As more large firms restructure into multidisciplinary industry-focused groups, the niche practices emerging resemble some of the services midsize firms have been offering for years, or sometimes decades.

With increasing competition in the legal industry, and Big Law more often competing for the middle-market work midsize firms were built on, midsize firm leaders have been bullish about maintaining and expanding their specialized practices.

Babst, Calland, Clements and Zomnir, based in Pittsburgh, was built on a niche focus in environmental law from the start, and has expanded on that over the years, managing shareholder Donald Bluedorn said.

“Our philosophy is to pick specific areas and put together teams with as much sophistication as anyone in the country,” Bluedorn said, then deliver those services “at a lower price point.”

Since, the firm has added other niche practices that grow naturally from its environmental roots. ”We don't just look for bolt-on practices,” Bluedorn said.

So when the Marcellus Shale play created business opportunities in Pennsylvania, the firm seized on the opportunity to grow an energy practice, which would co-mingle well with environmental law. And when it saw a chance to get involved with pipeline safety, it built on an already established regulatory practice in Washington, D.C., as well as the energy and environmental practices.

“We like to see multiple touchpoints with these areas we have,” Bluedorn said. “We really try to do a very conscious, well-thought-out approach.”

Most recently, the firm has built on that regulatory practice again, bringing together a mobility, transport and safety group to handle matters in the emerging area of unmanned aircraft, driverless cars and space technology. Timothy Goodman, a former U.S. Department of Transportation lawyer, leads that group, which recently added several other lawyers in Washington and Pittsburgh.

Bluedorn said the firm in most instances has added these practices as its lawyers observe shifts in the market, and “consciously identify the opportunity.” After hiring people in those areas, he said, the firm works quickly to educate its lawyers and clients on their practice, so the new niche is not “an island.”

Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, also based in Pittsburgh, came into one of its niche practices through lateral hiring as well, when it opened a Cleveland office with lawyers from Gallagher Sharp in 2013, including Forrest Norman. He started representing churches about 12 years ago, he said.

“We found out that there are a lot of churches with a lot of small, legal needs,” Norman said. “If you focus on that, you can do it in a way that can benefit them, serving their needs just as you would any industry, in that their industry is a church.”

Norman said he's represented religious institutions in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia, including churches of various denominations as well as Jewish synagogues. They require a variety of services, including nonprofit, tax, employment and real estate issues, child protection matters, and even changing denominations. That last one happens more commonly than most would think, Norman said.

As a result, he draws on various practices within Dickie McCamey, he said, regularly working with roughly a dozen lawyers throughout the firm.

Central Pennsylvania-based McNees Wallace & Nurick has taken a different angle in determining when to establish its own niche services, including a food and beverage practice, an automotive dealership practice and, its most recent addition, esports. They're not at the firm's foundation, but they do grow naturally from its existing services, chairman David Kleppinger said.

Since the recession, growth has been flatter in the regional firm's traditional areas of practice, but those services are still exceedingly important to small and midmarket business clients, he explained. ”We're clearly still a full-service firm, but with niche areas as a key part of our growth strategy.”

McNees has allowed these niche practices to grow organically out of lawyers' instincts and interests, rather than through lateral hiring. The esports group, for instance, is chaired by an associate in the labor and employment practice, Langdon Ramsburg, who took on clients in the competitive video gaming industry and saw an opportunity to grow with them.

It's early on, but Kleppinger said the firm is “really confident that e-gaming is going to be fantastic.”

“You can usually tell pretty early on whether it has traction or not,” he said. For instance, he noted, a golf practice launched about 25 years ago “didn't pan out.” But the auto dealers group is roughly 25 years old, and does a relatively high volume of auto dealership M&A work, Kleppinger said. But building that kind of brand does take patience, he said.

“We play the long-term game. We run the marathon and not the sprint. This isn't something you expect a return on in the first six months or even a year,” Kleppinger said.

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Competing With Goliaths

Midsize firm leaders said they've pulled ahead of Big Law in their niche practice areas.

Part of their competitive advantage, as is often the case for midsize firms, is their price point. Often the clients in niche practices are startups, Kleppinger said, and midsize firms are better able to adjust their pricing to fit startups' constraints.

Pricing is certainly a factor for the churches, too, Norman said. And at the same time, he said, Dickie McCamey can offer a broader range of services than a small local firm, or the congregant providing pro bono services, would be able to do.

“We're acutely aware of the fact that when the church is hiring lawyers, they're using funds from members that are intended to further the mission of the church,” Norman said. “We've been able to attain economies of scale by seeing the same issues over and over.”

Norman said he also tries to convey to religious institution clients that his midsize firm operates with an environment of camaraderie. Its regional reach and practices are broad enough to answer obscure legal questions, he said, but it also has “that small-town midsize firm feel.” Word-of-mouth accounts for 85 to 90 percent of his new clients, he said.

“The church has a strong interest in handling any legal issue that it has in a way that is consistent with its mission, its ministry, its goals for outreach, and we have developed a sensibility to work with them on that,” Norman said. “When you work with a church and they're happy with the result, pastors speak among themselves.”

Additionally, Kleppinger noted, midsize firms' more nimble management structures make it easier to act quickly on opportunities to enter an emerging industry and develop a deep expertise there. Young lawyers have taken a particular interest in those opportunities, Kleppinger said, which makes those practice groups a useful recruitment and retention tool.

“In our practice areas, they are niche to many other firms. To us, they are a big part of our practice,” Bluedorn, of Babst Calland, said. “It's very common for us to be brought in with a big, major international law firm on a deal where we handle the environmental and they handle everything else.”

Bluedorn said that niche focus protects Babst Calland from market pressures, as many other midsize firms succumb to those same forces, finding themselves forced to merge or worse, dissolve. At the same time, he said, it's made Babst Calland an attractive acquisition target to larger firms. But he and his partners aren't interested in being part of a large firm, he said.

“If we try to out-compete with the we-can-be all-things-to-all-people-model, we will die. We will either be gobbled up or have to go somewhere,” Bluedorn said.

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