The major challenge for law firms, whether global giants, medium-sized or small practices in the 21st century has been to identify those sectors in which they are already leaders among their peers or where they stand a realistic chance of carving a niche, and then to build their reputation quickly in those sectors.
For the firms that have taken this course one consequence is that formerly broad-based practices, providing traditional litigation, corporate, property and private client advice to a broad range of clients – corporate or individual, manufacturing or service sector, domestic or international – have become sector-focused to the point where individual practice areas may no longer fit with the firm’s overall strategy. Sometimes this leads to the closure of whole departments; sometimes it leads to firms taking strategic decisions to cut marketing and technical support for non-core areas. Either way the partners must move on.
