Building Niche Legal Expertise

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zenda and I'll be your host. Welcome to another episode of the Effective Lawyer podcast. This is Jack Zinda and today I want to talk to you about a few quick tips on how to develop expertise in a niche practice area. And what do I mean by that? I mean, how do you become good at one of the many different areas of personal injury law that you could pursue? You know, most people think personal injury lawyers of handling car accidents or premises liability cases or workplace injuries, but there are literally hundreds of different areas that you can pursue, such as shooting cases, ski injury cases, 18 wheeler injuries, gas explosions, construction accidents, and that's just to name a few. 01:08 Speaker 1 And so I want to give you a framework for how you can do that and what the advantages to pursuing a niche practice area are. So first of all, why do it? Well, number one, personal injury law is an extremely competitive place to practice law for any of you that maybe advertise on TV or do AdWords. You know how expensive that can be. Trying to get referrals can be very difficult because a lot of attorneys are already trying to do that. So you, if you niche down, you make yourself an expert in an area that other lawyers aren't. For example, there's some amazing attorneys like Joe Fried and Mike Lieserman that solely handle truck accidents and are just amazing at it. Or Michael Cowan does the same thing. And the first thing to do is decide which area do you enjoy pursuing? 02:03 Speaker 1 So what piques your interest? I think that's really important. Number two, are there enough cases of that type where it makes sense to try to niche down? So for example, if I was going to pursue, let's say boat injury cases, and I lived in El Paso, Texas, that's probably a bad idea. So you want to first decide what niche you want to niche down to. Two, decide if it makes sense to do that. Are there enough cases in the geographic area you're practicing? And then number three, you want to figure out, okay, how do I get these types of cases, how do they occur? And then how do I get a knowledge base to be really good at them? So one way to do that is to study other cases. There's typically going to be cle topics on whatever topic you try to pursue. 02:55 Speaker 1 So I would go and look at continually education courses and say, okay, let's say I want to be the best of the best bicycle accident lawyer or bicycle rec lawyer, not to use the word accident. And I want to be known from that around my entire community. Okay, so the advantage of that is not every lawyer handles bicycle cases. Okay, that's number one. Number two, let's say I'm an avid cyclist. So it also matches with what I like to do. I love to cycle. I'm an avid cyclist. And number three, I'm helping people that are in the group that I like to be a part of. Four, I live in Austin, Texas, and there are tons of cyclists in Austin, Texas, and unfortunately, there are tons of incidences where a cyclist is hurt or killed on the roadway. So I've identified those three things. 03:47 Speaker 1 So I would then maybe go find someone who is an expert in it and see if I could take them to lunch and ask their advice on how to pursue those cases. I would then go read every CLE article I could find on cycling cases. Then I would maybe go do verdict research and see what side of verdict, what types of verdicts or results have happened in those. Then I would get into, like, what the practice area portion of it is. So, for example, learn all I can about cycling rules. What are the rules that are involved in cyclists that are different than other types of cases? So are there different regulations? Of course there are. Are there things that motorists have to do, things that cyclists have to do? And learn about as much about that as I can. 04:35 Speaker 2 This podcast is presented by Zynda Law Group, a nationwide personal injury firm. For over 10 years, the experienced lawyers at ZLG have been partnering with outside counsel across the United States on all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases. With over 30 attorneys, Zynda Law Group has paid out millions in referral and joint venture fees since 2015. To learn more about partnering with Zynda Law Group, please email us@re referrals zyndalaw.com we'll schedule a time for you to meet with Jack Zinda or one of our trial lawyers to discuss your case. 05:13 Speaker 1 So now I know I want to handle those types of cases. I know I'm going to enjoy it. I know there's enough of them. I've started getting good knowledge on it. So the next thing I have to do is go get those cases. So how do I market for those types of cases? First, I would make sure everybody in my community that's cyclist as well knows that I handle cycling cases. I would then potentially do volunteer work or charity work for people involved in the cycling community. I might write a blog article on cycling safety, do CLE talks on the importance of cyclist safety, go give talks at Local community centers or Rotary clubs, things like that. Maybe try to get on the CLE speaking tour talking about bicycle cases. 05:56 Speaker 1 And don't be afraid to put together a CLE paper before you've handled thousands of those. You can make it based on the law and you'll be surprised how easy it is to get a speaking engagement if you just go ask and you have a really unique topic that no one else is talking about. And by pulling all of those things together, you're able to establish yourself as a premier person in that practice area. The advantage of that is now you can handle really large cases in that niche and make a name for yourself. And once you do, it becomes very difficult for other attorneys to compete with you and you become the go to for that practice type. 06:32 Speaker 1 Another way to market yourself in that is to go and post on your local trial or listserv answers to particular questions involving that niche practice area. And then you'll start getting known as the expert in that type of case. And that framework can apply virtually to any type of case you can imagine. And if you're a young attorney and just opened your practice, this is a great way to get ahead quickly. I think the worst thing you can do is try to be a general practitioner or handle every type of case because when you do that, you're competing against everyone opposed to just committing against the cycling lawyer community or the truck accident lawyer community or the gas explosion lawyer community and those sorts of things. 07:17 Speaker 1 If you feel intimidated because say, man, I just don't know if I can get the expertise in this practice area type, go try to, you know, team up with another law firm that's handling cases like that. Or maybe take a year and work at that type of law firm and maybe take a little bit of a lesser pay than you might ordinarily do to get expertise on it for your long term target, long term goals. So hopefully you found this helpful. And just to summarize real quick, a few things. Number one, pick the niche that you think is going to bring you joy. Number two, make sure there's enough cases. Number three, become a subject matter expert on the law part of it. Number four, become a subject matter on the actual liability part or what's involved in that area. 08:00 Speaker 1 Five, make sure you are marketing yourself and holding yourself out as a niche in that practice area. And six, don't give up. I hope you found this helpful. If you need any more advice or any more questions, feel free to reach out. You can reach me@jackendalaw.com until next time. Thanks. 08:22 Speaker 2 Thanks for listening today's episode of the Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast zindalaw.com as always, we'd appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. Thanks.