Every boutique law firm needs its niche. Finding an underserved market makes for an even better business proposition. And attorneys Salam Bhojani and Nick Nelson thought they'd found the perfect client base for their new firm: Muslim and South Asian small business owners.

But then came the election of Donald J. Trump as president, forcing a reckoning between business opportunity and the possible risk of affiliating with a marginalized community. As Nelson put it, the surge of what seemed to be anti-immigrant sentiment “raised the stakes.”

“If anything, it was a deterrent to move forward with our plan,” Nelson said. “It suddenly seemed like a riskier and less attractive option … the risk was being known as a Muslim law firm.”