Okay, the title is a little salacious. A little bawdy, maybe. A tad vexing. Thought provoking, I hope. We all know a niche law practice is what is best, yet everybody, especially law students and recent graduates grapple with their choices and their direction in life.
NAME CALLING - A LESSON
What complicates the title is that there is a double standard when it comes to name calling.
Many years ago -- in the late 80s -- my law firm operated under the name Newton & Newton / The Legal Group. We had a nice little postage stamp of a logo. In an attempt to build the family law practice part of the firm, I came up with a series of small, but powerful, 3-panel-cartoon-style print ads. The first was directed at women. The first panel showed a silhouette of a elegant couple, sipping champagne, at a quiet restaurant table, she with a big diamond ring, and both of them engrossed in each other. This panel read, "If you married one of these ...". The next panel was the silhouette of a hew-hawing donkey (or jackass). This panel read, "But, he turned out to be one of these ...". The last panel was a copy of the firm's logo. This panel read, "Then you need one of these these."
The ad got rave reviews from everyone that I met. Lots of laughs. It generated a lot of business. There was not anyone male, female, judge, lay person, or lawyer that did not think I nailed it on the head with that ad. After all, I guess, men in a marriage gone bad deserved to be compared to an obnoxious animal.
The next ad was directed toward men. After all, they were half of the equation. This ad was exactly the same, except the second panel had a silhouette of a barking dog. It read, "But, she turned out to be one of these ...". Man o' mighty, all hell broke loose from the very same people that loved the first ad in which we referred to men in divorce situations as jackasses. All of a sudden my 3-panel ads were not nearly as innovative or profitable. I quickly turned from a legal marketing genius to an idiot in the eyes of many.
I guess I should have learned a lesson, but I did decide to use the word, if not the image, in a different context here.
THE ITCH TO NICHE
First, let me define and tell you why the a niche practice of law (or really niche marketing) is better.
A niche is really the opposite of mass marketing. Mass marketing is really about selling to everyone, while a niche focuses on a specific segment for legal services. The law, after all, is about identifying and dealing with problems. Each problem has or contains defining characteristics.
Other than looking at it from the prospect of a problem, a niche legal practice can be created generally from a need, want, preference or geographic area. Although, I must admit from my perspective, a geographic area rarely defines a viable niche. The point of a niche is to define exactly what type of law involves, and what type of law does not involve, your representation. It is further the act of defining who is and who is not in your legal market. But, the reason a niche practice works from a marketing standpoint is that it allows the lawyer to tailor his or her message and marketing toward a limited group of people in need of the specific legal service offered. It allows the lawyer to focus on the benefits and features of the legal area the attorney is selling. It is difficult to do that when you try to market just a plain vanilla legal practice. Nobody wants to hire a lawyer, or at least the message is too defused. But, everybody wants to solve or address a particular problem. When you define a niche, you define a problem that transcends the fact that you are necessarily a lawyer. As a result, niche practices of law tend to be more profitable. Clients are easier to find and convince to retain the law firm. Likewise, the lawyer's continuing legal education is targeted or limited and hence it is easier to stay on top of the subject. The targeted or niche practice of law allows you to feel more comfortable and operate more intuitively. The overhead for client retention is usually much lower. Because the knowledge base and systems are more streamlined you can handle more cases more profitably. You are not reinventing the wheel in every case.
A niche represents different things and is defined different ways. Of course, if you are a decorator, it is an ornamental recess in the wall. It is also a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person. It is the position or function of an organism in a community of plants and animals. But, what it means to lawyers is a distinct segment of the legal market. From my experience, the more narrow the segment, the better.
One of my favorite definitions is that a legal niche is a position of happiness. Well, maybe for me it is a position of contentment, but let us not squabble. The point is why would a niche not make you happy or contented as a lawyer? You become somebody that people or companies need and want. You become an attorney of choice for many, which is more than you can say for those lost in the wandering generalities of law. You get to work with people and in an industry of your choice. It allows you to have a passion for the type of work you are doing, it allow you to strive to master a defined legal segment more than anybody else but,most important to me, you become proficient so that you pretty much know how a case should be approached and handled better than anybody else both in terms of the law and procedurally. You have a superior product knowledge in an area that people or companies or entities need and want. You are the expert on which people can rely. That leads to referrals and to ready prospects. That leads to money and a good living.
Yet, no matter how desirable a niche legal practice might be, it is also aloof to most or many lawyers, law students and recent graduates. It is hard to find or discover the niche they wish to concentrate their efforts. It is difficult for them to make a decision to bet their future, livelihood and happiness on a particular venture.
WHY FINDING A NICHE IS A BITCH
This is where the bitch comes in.
Now sure, you could think of the term bitch in derogatory sense. I think since my initial ad in the 80s the term has become more accepted and less offensive. Or, I at least hope it has. It does not have to be used to describe someone as the female of the canine species or as a subordinate. Nowadays it has a lot of variations. It simply mean a complaint. It can mean a bad attitude. It can even mean any person forced into the middle portion of the backseat of a crowded car. One source says it is a general term used for anything.
In the context of this post it is used to mean to complain or a hardship. It concerns complaining about the inability to identify the right niche for you as a lawyer, or the hardship of deciding to roll the dice in pursuit of just this one segment of the law. Kind of like the idea of marriage to some where the commitment of marriage is keen, but the concept of forsaking all others is less so. Some lawyers cannot stand the thought of commitment to one practice area. I can tell you that this inability to identify and quantify a niche, and hesitation to make one small area of law materialize into a practice to the exclusion of all other law, is a major source of frustration for many, many lawyers.
THE NICHE IS ALL AROUND YOU - LOOK FOR THE JIFFY LUBE AREA OF PRACTICE
So where do you find a niche to consider?
I think the best answer is to just look around you. Do not look at legal areas as much as look at consumer, business, governmental and non-profit issues. Look at what these people, businesses, industries, governmental entities, and not for profits do, and what services they need. Often it is best for someone without a background to analyze these people and groups because insiders too often get lost in the forest. Practitioners get so lost in doing everything, they never get a chance to recognize or act on the most cost effective and profitable niches that might exist.
In your looking, see if you can identify what I like to call the Jiffy Lube practice within the industry. Like its namesake, that is the small, manageable, and highly profitable sector of a larger practice area that can and will attract its own clients. Jiffy Lube, and others like it, pulled the easiest, most profitable, and lowest overhead segment out of the auto mechanic trade and set it up in its own environment. It is that for which you, as a lawyer, are looking. Oil and filter changes use to be the services offered by large mechanic shops to support their other less profitable and time consuming services. An example in law might be forsaking wills, trusts and estates and pulling probate and administration of estates for average people out of the practice area and operating in that practice in a stand alone environment.
We live in a legalistic society. For all of the talk of cutting "red tape" nobody, liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, state or federal officeholder, wants to regulate that which they do not like. Red tape is not going away. But, this does not mean that all portions of practice areas are overly profitable.
My point is that most niches are right under our noses. I have posted or discussed a number of these I have discovered over the last couple of years. Wesley Clark (the soon to be graduate from the University of Florida Frederic G. Levin College of Law and not the former Supreme Allied Commander and presidential candidate) and I have been discussing a practice just limited to enforcement issues concerning the alcohol beverage commissions on a state level. Whereas Big Law has hospitality practices that assist large chains, restaurant, bars, liquor stores and grocery stores in obtaining alcohol beverage licenses, most of these establishments do not retain Big Law on enforcement issues. How did I figure this out? Talking to lawyers? No. Just shooting the breeze I was talking to the manager of a Kroger store in The Woodlands, Texas. The issue also came up at a Knight of Columbus Hall that was tagged by the TACB for serving a drink in the Bar on Bingo Night to a non-member. Then I got to reading all I could, not in legal journals, but on the Internet.
The other night the mother of a young lady that my son in high school is hanging out with dropped by my house. It turns out she is a Realtor. We ended up having a good conversation about the difficulties Realtors have in closing real estate transactions on which they have worked so hard, and on which they rely for their livelihood.
One of my points is that Realtors are having some specific legal problems (or rather their buyers, sellers and lenders are having problems), and the goal is to figure out how you can help them solve those in a consistent and identifiable way. If you can, you likely have a profitable niche.
My other point is that the opportunity to learn of a niche practice of law is everywhere except, maybe, at the local bar association meetings, law schools and continuing legal education seminars and conferences.
EXAMPLES OF WHAT I HAVE FOUND
Below are some of the niche practices I have discussed or about which I have posted in the last couple of years. The objective of posting these choices here are twofold. First, I discovered these as I went about my everyday life, and so can you. Second, these niches demonstrate the variety of legal niches that are out there to be discovered and developed.
Just probate (not estate planning)
Keeping personal injury attorneys honest
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK OR WHAT ELSE TO DO TO OVERCOME THE NICHE BITCH
Still looking to overcome the niche bitch? Here are few ways you might want to start to get a handle on what is available for you.
1. Take you own survey. This is what I discussed above. Do not be a Bush. Remember, whether it was true or not, pundits continually stated that George W. Bush was a bright guy, but he lacked intellectual curiosity. You want to employ intellectual curiosity. Talk to people outside of the law to see how the law affects them, in their professions and trades, and in ways they are not finding immediate help or sufficient relief. I once met an attorney that figured out that people are typically loyal to their grocery stores. Yet the customer gets into a financial bind and bounces a check to the store. The stores need to collect the check, but they also do not want to run off the customer. To prevent this the stores did not want to be too aggressive and did not want to embarrass the customers who wrote the hot check. Combine that with the fact that despite the fees the store can charge for the hot check, the store managers were often too busy to both aggressively and diplomatically follow up timely on the hot checks. The lawyer started a practice of just collecting the hot checks for grocery stores. His first task was to connect with the check writer to tell them that the store wanted their continued business and does not mind taking checks in the future, but the NFS check had to be paid first. If so, privileges will be immediately restored. If not, the attorney would have to have the hot check charge prosecuted. I was a little shocked to hear that the lawyer typically got paid the $25 fee the stores typically were allowed to charge for a hot check to do his initial work. Then he told me he collects most of the checks before prosecution because the customer wants privileges back at the store, and at that point in his career he was receiving approximately 1,000 new checks a week, just from grocery stores. Since this time I have learned that fewer checks are being written to grocery stores with the advent of debit cards, but it is also true that a larger percentage of checks still written, as a result, are bad and must be collected.
2. Follow your passion. All of us have strange, unique, offbeat and quirky passions in life. Maybe it is an obsession. You are well positioned to look at those areas carefully from a legalistic standpoint. I have met more than one attorney that loves motorcycles and have managed to build legal practices around other enthusiasts. I have known attorneys that have loved golf and have built practices around golf. I have know attorneys that are pilots and have built practices around planes. I knew an attorney that loved Christian rock groups and built a practice representing Christian rock groups. The areas are endless.
3. Go surfing. While you are looking at your passions and following your intellectual curiosity, use the greatest tool ever invented to get a feel for what is happening. Not long ago I got interested in HOAs. I spent countless hours conceiving of Google searches on HOAs and community associations. Then I clicked on and read all of the articles, blog posts, websites I could find. Maybe it comes in bits and pieces, but it is amazing what you learn and surmise just surfing the Internet.
4. Delve into your existing practice area. Heck, you are already in the zone. Spend some time breaking the practice area down into its comment parts. Which is the most systematic? Which component would allow you to operate with the smallest overhead? Which component is the most efficient for you to handle by yourself or a limited staff? Which component is the most profitable and less time consuming? Are other lawyers stymied by the component? Is there sufficient demand for it outside of your practice? For example, QDROs are a pain in the butt to most family law attorneys. I have heard of several attorneys that now just do QDROs upon completion of a divorce case. It is easier for the QDRO attorney because he or she is set up to handle the issues efficiently. It is easier for the family law attorney to refer the QDRO matter because he or she does not deal with it in every case, and is not set up to handle it efficiently.
5. Ask the professionals. Try talking to more broad based attorneys about their practices. If they think about it, they can explain to you the outlier areas on which they do not have time to concentrate or which prove difficult. They can tell you which segment of their larger practice area is the most profitable. It is of these areas on which niche practices are built. It is also of this that your referral sources are built. Can you imagine being told by a family law attorney that an outlier area might be obtaining or dealing with competent ad litem attorneys to represent the best interest of a children. This information could allow you to establish a law firm that limits your representation to the best interest of children in a divorce, custody, inheritance, personal injury recovery, or child abuse situations. At the point you might be told this by a family law attorney, you know it is undeserved, and you know that attorneys and judges are the key to the referral. You not only have the idea, but you know the attorney that gave you the idea is not your competition, and is your likely referral source.
6. Go to court. Just go and sit in Court. You do not have to represent someone. List to the problems and the issues expressed. What strange situations seem to come up with which the court or the judges must deal. Then, pigeonhole the lawyers involved and ask questions. You might have to wait for the lawyer to finish with his cases or that client, but they will often talk to you.
7. Replicate a niche geographically. I agree, lawyers do not like competition. But, do you think I care if someone wants to do stay and discharge injunction violations in another area of the country? Lawyers in other jurisdictions can be of big help. In short, steal the practice niche someone has already developed. You can even get the attorney you are stealing it from to help you, as long as he or she does not see you as immediate competition for their potential cases.
8. Replicate a niche generationally. If some attorney has developed a good niche, let us say, selling wills and estate planning services to the elderly, then think about doing the same thing as to those entering the hospital or hospice care, or new parents, or gay couples if that is your choosing.
UNDERSTANDING THE LAW AND PROCEDURES INVOLVED IS MERELY SECONDARY
Understand that in all of this discussion we have not much focused on practice area or niche law knowledge. This is because the first objective is to find the idea or inspiration. Also, knowledge or the lack thereof is well overrated. That is really the stuff of your law school training -- to research the law and summarize it. Most entrepreneurs only had a rudimentary knowledge of the business they started. I think the same is true for any niche practice. But, none of this is important until you first overcome the niche bitch that is preventing you from moving forward in the profitable and enjoyable practice of law. All else is secondary.
I may not be the former Supreme Allied Commander, but I do, among some friends, have the nickname "The General".
Great post Chuck. I'm coming around to not thinking of finding a niche as a task or goal, but rather an adventure. I definitely do not lack in intellectual curiosity as I'm sure my internet browsing history could attest. Eyes wide open, I figure I'll keep looking until I find the right fit. And even when I find the right fit, who knows? Maybe I can still find a better fit.
My mom told me a while back that still, to this day, she doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up. And she's been a school teacher and administrator for 15+ years and has loved it!
Posted by: Wes | April 16, 2009 at 12:11 AM
Truly great stuff, thanks for walking me through the process of niche evaluation! You know, you could probably create a service of finding and evaluation niches...
Posted by: Scott Palmer | April 16, 2009 at 05:52 AM
You know, I've always thought my curiosity would prevent me from finding a niche because I want to do a little bit of everything. The word "niche" resounds in my soul more like the words "routine" or "groove" which are only a few repetitions away from "rut" and are thus to be avoided at all costs.
I'm going to contemplate a few of the niche ideas you've posted--thanks!
Posted by: Dallas | April 16, 2009 at 06:21 PM
Great post, Chuck! Incredible, actually.
My main worry with a tight niche is that all your eggs are in one basket. What happens when that market dries up? You're toast, unless you can scramble to quickly find another niche. But if you've positioned yourself well in Niche A, you will have branded that into people's minds. It would be hard to change the mental association.
Maybe I'm paranoid. (Is someone watching me?)
Posted by: Andrew Flusche | April 16, 2009 at 09:51 PM
@Andrew...Those are reasonable concerns, IMO. I would expect the solo to be in tune with possible paradigm shifts within or relating to their niche. Certainly, from time to time, pure innovation will render a service much less valuable. But hopefully the active third wave solo will be able to foresee the shift and adapt themselves.
I believe that is a risk of doing business. Sometimes you need to evolve, regardless of your choice of practice area. It can cost money, time and other resources. But I believe it can be done. Businesses often retool and reposition. I think you can explain that story to people and they will understand it. Sure, takes a little energy. But what'd be the upside if it just all fell in your lap? :)
Posted by: Wes | April 16, 2009 at 11:35 PM
this post perfectly elaborate niche evaluation.
niche is all around us and it is amazing source of earning lot of money
great post:)
Posted by: Mike Miller | March 08, 2010 at 05:57 AM