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Building the Family Law Practice

By Les Altenberg
May 30, 2013

It is a tendency for law firms ' whether they are single or multi-practice ' to want to be all things to all people. After all, the reasoning goes, if you can target a larger audience of potential clients, then you are also more likely to attract and convert more of them as well.

The problem with this thinking, however, is that it rests on two false premises. First, it fails to take into account that, in order to be moved toward action (i.e., picking up the phone and calling the attorney), a prospect will most often need to be exposed to that firm a threshold number of times. Business development efforts that fall short of such thresholds are literally throwing money away. Second, in trying to be all things to all people, law firms run the risk of failing to distinguish themselves from their competitors. This is no trivial concern because it necessitates spending even more money just to keep up with those who may be dominating the market.

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