As the New Year approaches, it’s time to give some more thought to the legal marketing benefits of practice groups. But, I am not talking about forming groups based on areas of law that we learned in law school. Rather, your practice groups should be client-focused; i.e., structured in terms of the needs of specific clients and their industry. As I mentioned in a post I did nearly two years ago, your practice groups should be organized based on the needs of specific client types, for example:

“Your practice groups should be multi-disciplinary in nature. For example, in the health care area, a group should consist of lawyers with expertise in administrative law, employment, environmental, business entities, contracts, real estate, tax, estate planning, litigation, and so forth. In other words, structure your practice groups to meet the needs of a client segment whatever your firm’s size.”

Joel Rose, a law firm management consultant, spoke recently on practice groups at a gathering of marketers at a Philadelphia Bar Association-sponsored meeting. His remarks were reported by Barbara S. Kaplan in an article on Law.com. I totally agree with the comment:

“In the majority of financially and professionally successful law firms, practice or industry groups are inherent to client development Rose said.” (emphasis mine)

For Joel’s “(c)ommon identifiable elements of those firms” see Barbara’s article.