There’s all this hype and discussion going on about AI and legal blogging and publishing. Most is focused on how AI can improve your publishing, enable you to publish faster, proof/edit your copy or even write your publishing for you.
The last one is not a big leap in that marketing companies are already writing the published works and putting it out, with the lawyers consent, as written by the lawyers themselves.
The biggest asset AI presents lawyers in publishing, assuming a lawyer or law firm is focused on publishing to build a name and grow business is identifying and chasing a niche that few, if any lawyers, are focusing on.
Why?
- AI is automating the work of generalists. Up to 40–74% of routine legal tasks—including research, drafting, and discovery—can now be automated.
- Generalists are at high risk of being commoditized. AI is going to drive prices—driven by the hour—down.
- AI is already reducing the number of associates in large law firms.
- AI is going to and already is going to result in outsourcing and job cuts in large firms as a result of clients unwilling to pay for more routine work when they ultimately pay for a lawyer’s analysis and judgment.
At the same time, we already know that niches are leading to increased revenue for lawyers, in large and small firms, who have set themselves apart via niche-focused publications published by an individual lawyer — or a small passionate number of lawyers.
Cruise law, FMLA, Delaware Chancery Court, Retail Patent Litigation, and countless other niches. One California firm told me we don’t have any competition, we look in Petri dishes for niches.
AI is a gift that is getting better and better for identifying niches and getting after owning the niche through publishing.
A lawyer who decides large law is not for them, a government lawyer who has lost their job, a solo lawyer who is struggling, a recent law grad who faces a tough job market, only to get tougher with AI.
Get on OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini Deep Research and start generating reports over a few days.
What sounds cool? Where does your passion lie? Where do the opportunities exist? By topic? Industry? Consumer areas? What jurisdictions – local, state, national or international? What is the size of the market? Is any legal professional or law firm chasing the niche? Anyone own the niche? How long would it take to own it? What is the best way to go about owning it? What topics would you cover in your publishing? Who are the influencers in the space to engage in your publishing—the ones to engage in your publishing so they’ll begin to cite you? What are the most effect ways to be identified as a source on niche focused queries in LLM’s such as ChatGPT, Gemini and legal focused LLM’s.
Deep research will give you documented and well-sourced reports on these items. The type of information that consulting companies prepare—except here maybe better and certainly faster, in an engaging/conversational fashion, at no cost.
Lawyer in a large law firm? Do the same thing and pitch the firm on revenue generating revenue opportunities. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Large law firm? Ask some of your lawyers to try the same. The innovative and maybe the lawyers who you think are a little different. Some lawyers are looking to be entrepreneurial–to be different.
In the age of expanding AI, lawyers and lawyers who own a niche will control their future—and growth.