Quiet Queue