The firm I’m currently working at is a litigation based general practice firm.  Basically, if it’s litigation, we take it (along with the rare transactional matter for our long-term clients).  This is a great thing for me — I’m getting exposure to a number of different areas of litigation practice.  Of course, this philosophy of taking it all has me thinking about the future launch of my own practice.

When you open up your own small firm, you have to ask yourself — do I want to be a generalist or a niche-ist?  That’s right — niche-ist, not specialist (I steer clear of the term specialist because a number of states are considering having “specialist” certifications for different practice areas, a philospohy I’m opposed to for a number of reasons I’ll discuss at a later time).

The answer to that question really comes down to several different factors.  First, you have your desired practice areas.  You may only want to do estate planning, or criminal defense work, or you may want to practice in a large number of areas.

Second, you have your target location.  This can be very important.  If you’re planning on running your practice in a small town/isolated community, you’ll probably have to be a generalist — there likely won’t be enough business in a particular practice area to support you.  Of course, if you have a working spouse and only want to practice a little on the side while raising kids (or some other situation akin to this), you can probably then get by limiting your practice areas.  If you plan on practicing in a large metropolis, then you’re probably better off finding a niche.

Third, you need to consider your future clientele.  Who do you want to serve?  If you want to serve Fortune 500 companies, you need to figure out what they’re looking for in outside counsel.  Are they looking for someone who has a niche practice in commercial litgation, or someone with a practice that does criminal defense, personal injury, commercial litigation, estate planning and elder law, among other things?  If you want to serve the poor/underprivileged/disenfranchised, look at the practice areas they’re most likely to need representation in.  Large scale commercial litigation, insurance defense and intellectual property law are probably not their biggest concerns.

Of course, what it really comes down to is which of these factors is most important to you.  Perhaps you really want to do estate planning — you’ll fnd a location that makes it work and an appropriate target market.  You’re from a small town and really want to spend the rest of your life there?  You’ll open a practice that provides a broad enough range of legal services to support yourself.  You don’t care about money — you’re still that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed idealist out of law school?  You’ll open a practice to serve the people you want to help.

The important thing is figuring out which of these factors is most important to you, and defining your ideal practice in such a way that it address all three factors.