In business diversification boosts revenue. Selling two things is usually better than selling just one. That’s particularly true when the two things are similar enough to appeal to the same type of customers. Hammers and nails, not hammers and ice cream toppings.
Legal practices are just as commercial as any other business, but diversification isn’t as straightforward. The law is expansive and lawyers specialize largely due to personal bandwidth. While it’s better to be a master of one trade than a jack of all in the legal field, lawers can strengthen their practice by picking up adjacent specializations.
In this article, we will take a look at what that means and how to make it happen.
Premise:
Easy though it may be to lean into a single specialization, the United States legal system is not a sea full of islands, but an endlessly woven web. No practice area stands completely alone. Tax law can mingle with criminal law. Criminal law can mingle with injury law. Injury law can mingle with traffic law.
No matter how insulated you try to make your practice, you will inevitably come into constant contact with other legal areas. Of course, sometimes, it will be in your best interest to make a referral.
Indeed, that may be your typical move. Developing a relationship with other law firms can ensure that you get referrals as well as give them, helping you develop a healthy roster of free, qualified leads.
Still, sometimes you’ll get business opportunities that are outside your primary practice area, but still within your wheelhouse. Why throw that business to someone else?
There are pitfalls. You don’t want to chase every job at the expense of specializing. However, you can develop carefully cultivated systems and standards that will allow you to smoothly take on more projects. The key is to identify practice areas that will provide the highest gains with the lowest costs. What lucrative work would be relatively easy for you to start picking up? That’s the question.
Why Lawyers Specialize
So why do lawyers usually zero in on one specialization? Market saturation is one of the reasons. There are so many lawyers out there, all competing for a limited number of localized clients. Specializations increase your visibility. They make it easier to find your practice on a search engine. They make your services easier to understand on a billboard. They also help with branding.
Cross-specialization is best executed as organically as possible. For example, a lawyer who handles traffic tickets also specializes in DUIs. DUIs, of course, combine criminal law with traffic law.
But just because this lawyer has taken on a criminal case does not mean that they will start representing people accused of murder. That would be more than a few steps removed from their core competency of traffic law.
Choose Wisely
Brushing up on new practice areas can require a significant amount of work. You want to make sure your efforts are worthwhile. Focus on things that you find interesting, but also cross specializations that align with your current brand identity. You don’t want to move into so many practice areas that potential clients struggle to even understand what you do.
Remember that doing good work remains key. You need to keep your reputation intact as you branch out.
Will I Need Extra Training?
Most lawyers do not require extra certification once they have passed the bar. They choose specialized practice areas out of interest rather than necessity. There are exceptions for highly specialized legal categories like patent law, or tax law.
Most probably, you would not cross-specialize in these categories, both because it is complex and fairly unnatural.
Still, there could be overlap. For example, someone specialized in estate law could come across clients who need help with tax law as well. In that case, you can either decide to further specialize, or develop a mutually beneficial referral relationship that will help you drum up more business in your core competency.
Conclusion
The goal should be to have a core competency or two, and then a healthy understanding of adjacent practice areas that can help your practice sponge up extra work from time to time.
In other words, get good at picking that low-hanging fruit. If a client comes in saying, “By the way, what do you know about…” isn’t it nice to be able to get a little extra business out of it?
