When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. Now that the legal sector is struggling and in fact has lost jobs for the first time in 3 months, it is no wonder that more and more firms are looking for alternative methods to remain competitive, such as orchestrating global-wide mergers, or in the case of New York-based Kelley Drye & Warren, seeking out alternative niches to establish themselves. In their case, they want to be sports attorneys, helping professional athletes not only during the heat of their career, but long after, in a lifelong relationship.
After all, as the Washington Post reported, 80 percent of National Football League players are broke or bankrupt within three years of retiring from their sport. Used to living the highlife, the never learn how to save the buko dollars they are making, and when the cash cow has dried up, so are they.
A pair of attorneys, Aidso Bakari and Jeffrey Whitney, from Dow Lohnes
This special niche is their strategy for handling the market, and in doing so, they are building on their own experience. They met at the University of Wisconsin Law School in the 1990s and after mastering law at Dow Lohnes, Bakari drew on his previous football experience at Delaware State and decided to make it into a career move.
Other lawyers struggling with their own niche and genre might consider what of their own experience they have to draw on to build their own novel pitch to the world. Opportunity doesn’t knock when everything is going well, but when things are bad, so now might be the time to make that career change that draws on your aboriginal strengths.
Image Source: Washington Post