Canadian Lawyer, a Thompson Reuters business that provides objective reporting and analysis of the legal landscape from coast to coast, defines «boutique firms» as collections of lawyers specializing in
niche areas of the law as opposed to general practice firms that house of variety of practice areas under one roof.
Not exact matches
It's been thirty years since the passage
of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and now it's finally bearing fruit
as a thriving
niche practice
area for
law firms, according to the Washington Post.
Blogs essentially function
as microsites by aggregating commentary in a
niche area of the
law, and can be just
as effective
as more traditional microsites at building thought leadership in a particular practice
area.
However, in many (though not all cases) blogs tend to consist primarily
of chronologically ordered commentary on recent legal developments in a
niche practice
area, while traditional microsites tend to also feature extensive libraries
of resources such
as (in the case
of Law and Ethics Online) links to lobbying
laws, rules and regulations in all 50 States.
The lecocqassociate group consists
of three international offices: lecocqassociate Geneva,
as a boutique
law firm specialised in the
niche areas of regulatory banking and corporate finance, lecocqassociate Malta
as a regulatory advisory practice and lecocqassociate Dubai
as a structuring advisory practice.
Having initially planned on becoming a solicitor, Jenny found her
niche in brands and trade marks and decided to follow a non-traditional route into this specialist
area of law, joining Carl Steele
as a registered trade mark attorney in Ashfords» IP Team.
If you are sure about the
area of law that you want to go into and it is an
area that the larger firms might not focus on,
niche law firms such
as Kingsley Napley, Simkins or Farrer & Co could be the right fit for you.
They often target a
niche audience, like Goodwin Proctor's Founder's Workbench, or provide very
niche knowledge and information in heavily technical
areas of law, such
as Allen & Overy LLP's aosphere.com.
The first step, he says, is to find a
niche, then «establish yourself
as a thought leader» in that narrow
area of law.
However, it's telling that the research doesn't break down its subjects by practice
area; it's hard to imagine that a solicitor with low sociability could, for instance, make a success
of family
law, which requires bucket loads
of personal interaction and,
as very best in the
niche know, a generous capacity for empathy.