Probate As Your Market Niche

By probate I am not talking about just probating wills.  I am talking about probate and administration of estates.

A lot of communications come my way from recent or soon to be law school graduates who are planning to go out on their own.  For some reason they seek my advice on what practice area they should concentrate their efforts.  That is fine with me because I like to look at niche practices now and then.  I do not mind speculating with those that ask.  So, let me speculate a little with you now on one such niche area.

You say that probate is not a niche.  It is a recognized practice area.  Where that is true, I will tell you that a niche can either represent a very defined and often unusual practice area, like the one in which I practice (stayviolation.com), or a market point.  By market point, I mean your point of distinction between you and all of the other will, trust, estate lawyers out there.

I refer to it as the Jiffy Lube experience.  Somebody, at some time, looked at the automobile repair business and discovered that of everything an automobile dealer or mechanic shop does, it's easiest, most systematized, and hence most profitable area was oil changes.  Maintenance was the main reason that vehicles were brought in to dealers and shops, yet the customers had to compete with the more complicated and time consuming tasks of car repair in order to get their vehicles service.   Automobile mechanics loved it because it gave them a chance to review the automobiles brought in by customers for maintenance for other more costly repairs and upgrades.  But, the oil change business was not a loss leader.  In terms of dollar amount it might have been smaller, but in terms of profit it was the largest component of any dealer or shop.  So, why not carve out oil changes and maintenance services and sell it to the public over that offered by any dealer or shop for its speed, efficiency and lower costs.  It was, in short, the hidden gem in auto repair trade if you could sell it separately as a convenience.

The key then in analyzing a practice area for a niche is to break the practice area into its component parts, to see what can be more systematized, what is profitable (not a loss leader), and an area that can be independently marketed.  Hopefully, in independently marketing or promoting this component you can differentiate yourself from your colleagues whose focus is too broad or emphasis is hidden.

This, it seems to me, is where probate comes in.  It is not that other lawyers do not do probate.  It is also not that you do not want to do wills or guardianship or the like.  Rather, it is were the emphasis lays.  Do you want to make yourself into a wills, trusts, estates, elder care expert, or do you want to be the areas authority on probate and administration of estates?

Sure there are some lawyers that make a good deal of money off of estate planning, but by and large that is catering to the wealthiest among us.  That is a very limited market and there are actually a good number of attorneys chasing it.  Further, the analysis is not as easy to systematize.

There is elder care.  This is a nice attempt to take a hodgepodge of services with an attempt at branding them with some term that might eventually have meaning.  I see no indication that this works well.  It sounds more like elder day care than medical directives, guardianship, wills and power of attorneys.

To the degree that elder care stands for planning around Medicaid for future nursing home care, that has been a controversial topic over the years.  It is a worthy issue and objective, but the truth of the matter is that most families do not start this planning soon enough, and it does not effect most families.  It is hard to identify among the menu of items sold under elder care, and it is hard to sell.

Wills and small estate plans are mainly loss leaders.  Attorneys try to pile them up believing that the family of the deceased will later come calling for a probate.  But, except for the wealthy needing intense planning, the nasty little secret is that most wills pretty much mirror the intestacy laws, with some moderate variations.  The main reason to have a will is to substantially cut the costs your relatives and loved ones will have to pay after you pass.  It is, in short, cheaper to probate a simple will than it is to administer an estate.  Lawyers now do simple wills and other documents for a little bit of nothing.  You can do one for free on the Internet.  Other sites and software programs are sold for less than $100.00.  In this day and age an attorney is paid a little something to walk people through the process and make sure the will and other documents are executed properly, but most middle class families are not willing to pay much for that service.

The main problem with piling up wills, is that loyalty to attorneys is not what it use to be.  Families and beneficiaries are not as likely to retain you as the lawyer just because you help draft the will.  And, like I indicated above, many of these wills are now completed online, through typing services, through pre-paid legal services, by law school legal clinics, and with the help of volunteers with soldiers leaving the country, and the like.  There is no loyalty there.  Even if you maintain the will for the client you are just as likely to get a call from another attorney asking for the will of the deceased.

If your mission is to get everybody a will because it is in their own best interest (and it is), then just give them away.  Hold will-a-thons in which you can direct many at once through the process.  Collect them and save them and see what happens.  Do free wills and other documents for people in the hospitals and nursing homes, and build good will.  That is what I mean by loss leader.

Living trusts are out of vogue.  The Texas Bar for one has really cracked down on the marketing of living trusts stating that most of what is sold to average people is misleading.  Aggressively market living trusts in Texas and you might need to calculate your disbarment date.  And, the reason is that it is misleading for the vast majority of people.  Living trusts is a mechanism for the very rich.  It is misleading to suggest that it could save the average person estate taxes, when estate taxes hardly exist in Texas for example.  It also does not reduce the cost of probate in that probating a will in Texas is not overly expensive, most people with living trusts still end up with an estate to probate, and there are costs in dissolving the trust after one's death.  They can also create adverse results while someone is still living, such as in bankruptcy situations.

So, probate and administration of estates is the crown jewel.  It is what offers to this area of law the Jiffy Lube experience.  At any one time in this country there are over 6 million cases in probate with a value of over $3 tillion in assets.  To put it in perspective, there are more than six times as many probate cases filed in this country than there are bankruptcy cases.  Yet, there are fewer lawyers that practice probate on a full time basis.  The money received for a typical probate is about the same received for a standard consumer bankruptcy case.  Yet, you do not see TV spots, and full page phone book ads, and targeted direct mail aimed at creating a market for what appears to be the most plentiful of cases after family law in this country.

Yet, where is the emphasis on probate in the industry, which would indicate it is nothing but a subpart of what an attorney might be looking to do.  To satisfy myself, for example, I ran a Google search for probate in Houston, Texas.  Certainly, attorneys use key words and buy placement under probate, but click on and view each of their websites.  Many are general litigation firms that have probate buried on some web page.  Others advertise flat fee wills, and oh yeah they also do probate.  They mix it up and confound it with everything else in the world and with the overall practice area and, as a result, probate does not stand out.  Hence you do not stand out.  Many just want to promote the fact they are board certified in estate planning.  I tend to think this lends a degree of credibility, but it should not be the market point.

I really do not understand this.  What it tells me is that probate is real bread and butter of most estate planning law firms, but these attorneys are afraid to put it front and central and promote themselves as the probate authority in their geographic area.  They bet that consumers and grieving loved ones will wade through their websites to determine if there is some way the firm may help.

I run into these lawyers from time to time at bar meetings and the like.  I ask, so what do you do?  The answer is almost always, "I practice estate planning", or "I'm a wills and trusts attorney".  The new one is that "I practice elder care".  I guess all of this just sounds more sanitary to these attorneys than "I represent the estates of dead people".  Regardless, for most of these attorneys the good part of their living comes from probate and instead of being upfront about it, they are not.  That just does not represent good marketing judgment.

The response to my question should be something like, "I help people deal with legal issues after their family member or loved one has died or passed away.  It is a very trying time, and I find it rewarding to be of help".

And, if you are willing to be upfront about what you do, and market exactly for these cases you desire, then this practice area lends itself well to relationship and network marketing that is cheap and effective.

Comments

[PerGynt]

I did this with Deckbuilding in the new home market. It was a serious winner, back when they were building a lot of new homes.

[Patti Spencer]

I agree 100%. In fact, I am in the process of forming a new LLC to provide tax and accounting support to law firms for estate admisnitration. Like all areas of law, estate adminsitration is becoming more complicated and new areas of liability keep popping up. To serve clients effectively, you really need to concentrate in this area, or get help from someone else who does.

[Long]

Funny, you've basically described my practice!

[Best Probate Lawyer in UK]

If you are embroiled in contentious probate litigation or if you want to ensure that the administration and executorship of your estates is hassle free, then without wasting time, you should directly approach the best probate lawyers in UK.

[gmj]

Aren't most probate attorneys appointed by the court on a rotating basis? if i'm right about this, then what's the point of marketing a probate practice to consumer? the name of the game is getting appointed by the probate court, and you're only going to get some many cases.