You’ve got to pick a practice area and focus on it exclusively.

Increasingly, the visitors to this site come from a variety of practice areas. When I started writing here, I focused on family law and assumed most of the readers would be family law practitioners. Over time, we’ve attracted attorneys from a host of different disciplines. I’m happy to have you here, and based on your e-mails, I know that I’m providing some value to you regardless of your particular legal focus.

Many of my readers spread themselves thin. They focus on multiple practice areas. This is true of family law practitioners as well as others. It’s not unusual for me to talk to family law practitioners who also do some real estate closings, criminal matters, and traffic cases along with the occasional personal injury, contract, or landlord-tenant dispute.

The problem with that lack of focus is that it is always accompanied by a lack of progress.

A lack of focus dilutes your presence in the market. No one knows what you do. No one knows how to talk about you. You’re not mysterious to them. You simply cease to exist for them. They need to understand what you do so they can send you business. They need to remember you, and they can’t do that if you don’t give them a hook for thinking about you.

If you spend a year (or two or five) figuring out how you’re going to focus your practice, you can count those years as wasted. Every minute that you’re unable to tell others what you do is a minute you’ll never recover. If they ask and you provide a litany of practice areas, you won’t be remembered at all. I know it’s hard for you to believe that anyone could forget you, but they’ve got other things to think about (themselves), and you’ve got to make it as easy as possible for them to remember.

Recently, I’ve been watching a lawyer that I friended on Facebook. At our last lunch, he told me he’s trying to focus his practice. Since then, I’ve seen him on Facebook talking about bankruptcy, zoning, foreclosures, criminal matters, and general litigation. I can’t figure out what he’s doing, and I certainly can’t figure out who to refer to him. He is quickly becoming invisible to me when, if he would just get focused, he could be driving his memory hard into my brain with his interactions.

What a waste of my time and his effort. I desperately wish he would get focused.

Even if you decide to focus on family law, it’s helpful to narrow your focus within that arena. At a minimum, be that family law practitioner who loves collaborative law. Or be that family law practitioner who loves to litigate. Or be that family law practitioner who knows more about child psychology than anyone else. Be something so we can remember you.

If you’re going to get your slice of the pie, you’ve got to focus on a narrow slice of the pie. Don’t be all things to all people because you’ll end up being nothing to no one. Focus, focus, focus. Pick your area, and tell the world what it is you’re doing.