I agree with both of you. I have a broad personal injury practice that I have broken down into several key niches. One, being so absurdly small (food poisoning from oysters) that I am one of the only people who market for it. After spending hundreds of hours on the first oyster case I handled, I decided to not let all that experience and knowledge go to waste. So I have a one page listing as vibrio-lawyer.com. But it would be crazy to try and drill down my practice to this one area.

I have found that by slowly narrowing the areas of law that I like to handle I have actually grown my practice. But, I agree with Chris, you have to love the niche your in. If not, you’re in for a long and grueling career.

Welcome to the conversation.

I totally agree with you. In many respects the density of your market and saturation level of providers dictates the depth and width of your focus.

So, is there anything wrong with it? No, there is something quite right about it in my book.

I was drawn to the Niche or no Niche hot topic because of my own circumstances. I am a career proseuctor of twenty years-turned Crminal defense attorney {the majority of my practice is criminal defense} When I hung my shingle just two years ago, I was scared to death that the phone would never even ring, much less a client actually walk through the door. Much to my pleasant surprise I immediately became innundated with clients. More than I thought I could manage. And guess what? In the beginning I would guess that 95% of my clients were seeking the services of a good criminal defense “TRIAL” attorney. So I suppose one could argue that I have a niche, but I did not create or find my niche; my niche found me. I imagine that my clients either knew me, knew of me or heard of me as the former chief assistant District Attorney who won 99.999% of her trials.

I have recently spread my wings and now I handle a dozen or so Civil rights violation cases. Once again-I did not start out to represent people who are filing actions against the police, jail, city, Parish, Sheriff, Warden etc. {I mean I did not start out in my solo practice chomping @ the bit to commit political and economic suicide} Circumstances however as they were, put me in the position of starting my first Federal Court title 1983 Civil rights suit when one of my clients was brutally attacked by the Sheriff, and just my good luck—it was all captured on video. Now I seem to get the call from every clown in town who wants to sue the police and make a lot of money they say to me with the $igns dancing in their eyes. I do however turn down approximately 95% of the wanna be civil rights clients, but if there is some evidence that a person was treated badly, hurt, denied medical treatent or any of the plethora of other complaints that I have found( much to my sadness) is more prevalant in my rural area than I would have ever believed, I do not hesitate to file a action against my former collegues as the city or Parish Jail. So I suppose once again a niche found me, not the other way around.

I am torn on the niche issue. I am happy with criminal defense work and it is certainly what I do best. In the beginning, however and now during my drought months am I to turn down potential clients whose legal need does not fall within the realm of my “Niche”?

While I do not have the desire, money or the time to become an expert in the numeorus areas of the practice of law, especially those which are completely foreign to me, I do not see anything wrong, morally, ethically or in any way, for me to take on clients who are seeking representation on a family law matter divorce, child custody etc. or an injury case or a bankruptcy etc. Is this what is meant by a solo practcioner offering legal help in fields outside of her Niche?

Also, construction law is a broad enough practice area that my niche is pretty broad and defined as much by the clients I have as the legal area of practice.

http://www.myshingle.com/2009/04/articles/marketing-making-money/be-that-lawyer/

Carolyn

When you have a well defined target market (whether in terms of your expertise or the demographics of your client base), you know better where to encounter your potential clients. You can write for publications they read, attend industry or interest conferences they attend, speak to associations they belong to, write blogs with keywords they search on, etc. It’s the difference between firing buckshot with a shotgun and being a sharpshooter with your target in the cross-hairs.

Today most clients look for a lawyer who understands the specific problem they need help with. By analogy, if you had a problem with your knee, would you rather go to an orthopedist or a general practitioner? I am betting that, all other things being equal, you would not only prefer an orthopedist, you would want one who specializes in knees.

Some clients expect their lawyer to set up their corporation, handle their divorce and draft their will. Those usually are not very sophisticated clients, however. If they don’t already have a lawyer relationship, they tend to shop on price, and may have some pretty unrealistic expectations. Additionally, technology is resulting in commoditization of legal services. That means that prices will continue to be driven down even more for “entry level” work. That will make it tough to survive as a general practitioner, except in special circumstances like the “rural lawyer.” And I would argue that the rural lawyer has a niche.

All that being said, it doesn’t mean that you can’t ever have more than one niche, or that you can’t change the niche you market to as you get more experience or the economic climate changes. Many bankruptcy lawyers do some commercial litigation or some kind of transactional practice during boom years, for example.

If you really don’t know what area of law you like, and you don’t have any clients, right at first, maybe your niche is “friends and family.”

Many lawyers ‘know’ who they want to target and what they want to do. And they go for it immediately. However, this doesn’t always work for everyone. They have one mission and then they get a referral and they try something new while their ‘passion’ practice area gets going only to discover something more exciting and different then they ever anticipated.

I know too many stories like this.

Then the economy comes a long in an up or down cycle and their ‘passion’ is tied to the economy and they are in trouble.

I prefer versatility when first starting out so as not to foreclose opportunities and to stay nimble and practice-area agile. I’ve been known to be against specialization certification in certain instances.

And I do believe in the organic approach to growing your practice when you first start out because you simply need to treat the opening of a practice like dinner at a delicious buffet full of foods you’ve never tried You’ll learn quick enough what you like and what you don’t, what you are good at and what you are not (with the understanding you are doing the work competently and ethically.)

Like the world, THE ‘LAW’ is too big to know what you are going to practice for the rest of your life, the same way you can’t know where you are going to live for the rest of your life.