Best Lawyers launches first legal search app on ChatGPT

Best Lawyers moved its legal directory into ChatGPT, unveiling what it called the first-of-its-kind legal search app on April 22, 2026, in Augusta, Georgia. The app sits inside OpenAI’s in-product app directory and is built to surface attorneys by practice area and location using Best Lawyers’ peer-reviewed database.

The launch is about more than a new distribution channel. It reflects a larger change in how expert-finding businesses reach clients, as trusted recommendations begin to matter inside AI tools where users already ask questions. OpenAI has said apps in ChatGPT can be discovered through the new directory and by conversational context, which gives a structured legal database a chance to appear at the moment someone is looking for counsel, not after a search engine detour.

Best Lawyers is leaning hard on credibility. The company says it has used the same transparent, peer-review methodology for more than 40 years and describes itself as the only Purely Peer Reviewed guide to the legal profession. Its current platform highlights 151 practice areas, more than 13 million peer evaluations, and recognition for the top 3% of lawyers globally. That mix of structure and reputation is exactly the kind of inventory AI search surfaces can use when users want a verified answer rather than a broad list of links.

The company also tied the app to its wider technology push, including SmithyAI, signaling that Best Lawyers sees AI-native discovery as part of its roadmap, not a one-off marketing stunt. Best Lawyers has long built products around visibility for legal marketers, including Best Law Firms, which debuted in 2010, and the company’s 2025 Mid-Year U.S. Legal Market Survey, paired with the 32nd edition of The Best Lawyers in America and the sixth edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America, said it recognized more than 110,000 attorneys.

The timing matters because OpenAI introduced apps in ChatGPT on October 6, 2025, then expanded app-directory access and app controls for ChatGPT Business and Enterprise/Edu users in April 2026. That expansion made the ecosystem newly relevant for discovery products like Best Lawyers, and it helps explain why the legal industry is paying attention. If clients increasingly ask ChatGPT for lawyer recommendations, being discoverable inside ChatGPT may become as valuable as ranking in Google, and the shortlist may be set before a law firm’s website is ever visited.