By Melanie Fischer, Guest Blogger
Are you thinking about starting a career as a solo attorney? Or, are you thinking about changing the focus of your existing solo law practice? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you surely realize the importance of concentrating on an area of law that interests you and also has the potential for ensuring your law practice is profitable.
You may already have professional experience within a certain legal sector, or you may have worked in a specific industry at some point during your career. If either of these statements is true, you might want to focus your legal practice on an area in which you already have expertise. Or, you may want to venture into an area of law in which you have very little professional experience, but you have a sincere interest.
One of the greatest aspects of opening a solo law firm is that, as the attorney and owner of the firm, the direction your legal practice takes is completely up to you. You may want to only accept clients that require legal assistance on issues that focus on a common area of law. Or, you might want to take a bit more risk and focus on an emerging or niche legal sector. If you are unsure of the path to take, you should certainly take time to investigate the details of all legal practice areas that are of interest to you, and then make a decision on whether you want to dedicate your legal career to any of those sectors.
The website Hg.org offers a list of the 260 most common legal practice areas, with some of the most familiar being:
- Adoption
- Bankruptcy
- Business Law
- Criminal
- Divorce
- Family law
- Immigration
- Intellectual Property
- Personal Injury
- Tax Law
Do you want to focus on a common practice area, or do you want to target an emerging legal sector?
There are pros and cons to both options. By dedicating your legal practice to an area of law that will always be in demand, such as personal injury law, you will certainly be able to maintain a steady stream of clients – but you will also have more competition from other solo attorneys that practice the same type of law.
On the other hand, if you choose to focus your legal practice on an emerging area of law, you have the potential for carving out an interesting niche for your solo law firm.
Emerging and Niche Legal Practice Areas
Up and coming legal practice areas can be very profitable for a solo attorney. However, there are no guarantees and making the decision to focus on an emerging area of law involves a certain level of risk.
Here are examples of emerging or niche areas of law that are becoming increasingly popular among solo attorneys:
- Marijuana Law
- HealthCare Law
- Elder Law
- Cyber Crime Law
- LGBT Law
Committing to an Emerging Legal Practice
The decision to focus your legal practice on an emerging area of law is absolutely more challenging and risky than choosing to work in a more traditional legal sector. However, along with risk comes the potential for large rewards – in both the possibility of positive recognition in the legal arena, and also for the potential for financial success.
There are pros and cons to opening a solo law practice that focuses on traditional areas of law, and there are also positives and negatives associated with focusing your legal practice on emerging legal issues. The decision on which route to take is tough, and requires very careful consideration.
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