In this monologue, a legal accounting specialist explains why mid‑market law firms are the ideal niche for his practice and why other accountants should consider focusing on attorneys. He describes how lawyers are highly educated, collaborative, and efficient, making communication and document collection straightforward. He highlights the widespread use of outdated, manual software in many firms and the opportunity to modernize them through data migration to cloud‑based practice management tools. By implementing such tools, firms can gain access to KPI‑driven insights—realization rates, utilization rates, and individual attorney performance report cards—that were previously unavailable. He discusses how automation and workflow redesign can streamline operations, even allowing staff role changes as technology takes over repetitive tasks. The specialist notes the legal industry’s stability and growth, especially for firms that spin off from larger practices, and counters common stereotypes that attorneys are difficult clients. He then offers practical advice for accountants transitioning from general bookkeeping to a legal‑focused niche: rebranding marketing, preparing for an initial dip in leads, maintaining a financial cushion, leveraging referral networks, and securing accountability partners. The overall message is that specializing in legal accounting yields higher fees, deeper expertise, and more efficient, rewarding work.
Chapters
So I've already talked about why you should micro-niche down to your specialty and then go even deeper. But I want to talk this week a little bit about why lawyers are my dream clients, and, and maybe why they should be yours too. So you probably already know I've been a legal accounting specialist for many years now. And I'm really laser-focused on our niche. We have kind of subspecialized down into mid-market space, the larger law firms, which are not the solos or the solo plus one, but the next size up. We like to see a firm that has maybe 10, 15, 20 employees in total, multiple attorneys on staff, paralegals, legal assistants, all of that. But why do I really like working with attorneys? Well, one of the reasons why is they're very collaborative, and they're very efficient. So they work at a very high level, a professional level. So if you've worked with clients in other industries, you might find that sometimes you spend a lot of time explaining simple things that, you know, what's a profit, what's a loss, kind of like down to that level. But with attorneys, they're highly educated. They actually can have a conversation with you. And some of them, in fact, are really— they really know their stuff when it comes to the parts about finances. So a lot of that opportunity to speak with them about their finances is very simple, but we don't have to go into educating them from the very lowest level. They're very efficient. You ask them for a document, they usually will respond quickly and get it for you. And that's typically more so because they know the pain of not having a document given to them, and they have to chase their clients for documents. So they're very good about getting us our documents. Law firms today, there's an opportunity for growth. Law firms today still work with very outdated software. It's a big— it was a big surprise to me how antiquated some are, very even to the point of like writing things down, and maybe they use Excel or Word, but they don't even have a practice management tool in place. So it's an opportunity for us to do some data migration, get them out of maybe a desktop software, get them online. I never thought that even after post the, post the pandemic that we would still be looking at clients that are in the space that the attorneys work in, but we still see this a lot to this day that they're still doing redundant systems and they're still in an antiquated space. So we help bring them into— Yeah. A place where they can get data-driven insights. They're going to have the opportunity to look at KPIs and data that they never really thought or imagined. Maybe they never even crossed their mind. And we come to them and we'll say, hey, do you want to know how the attorneys are doing? You want to know the realization rate? Do you want to know the utilization rate at your firm? And these are sometimes foreign, foreign words to them. They've never had anybody actually step forward and talk to them about these items. Mm-hmm. That we are able to give them once you move them into software that has the ability to calculate these metrics. And that's what's really important there. We're able to give them data-driven insights. So there's a lot of ways that we can show them, maybe the working attorneys, how they're doing, give them like a report card type of a report to show how each one is doing. And even though in their gut they may know which ones are performing, which ones are not, it's good to provide them with the data. And I think they get very excited about the fact that they're getting data that they never got out of their old software. It's interesting to me that there's so many technological advancements in the legal industry, not just with work that we do and the products we use, but also there's an ability for us to help them learn how they can automate processes. Just sitting with a client and understanding their day or their staff's day and what they're doing in their, in their workspace allows us to take a high-level view and perhaps help them and move them forward into a space that's much more proactive to the future and using things that are out there that maybe they can eliminate someone's position and put somebody in a different position because the technology can take over for them. That always makes me smile when I'm able to tell them something that they didn't know in their own industry. It's a very stable industry to work in. You're not looking at the ups and downs of maybe the housing industry or contractors have a lot of work and then there's no work. You're very stable in a lot of practice areas, actually thrive in a downed economy. So know that, um, there's significant growth. We see it with each firm that we pick up. Maybe it's an attorney that broke away from a big firm and they're starting on their own. And I'm always amazed and fascinated how fast they grow and how they start to add staff and they start to be so productive and profitable. And we're able to help them through that journey. So I wanna address a little bit about the stereotype, because sometimes we tell people it's a great elevator pitch. We say, oh, we work in it, we're accountants. And the person will be like, oh, poor thing. And then they go, we only work with attorneys. And they go, oh, nobody wants those clients. You probably even know people in our industry that are like, I don't want to work with an attorney. You got to deal with trust accounting and client advance costs. And you're like, yeah, that's exactly why we want to do it. It's challenging. It's good for your brain. A good brain exercise. It's rewarding. And I think that's the most important thing. So if you think about attorneys as being mean or talk down to you, that's nothing could be further from the truth. They are people, and I think every industry can have its little stereotypes. But in the world of working with attorneys, we find that they're very pleasant people to work with, and they're very grateful. We're doing something they don't like to do. So that's always a win for both, both sides. So making that transition from being a generalist bookkeeper or accountant to working in a specialized area doesn't happen with a flip of a switch. You have to start to change your marketing, and that might dry up some of your lead generation, which gives you the opportunity to really learn your specialty area. That's the best part of that. Make sure you have some money in the bank when you do make this shift, because you will probably not get as many leads as you had in the past. If you do get them and they're not specific to law, you really just have to look at your client base and make the decision of whether you're gonna turn them away or if you're gonna still take them because you need to eat. That's an individual decision that needs to be made, but it's something that you can still take those clients, but you can still tell the world, and that's what you have to do, announce it to the world that I'm working only with lawyers. And once you start to do that, I can still remember, you know, I kept my legacy clients, But I can still remember having that time when I could turn those clients to some other bookkeeper or accountant that I knew specialized in the area where somebody would come to me in a different industry like e-commerce. And I'm like, you know, I don't do that work, but I know somebody who does. It's very, very rewarding. And then it comes back twofold because it comes back to you as well. You get clients that somebody that works in e-commerce doesn't want to work with a lawyer, and they'll, they'll refer it back to you. So it's very humbling. It feels good. And you know, you're doing the best thing for your client, which is probably the best part of all of that. So remember, choosing a niche or a specialty is a personal decision. You can always try it and then revert back to being a generalist. There's nothing that says it's set in stone. I always say, have that friend or colleague that's gonna hold you accountable and keep you on that path when the leads start to dry up, when you shift your marketing. You need that little bird on your shoulder saying, you gotta keep going, you gotta keep going. I had that person, and I'm very grateful to him that he was there for me. So for sure, you want to keep going, keep going forward. With technology and things changing, you're going to find that it's very beneficial to move to a niche or specialty. You'll get paid more, and you'll have more time to dive deep into your client work, and you'll also be able to set in stone your workflow. And I think that saves us a lot of time, and your staff knows all the different procedures for this specific client type. Hope this is helpful, and we'll see you all next week. Bye now.
