About Dan Toombs

I’ve spent 20 years helping law firms grow.

I’m a lawyer, founder and legal-industry entrepreneur. Now I’m studying a question I think will reshape the legal market: how will AI change the way clients find, evaluate and choose lawyers?

Get in touch→Invite Dan to speak

Lawyer: Legal practitioner
Director: Practice Proof
Founder: FirmRanker
Founder & owner: Best Solicitors
Founder & owner: Mediations Australia

The work

20 years inside law-firm growth.

Through Practice Proof, I work exclusively with law firms on strategy, positioning, reputation, marketing, technology, AI and client experience.

Over that time, we’ve helped build firms from the ground up, supported significant periods of expansion, helped practices become leaders in competitive areas of law, and worked alongside some clients for more than a decade.

I’ve worked alongside law firms across Australia, North America and the United Kingdom. Separately, my legal publishing history includes a legal text published by Thomson Reuters, Disability & the Qld Justice System.

Built from the ground up

Helping new firms establish their position.

Significant expansion

Supporting firms through periods of growth.

Leaders in competitive law

Helping practices lead in crowded areas.

Decade-long partnerships

Some clients for more than ten years.

Where this started

This didn’t start with AI.

My interest in how people find and choose lawyers predates ChatGPT by many years. I’ve spent 20 years working around law, legal publishing, law-firm growth, technology, reputation and digital discovery.

Thomson Reuters previously featured my thinking on law-firm marketing, including positioning, websites, online marketing and social media (Making Your Legal Mark Online; Top Tips for Improving Your Website).

The technology has changed. The underlying question hasn’t: how does someone who needs legal help decide which lawyer to trust? AI is the newest version of that question.

The question

“How will AI change the way clients find, evaluate and choose lawyers?”

For years, law-firm growth has been heavily influenced by Google, referrals and reputation. Those things still matter. But the layer between a prospective client and a lawyer is changing.

People are asking ChatGPT and other AI systems questions they once asked Google. These systems synthesise information from across the web and increasingly influence which firms and lawyers people discover and consider.

That raises fascinating questions

Why does AI recommend one law firm and not another?
What signals does it rely on?
How important are reputation, authority, content, reviews, citations and brand?

I’m exploring these through FirmRanker — moving beyond the hype around AEO and GEO to understand what the data actually tells us.

See the research→

An unusual vantage point

Four windows into how people choose lawyers.

Together, these businesses give me an unusual perspective on how law firms grow, how people choose lawyers, how reputation is established — and how technology is changing all three.

Director