The Lawyers Weekly - April 6, 2012

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
April 6, 2012 | 21

BUSINESS
CAREERS

JORDAN
FURLONG

Here’s a handy way to remember the correct pronunciation of “niche.” It’s not “nitch,” as in “I’m rich!” It’s “neash,” as in “I’m on a short leash.” This should also help you remember your financial prospects for the immediate future.

Don’t get me wrong—niche law practices will represent many successful solo and small-firm law practices in the years to come. There will still be room for “ general practitioners” but, increasingly, these practices will flourish mainly in smaller communities with few legal service options. Legal GPs tend to deliver services in real estate, wills, family and other areas highly vulnerable to do-it-yourselfers and non-lawyer providers, significantly dimming their future prospects.

Niche law practices, on the other hand, reflect the highly fragmented and specialized market that we’re now entering. The complexity of most legal fields has forced many lawyers to narrow their focus in order to competently deliver services in their chosen field. Meanwhile, Google has helped clients more easily find specific experts to help with a problem.

It’s a niche world, and the law is joining it.

None of that, however, should cloud your vision of how challenging it is to get a new practice off the ground, especially one that intends to eliminate many types of

niche. Take on their overflow work, but be sure they know your focus and that you’re a reliable resource for more specialized matters. (In return, send them files that are out of your bailiwick altogether, to return the favour.)

Build a reputation within your community as “that lawyer who does” your kind of work. This can be achieved through speaking engagements, bar luncheon addresses, and local newsletter articles and a website.

attractive in a tight economy.

Secondly, you can only offer flat fees if you have a clear sense of your internal costs of doing business, something that is absolutely essential to an independent law practice but to which many traditional practices pay less attention than they should. Make your pricing scheme a competitive advantage and part of your firm’s financial foundation.

Be passionate about your niche

Hoping to make loads of money is just about the worst reason to start any kind of law practice, especially a highly specialized one. You need to care deeply about this area, either because its individual clients really need help or because its industry is doing incredibly cool things or because it’s been your lifelong dream to be involved in this area.

Be public with your passion, let other lawyers and potential clients see it and be impressed by it. That’s really the core advantage of a niche law practice: It concentrates your enthusiasm and dedication in ways that others will appreciate and remember. n

potential clients. So here are five suggestions about diving into a niche law career.

Make gradual progress

Start by taking on legal work
you can do, even if it isn’t in your
specific field. Law is a cash-flow
business, and you need to get and
keep the cash flowing from the
start. Don’t worry if it’s not “the
stuff you really want to do,” at least
at this stage. In most cases, niche
practice status is a destination
toward which you make steady
progress, not the place where you
land on Day One. Work your way
there patiently.

Build an online presence

Niche practices are ideal for the Internet age because distant clients can find you online and ( presuming your jurisdictional competence) engage your services. Launch a website that emphasizes your niche area, including a blog; if there are other niche law blogs out there, further qualify yours with your physical location (city, province, region) or your client base (industries, individuals, demographic groups).

Supplement your blog with an active Twitter feed. Bolster your LinkedIn presence by emphasizing your niche and seek connections with other users who have similar interests. Amplify your friends-and-family network with a Facebook account for your practice.

Seek out referrals

Much of your early work can be obtained from more experienced lawyers in your community whose practice areas are adjacent (and ideally complementary) to your

Offer fixed-fee pricing

There are two excellent reasons for a niche practice to implement non-hourly pricing. Clients are demanding more predictability in pricing, a fact to which larger and more established rivals haven’t yet responded; fixed fees will help you stand out and make you more

Jordan Furlong addresses law firms and legal organizations throughout North America on how to survive and profit from the changes under way in the legal services marketplace. He is a partner with Edge International, a senior consultant with Stem Legal, and a blogger at Law21: Dispatches from a Legal Profession on the Brink ( http://law21.ca), honoured four straight years by the ABA Journal as one of North America’s 100 best law blogs.

E-data costs to ‘overwhelm’

MICHAEL RAPPAPORT

Electronic data has “exploded” and the costs of production threaten to “overwhelm the costs of litigation” if not handled properly, warns Kelly Friedman, chairwoman of Sedona Canada, the group that spearheaded the task force to develop national e-discovery guidelines.

Friedman says the two major issues that Sedona Canada plans to tackle for 2012 are drafting protocols for co-operation between opposing counsel and standards for technology-assisted review in e-discovery.

Sedona Canada, an offshoot of
the Sedona Conference, a U.S.-
based non-profit legal and policy
think tank, finalized guidelines for
e-discovery four years ago, setting
out 12 principles for the disclosure
and production of electronically
stored information to be applied in
civil lawsuits across Canada. The
key principles enshrined in the
guidelines were proportionality
between the scope of documentary
disclosure and the issues at stake,
co-operation between opposing
counsel in fulfilling discovery obli-
gations, and the shifting of cost
burdens between the parties
requesting production.