Family Law

Find Your Niche. Then Get Rich.

Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t yet found your fit just yet. You might be able to carve out a new area of law.

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The chase for success in law school generally involves trying to land that big firm job. That way, the big firm will help you pay off the loans that you just took out in order to attend law school in the first place. Some law professors even entrench a law student’s thought process with their comments in class. During one of my first days in law school at Emory, a professor surveyed his fresh 1L faces. He first asked everyone to raise their hands if they planned to go into corporate law. Some people raised their hands, and then put them down. Then the professor asked us to raise our hands if we planned to go into litigation. Okay, those are two options, I thought. What will the next question be about?  Oh wait, there was no next question.  The professor left us only those two.

Oh boy. What about everyone else? There had to be more options. Well, good news. Since that day in 2002, the variety of legal practices has exploded like never before, and many niche specialties are on the rise. The only trick — although it’s a big one — is figuring out where your passions intersect with a market need. Some rare attorneys are successful at doing this while they stick around in Biglaw, keeping the best of both worlds. But most other attorneys strike out on their own.

So to help you get some ideas on where to take your career, here are a few fascinating niche legal carve-outs you may have never heard of before.

Revenge Porn Law. 

So just to be clear, no, you don’t just get paid to look at porn! But it can be just as rewarding to practice this area of the law.

A law professor commented to Cassandra Kirsch how few attorneys are practicing in the area of cyber attacks, and Kirsch ran with it. Before starting her own firm, Kirsch wrote a probing law review article on this topic, spent time in the Hague at the International Court of Justice, and was heavily recruited to join a Biglaw firm. Eventually, she struck out on her own to have greater freedom and opportunity. Kirsch describes her cases now as “Law & Order SVU meets the Internet.” [Insert Law & Order sound effect here.] Kirsch has built a thriving practice protecting individuals from revenge porn, “sextortion,” hacking, and online harassment. She goes after would-be international criminals, sex traffickers, abusers, pedophiles, and fraudsters when law enforcement isn’t nimble enough or able to act. Obviously, this is an interesting and important area of the law!

Fashion Law. 

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Yes, it’s a thing. And it sounds awesome. Especially for those of us obsessed with Project Runway. Staci Jennifer Riordan is one of the few attorneys who can honestly say that they found their passion in Biglaw. She heads up the Fashion Law practice at Nixon Peabody. Riordan worked in the fashion industry prior to attending law school in her 30s. When she was working in the fashion industry, she found that she was the one who was always volunteering to read the fine print in the deals her company was making. And her attention to detail was second to none. She had seen firsthand how one little mistake could derail an entire fashion show, and sometimes even a designer! That confirms that the theory that I’ve heard that in fashion, one day you’re in, and the next day you’re out.

Riordan told me that you have to find your niche these days, or else you just aren’t special. That isn’t meant to sound like Miranda from the Devil Wears Prada, though. Riordan means that the key to having a great career is being an expert in a critical point in an industry, and that being an expert necessarily requires some passion. In fashion law, Riordan advises her clients that the goal isn’t just about making the clothes look good. It’s a broader strategy of providing a good product, at the right time, and in the right way. Riordan has the joy of getting to help marry creative types to the business, and give them the chance to have a “make it work moment” so that they can deal with legal realities but still find success.

Cannabis IP Law. 

We all know by now that cannabis (that’s marijuana for those of you not living in Colorado) is its own niche area of law. But did you know that there are even niches within niches? One is the IP — or intellectual property — of cannabis industry. Shabnam Malek previously practiced IP litigation at O’Melveny & Myers in San Francisco. While it was a fine job, she wanted to focus on something she found more interesting.

Now, Malek helps grow the expanding industry in a legally protected way through her firm, Brand & Branch LLP. Malek told me that the intersection of cannabis law and intellectual property is one of the most interesting, fast-developing, and growing (har har) areas of law. “Just in the last several years, new statutes, regulations, and case law have come out that affects all of our clients.” Malek enjoys being in an emerging area of the law. She says that “working in not only a niche area of law but an emerging one means being on the forefront of the development of laws and regulations.” In California, that meant that Brand and Branch was the first firm to be able to interpret and apply a brand new set of regulations for this industry. Wow! It’s like practicing constitutional law in 1789!

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Making Babies Law.  (Assisted Reproductive Technology.)

Of course, this is my own area of practice, and I won’t skip an opportunity to write about it. I generally refer to this area as ART law, even though that occasionally draws confusion about whether I know much about paintings and sculptures. I don’t, but fortunately, I have yet to show up at the wrong type of “Art law” CLEs or conventions.

The essence of ART law is providing legal representation to clients in matters involving assisted reproductive technology. That could be people who want children, want to carry children, or the doctors and clinics that facilitate the process. The practice most commonly includes egg, sperm, and embryo donation, as well as surrogacy contracts. While I, and most of the attorneys I work with, mostly do transactional work, I suspect that ART litigation also has a major future ahead it, with genetic material being destroyed and DNA-truths coming out in a “23 and Me” world. That could be where you come in!

So don’t be discouraged if you haven’t yet found your fit just yet, or if you’re just a budding 1L who doesn’t know all of your options. You might be the next one to carve out a new area never heard of before.

Ellen TrachmanEllen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

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