Ask AI assistants who should handle your estate planning in Jacksonville and one answer dominates everything else: the Law Office of David M. Goldman PLLC, named in 56 of the 114 AI answers we collected. That is 49%, nearly every second answer, and the most dominant AI-visibility position we have measured in any Florida market so far. Berg Bryant Elder Law Group follows at 27, Edwards Law Firm at 25. And 95% of the Jacksonville practices we screened separately never appeared at all.
The headline numbers
- The Law Office of David M. Goldman PLLC appears in 49% of all AI answers about Jacksonville estate planning, 56 of 114. No firm in Tampa or Orlando comes close to that share of its market.
- Google Gemini named Goldman in 22 of its 27 answers, and Goldman appeared in 4 of the 6 Google AI Overviews that showed.
- ChatGPT is the contrarian engine here: its most-named Jacksonville firms were Schnauss Naugle Law, DeVries Law Firm and Rogers Towers, 5 of 27 each.
- Berg Bryant Elder Law Group (27 of 114) and Edwards Law Firm (25 of 114) hold clear second and third positions.
- 95% of the 78 Jacksonville estate practices we screened separately (74 of 78) never appeared in a single AI answer.
How we measured it
Between August 6 and 7, 2026, we asked five AI systems the questions real clients ask when they are ready to hire: ChatGPT (OpenAI, with live web search), Anthropic's Claude (with live web search), Perplexity, Google Gemini (with Google Search grounding), and Google AI Overviews. Nine questions, asked three times each per engine, because AI answers vary between runs. That produced 114 usable answers for Jacksonville. We then counted, for every firm, how many of those 114 answers named it. A count of "56 of 114" means exactly that: the firm appeared in 56 answers.
The nine questions, verbatim:
- "best probate attorney near Jacksonville with good reviews"
- "elder law attorney in Jacksonville who handles Medicaid planning and asset protection"
- "where can I find a trusted estate planning lawyer in Jacksonville for my family"
- "my mother passed away in Jacksonville without a will, which probate lawyer should I hire"
- "recommend an estate planning attorney in Jacksonville to set up a living trust"
- "top rated wills and trusts lawyers in Jacksonville"
- "which law firm in Jacksonville is best for wills, power of attorney, and estate planning"
- "affordable probate attorney in Jacksonville, who do you suggest"
- "I need a lawyer in Jacksonville to help my elderly parents protect their assets, who should I call"
The firms AI names most in Jacksonville
| Firm | Named in | Share of answers |
|---|---|---|
| Law Office of David M. Goldman PLLC | 56 of 114 | 49% |
| Berg Bryant Elder Law Group | 27 of 114 | 24% |
| Edwards Law Firm | 25 of 114 | 22% |
Counts are across all five engines combined. The gap between first and second place, 56 answers to 27, is the widest we have measured in any Florida city. Fourth: Schnauss Naugle Law, in 24 of 114 answers.
The engines do not agree with each other
This market is unusual because four of the five engines mostly agree. Google Gemini named the Law Office of David M. Goldman in 22 of 27 answers. Goldman also led Claude's answers, led Perplexity's, and appeared in 4 of the 6 Google AI Overviews that showed. The exception is ChatGPT, which spread its recommendations widely: Schnauss Naugle Law, DeVries Law Firm and Rogers Towers led there, 5 of 27 each. Even the most dominant firm in Florida does not own every engine.
This split matters for one practical reason: a firm can be highly visible on one engine and close to invisible on another, because each engine reads different sources before it answers. Being recommended by AI is not one game. It is at least five.
The number that should get every other firm's attention
One firm is present in nearly every second AI answer about Jacksonville estate planning. At the other end, we ran a shorter five-question screen across the 78 largest Jacksonville estate practices: 74 of the 78, that is 95%, never appeared in a single answer. Jacksonville is the clearest illustration we have of how winner-take-most this channel is.
This is the defining pattern we see in every market we measure: AI recommendations concentrate hard. A small group of firms collects most of the mentions, and the majority of the market is simply absent from the conversation. Absence is not a verdict on anyone's lawyering. It means the sources these engines read before answering, the directories, review profiles, rankings and articles, do not surface those firms often enough to be named.
Why this matters right now
45% of US consumers used AI for a local business recommendation in 2026, up from 6% a year earlier, according to BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey. Across 350,000 US business locations, SOCi's Local Visibility Index found ChatGPT ever recommends only about 1.2% of them. To be fair to the other side of the argument: traditional Google search still handles vastly more queries than AI assistants do. But the AI channel is growing fast, it is high intent, and as the numbers above show, it is winner-take-most. The firms named today are compounding an advantage.
What decides who gets named?
Not advertising: none of these engines sell placement in organic answers. The engines answer from what they can retrieve and trust: legal directories, review platforms and their volume and recency, "best of" articles and local rankings, consistent business information across the web, and content on the firm's own site that directly answers the questions people ask. Firms that show up tend to be strong across several of those sources at once. That also means visibility is buildable. It is plumbing, not magic.
Common questions about this study
Does appearing here mean these are the best estate lawyers in Jacksonville?
No, and we want to be precise about this: these are counts of how often AI assistants named each firm in answers to our questions on specific dates. They measure visibility, not legal ability, service quality, or results. Plenty of excellent attorneys are invisible to AI today.
Would I get the same answers if I asked ChatGPT today?
Not necessarily. AI answers vary by session, phrasing, location and date. That is exactly why we ask each question multiple times across five engines and report counts across the whole answer set instead of quoting any single answer.
Did the named firms pay to be included, or participate?
No. No firm participated in, paid for, or endorsed this study. Firm names appear solely to report factual measurement results, the same way a survey reports its findings.
My firm is not named. Can I find out my own numbers?
Yes. We run the same measurement for individual firms at no charge: your mention count, your closest competitors' counts, and which sources the engines read before answering. Use the contact button below and mention Jacksonville.
Methodology notes
Measured August 6 and 7, 2026. Engines: ChatGPT (OpenAI API, live web search), Claude Sonnet (Anthropic API, live web search), Perplexity Sonar, Google Gemini Flash with Search grounding, and Google AI Overviews. Usable answers per engine: ChatGPT 27 of 27, Claude 27 of 27, Perplexity 27 of 27, Gemini 27 of 27, and Google AI Overviews 6 (an AI Overview appeared on 6 of 9 queries; the rest are excluded from all denominators). Queries embedded Jacksonville, Florida, and location was set to Jacksonville where the API supports it. Counts are mention counts of the answers we collected via each engine's API, an unpersonalized baseline; consumer apps may differ. Results describe only these engines, these questions, and these dates. Firm name usage is nominative and factual. This study is independent research by Maxera LLC and is not legal advice, a lawyer rating, or a referral service.
By Max, founder of Maxera. We measure how often AI assistants recommend local businesses, and we help the ones who want to show up more often.