Divorce Lawyers Should Practice All Family Law

Family Law can be divided into four categories: Family Break Ups, Wills and Estates, Adoptions, and Elder Law (i.e. nursing home law). The most tempting thing for divorce lawyers to do is just to practice what they know. The problem with this is how to market just a narrowly focused firm, when it sounds so much better to brand yourself as a Family Attorney. While marketing and branding maybe too soft of fields for most attorneys, divorce lawyers need to be particularly sharp to sensitivities when advertising their services to the general public because of the subject matter of what they are offering.

Marketing yourself just as a narrowly focused firm should work well for you, as long as you are not appealing to a broad audience. For instance, if you have a listing in a telephone directory or on the internet, it is good to have it so that your potential clients can easily identify the type of work that your firm does. This type of marketing, however, is limited to people who are actively searching for services in the areas that you are listing them.

A better way is to be able to list your law firm throughout your local community and be able to reach a variety of different audiences. This is because there are a lot of people that may not be aware of your services. While people may be aware of generally what you have to offer, they may not know the price at which you can deliver such services, the quality of service that you have, or anything else that distinguishes you from other attorneys in the same field. (From economics, just as demand creates supply, another law of economics is that supply creates demand.)

But to get in front of people through mainstream media, you will need to add on another category of Family Law so that you are not just under divorce lawyers. It is hard to imagine any being offended by advertising yourself as a Family Attorney. When you do this, you can describe the type of services that you provide (such as custody, child and spousal support, pre-nuptials, etc.) such that people will understand the nature of the service that you are providing without being offended by advertising something that is considered disruptive to society.

Taking this approach (i.e. broadening the legal services offered) should allow you to make a lot more money. After all, there are only a finite number of people in need of divorce lawyers in a geographical area. By drafting wills and doing other estate work, you can quickly earn much more money than you otherwise would have. This does not mean that you suddenly have to learn a new area of the law; rather you can focus just on doing uncontested and simple work that is outside of your main area of knowledge.

The above material is intended for information purposes only. It is not intended as professional legal advice and should not be construed as such. Attorney William H. Beaumont practices in New Orleans, La.