Lawyers and other legal professionals talk a lot about legal specialization, technology and the future of the law. We wrote in this space about specialization last year, in fact. At the intersection of these topics are issues such as the automation of routine tasks, business development innovation, smart contracts and succession planning. A related aspect of the rapidly changing legal landscape is cutting-edge practices—blockchain, marijuana law and telemedicine, to name three that would have raised eyebrows just a few years ago but are now undoubtedly here to stay.

As firm priorities shift and client expectations change, young lawyers who commit to developing a cutting-edge practice will likely find themselves standing out from peers who are less ready for the future. Of course, those first steps into the unknown can feel insurmountable. Where do I start? What if I don't know enough? What if my current practice area is totally unrelated?

Similarly, young lawyers may encounter roadblocks in taking their first steps toward developing a cutting-edge practice. A lawyer's own firm may be hesitant to enter the early fray of a potentially controversial practice area, such as marijuana, or not willing to forgo the realizable hours for growing a new practice. Along those lines, a young lawyer, whose value is often quantified by the billable hour, may also be concerned with forgoing those hours for the significant time needed to commit to growing a new practice area.

Although these concerns are valid, there are concrete steps young lawyers can take to get in on the ground floor and form a solid foundation of knowledge in an emerging field.

Collaboration and Communication

There is no single right way to begin developing a cutting-edge practice. But if you have decided to pursue a new field, you will certainly benefit from taking a collaborative approach.

First, build or join a team of people with similar interests. For a young associate in a firm setting, this may mean seeking out partners who are already dabbling in the area or who may be interested in doing so given their experience. For new partners and mid- to senior-level associates, it could mean looking for opportunities outside law firms. In ­emerging industries, new companies will need to hire legal counsel to help guide their mission. These companies will often be looking for lawyers with specialized substantive expertise: an enterprise focused on blockchain opportunities may need midlevel lawyers with software-as-a-service or finance experience, for example. But startup businesses may also seek to hire young associates with more general (but still industry-relevant) experience. Regardless of whether you're looking to move in-house or to pursue a new practice area as outside counsel, finding the right people to work with is key.

The need for collaboration and communication doesn't stop there. Even after you have some semblance of a team in place (whether this means you and one adviser or an entire working group of lawyers, tech specialists and business development managers), you should expect to spend a lot of time building relationships with those in the field. Depending on the target industry, this may mean engaging local counsel to advise on other states' laws or getting involved with or even founding a bar association committee. It may mean placing frequent calls to state or federal agencies to ask questions and gain insight into how agency employees understand and interpret new rules and regulations. It may also mean reaching out to lobbyists, joining relevant industry associations, and just generally keeping your ear to the ground as the dynamics of the field develop and shift.

Lawyers serious about turning a burgeoning interest in a new field into real expertise should avoid any temptation to go it alone in order to make a name for themselves. In today's market, clients increasingly expect their lawyers to be able to collaborate to provide appropriate solutions; cooperating with others early and often as you hone your skills in an emerging field will benefit you and your clients.

Learn as You Go

No matter what your practice area is, you don't have to know everything immediately. You don't have to have all the ­answers (and shouldn't pretend that you do). This is especially true for cutting-edge fields. The fact that the practice is pioneering means you will inevitably encounter issues without clear answers. For example, some states may not have any relevant laws on the books. Or there may be a complete lack of federal case law analyzing a new federal statute.

Given these unknowns, you should always engage in frank conversation with your clients at the outset about the limits on the advice you can provide when addressing an innovative business model and its related problems and solutions. Setting expectations in this manner is essential so that neither you nor your clients are caught off guard if or when the playing field shifts.

At the same time, lawyers who aim to become experts in a field have to get comfortable with those gray areas, because the reality is that your clients still need to craft action plans. Trust us when we say your clients will know there are unsettled questions about their business model. And they will expect you to provide helpful advice anyway, even as you caution them about the potential perils of operating in what can sometimes feel like the legal Wild West.

The law often follows the industry in these situations. Sometimes, though, the law responds negatively, as a rebuke of sorts against industry leaders that have pushed the bounds of previously established practice in seeking to create a new normal. In both circumstances, your clients may at some point find themselves facing tough questions from regulators, defending against lawsuits from conventional (or envious) competitors, or even revisiting business models on the heels of evolving legal standards. In turn, you may find yourself having to revise your earlier advice on account of it having been, in hindsight, too cautious or too permissive.

Don't let those scenarios scare you off. Instead, be sure you are continuing to talk to and learn from both your clients and your industry and legal colleagues about the state of the law, about up-and-coming players in the industry, and about what others might be talking about. Treat each new client as though it is your first client in this sector. Listen to them as you would if you knew nothing about their industry or the market. You'll learn a lot.

Attend Industry Conferences

In keeping with the advice to collaborate, communicate and get comfortable learning as the field develops, another excellent habit we have benefited from in developing new practice areas is regularly attending industry conferences.

A word to the wise: Don't be content attending conferences given by and for lawyers. Find a relevant business organization in the industry—or two or three of them—and attend those conferences. By taking the time to learn from nonlawyers, you will gain incomparable knowledge about what matters to your clients and potential clients. You will develop practical insight into how things really work. These connections and personal knowledge will allow you to begin to build your brand within the industry, and you may even find yourself a client or two in the process.

Get Law Firm Support

In developing any cutting-edge practice, lawyers who work in law firms also need buy-in from their employers. To ensure client satisfaction and firm resilience, law firms should do more than passively encourage or permit their lawyers to forge new practice areas.

As we noted earlier, clients increasingly want lawyers who provide collaborative, specialized services. Firms can facilitate the process and help ensure success by providing their lawyers with the appropriate tools to differentiate themselves from the competition.

From the outset, a firm serious about helping its attorneys grow a new practice area should be willing to use its already established resources to promote that growth. A firm's existing business development tools can be used to help attorneys develop a business plan and outline targeted conferences, industry leaders and opportunities to grow within the practice area. The creation of a business plan will allow the law firm to better understand the hours a lawyer will be committing to build the cutting-edge practice and allow the firm to better forecast a potential budget and any return on its investment.

A firm can also establish new tools internally to support and grow cutting-edge practices. The recent development of multiple new profitable practice areas has encouraged firms to establish cutting-edge practice committees that review any newly established firm areas and target future areas of growth. Whether collaboration comes in the form of financial and temporal support or simply a firm-led working group will depend, among other things, on firm size, practice area and whether the firm is already taking steps to adopt emerging legal technologies and tools. All firms have the ability to create a collaborative environment to promote the growth of cutting-edge practices for the firm and its new industry clients.

Any new field of law brings with it new legal pitfalls. Don't let that stop you from pursuing new areas of interest. There are numerous ways a lawyer can begin the process, individually or with full firm support, of developing a cutting-edge practice.

The views expressed here are personal to the authors and do not represent the opinions of their employers.

Board members: Aaron Swerdlow; Alex Tarnow; Andrea Guzman; Andrew Warner; Aydin Bonabi; Bess Hinson; Blair Kaminsky; Brianna Howard; Brooke Anthony; Emily Stedman; Emma Walsh; Garrett Ordower; Geoffrey Young; Holly Dolejsi; Ji Hye You; Kevin Morse; Kyle Sheahen; Lauren Doyle; Nicole Gutierrez; Quynh Vu; Rakesh Kilaru; Sakina Rasheed Foster; Sara Harris; Shishene Jing; Tamara Bruno; Tim Fitzmaurice; Trisha Rich; and Wyley Proctor.