When Did Google Become the Gatekeeper of Legal Publishing Credibility?

I was in LinkedIn comments Monday discussing whether legal research platforms—AI or not—could incorporate legal blog posts and digital publishing by lawyers, much like how ChatGPT is citing journalism from The Washington Post and other major outlets, under a deal OpenAI has with those publishers.

Some questioned whether legal publishing by legal professionals in the form of blogs, articles, alerts, and the like—could be considered reliable sources for platforms such as HeinOnline, Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg? I explained “credibility filtering” already takes place on the LexBlog Network and the Open Legal Blog Archive.

Got me thinking of a larger question.

When did we decide that Google—an advertising company—would be a key determiner of what gets seen in legal publishing? A company so dominant that even the most prestigious and largest law firms are chasing visibility on Google as one sign of authority and credibility.

Google is a platform, at its core, that ranks lawyers who pay to be seen. That shows maps to law offices next to ad placements. A company that encourages law firms to chase keywords and analytics before authority.

And now—with AI reshaping how people search, ask, and understand—where does that leave law firms and their publishing?

I think about the lawyers I admired when I practiced. A “lawyer’s lawyer.” They didn’t rely on search rankings. They wrote to educate. They were quoted. Referenced. Trusted. They led associations and served on committees. They earned their reputation through service and substance.

That kind of credibility—the kind built through publishing, speaking, and practicing law—can guide AI aided editors filtering for credibility in publishing.

But building authority by chasing signals from an ad-driven algorithm?

That seems to defy logic—and it all disappears the moment the algorithm does.