Building the Family Law Practice

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.

These truths are particularly pertinent to family law practices, which, all too often, perceive themselves as providing basically the same set of legal services as the scores of competitors down the street. While this may have some legitimacy in that most family law practices handle divorces, custody matters, child support, etc., marketing-savvy firms understand the importance (and the potential gold mine) of carving out a specific niche within the family law arena.