Carving Out Your Niche: The Art of Differentiating Your Law Firm

Last week I was in Kansas City, and when I tell you I ate half my body weight in BBQ - well that would be hyperbole - but not by THAT much.

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Thank you to Mike Whelan for being a great tour guide and always being an excellent chat.

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I got to try Q39, Pigwich, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, and Arthur Bryant's BBQ.

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And here is what it made me think about - differentiation!

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At the highest level, you have food or sustenance.

Then restaurants that can be: 

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cheap and quick,

expensive and an experience,

or anything in between 

Then we limited it to BBQ restaurants with:

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can still run the gamut but tend to be gritty

smell like delicious meat and get you sort of messy

Then Kansas City BBQ which doesn't have specific meat of preference but does have the dry rub with a sweet sauce as well to carve out the city niche then these 4 places were VERY different from each other even within that space

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So what does that mean to your law firm? It means you need to differentiate yourself from the 400,000 other firms in the country (let alone the world, let alone non-attorney help, etc)

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In their book, Differentiate or Die, Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin discuss this topic, why it's important, and then give some examples.

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7 Ways to Differentiate your Firm

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The Biggest  - Morgan & Morgan (from a plaintiff's perspective)

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Clearly, this is a firm that has leaned into being the biggest. And let's be honest, from a consumer perspective, there's comfort in that. They became the biggest for a reason, lots of people will gravitate to that because it seems like: they've seen it all, have the experience, got good results, worked with other people you know, etc

The First- Thomson Snell & Passmore

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This firm has continuously run since 1570! Like they could have taken cases against the Spanish Inquisition but not sued the USA for another 200 years! 

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And from a client perspective, that means a lot of the same assumed benefits as above with the biggest.

Owning an Attribute - Crypto? Cannabis? NFTs?

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Airbnb might own the renting out of your house space (even if VRBO was first).

Uber might own the driving other people around in your car space (even if LYFT was first)

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But, this one is tough in the legal space because we are usually semi-behind in the times.  

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That being said, if you're not the newest or oldest, you might be the FIRST in a very specific niche or the newest. You might be able to use that freshness to your advantage positioning your firm against the old dinosaurs.

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The Leader

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Here's another tough one, and might even run afoul of some State Bar Rules if you call yourself the leader in something.

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However, if you've won any awards, or were ranked by some entity - you can certainly tout that to potential clients as making you the leader (according to...)

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The more prestigious the giver of the award, the more impactful it is to share. If the Derek Zoolander Foundation gave you the award for Attorneys who Attorney Good and do Other Things Good Too...that's not as helpful as Yelp ranked you #1 as the most reviewed law firm in town.

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Think about what organizations matter to your clients and try to win those awards.

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The Preferred Provider 

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It doesn't make a TON of sense to me, but if you're the official personal injury lawyer of the professional sports team in town - share it!

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Do make sure you ACTUALLY have that distinction in a way that you can market - just because you are THEIR lawyer, doesn't mean it's official (and might be an ethics violation)

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So make sure you're on the up and up.  

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I like this one a lot for injury firms, especially worker's comp firms as being the go-to official choice for blue-collar workers injured (just seems to be the same clientele)

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Have a History

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You might not be the first firm in the world, the country, the state, or even the town, but do you have history here?

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Do you have photos of the original partners doing a ribbon cutting?

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A black-and-white shot of the office downtown 30 years ago?

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Anything that lets people know you have ROOTS here? Then you better be singing that history!

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Be hot

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This is another one I genuinely don't know how you use well...but it's there!

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Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

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If that's you - and it makes sense to your ideal client (again, I stress that EXTRA on this one) then hey! Who doesn't want to hire the hottest firm in town?

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So how is your firm positioning itself differently from your competition? Let me know with a reply to this email.

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Until next week, have a wonderful weekend! May you not accidentally summon 3 witches who want to cause havoc on the world!

Until Next Friday,

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