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Niche Practice Area: How to Amplify Your Geographic Connection
When most lawyers think about niche practice, their notion is that of a practice limited to one, or a few, practice areas. And, that’s one of the chief reasons that attorneys approach the notion of a niche practice with some combination of trepidation and dread. Because selling out on one or a few practice areas brings with it risk. It could work out famously — or, not so much — which would necessitate a shift in the entire practice to resolve. Of course, that’s not the only way to get niched.
If you work in a community with comparatively few lawyers — not necessarily a ‘rural’ practice. just a practice operating as the sole, or one of a few providers in, a local community — you can effectively create a niche as ‘the local attorney’. Now, the nature of that locality is almost entirely dependent on whether you can generate enough clients from it to support a practice. Even so, the options are perhaps wider than you imagine. If you’re located in a metropolitan area, you could potentially derive the majority of your clients from a particular section of the city, or even a single neighborhood. If you live in a town, there are plenty of opportunities to become active in community events, including the opportunity to drive some of those events yourself. You can focus on a region, instead of an entire state. And, if you live in a small enough locale, you can become the lawyer on the ‘town square’, as it were.
Getting small may seem like a comedown; but, law firms are already fenced in by jurisdictional requirements. And, it’s true that more focused businesses tend to be more likely to succeed in competitive environments, while businesses with overbroad message usually don’t have the wide appeal hoped for.
So, if you want to niche up, without committing to one or a few practice areas, just look outside your office door.
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If you need assistance sourcing local, we can help.
The Wyoming State Bar offers free law practice management consulting services through Red Cave Law Firm Consulting. To request a consult, visit the Wyoming State Bar’s law practice management page, and start running your law firm like a business.
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