The Positioning Paradox

Ask a law firm who they are to their target customer and watch the poverty of imagination unfold.

"We're a family law firm." "Criminal defense." "Personal injury."

As if your practice area is your identity. As if what you do defines who you are.

Push further. Ask who they want to be. Blank stares. Ask how they'll construct that identity in customer minds. Vague gestures toward websites and networking events.

At its core, this is bad marketing. Worse, it reduces your labor from building a business into renting out a job.

Because here's what these firms don't understand: they have no position. They have a practice area and a prayer. And in a market flooded with identical prayers, that's commoditization.

Examples abound. A criminal defense attorney who "handles all criminal matters." A divorce lawyer who "provides compassionate family law services." A personal injury firm that "fights for maximum compensation."

These aren't positions. They're job descriptions. The same job description used by 500 other firms in your city. All competing for the same clients with the same message. All wondering why growth means working harder instead of commanding more.

Without position, you're just a commodity. And commodities compete on exactly two dimensions: price and presence—brute force marketing and a race to the bottom that devalues your time.

The economics are predictable and brutal. Linear growth through linear effort. More advertising for more leads. More lawyers for more capacity. More hours for more revenue. No pricing power. No compound effect. No enterprise value beyond the furniture and filing cabinets.

After 30 years of practice, these firms don't have a brand—they have a resume. And no one buys a resume once the person behind it is gone.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Positioned firms operate under different economics. Instead of competing for scraps of existing markets, they create markets defined by identity.

But how do you become a category creator instead of a commodity? Start by understanding what position actually is.

Position is the space you occupy in someone's mind before they need you.

A personal injury attorney handling all vehicle injuries doesn't create position. That's just fulfilling demand. Position happens when a motorcyclist gets hit and thinks, "I need that lawyer who only does bike accidents—the one with the Harley." The association—this specific lawyer equals this specific constituency—becomes the position.

Real position requires three elements working in concert. Remove one, and you remain a commodity with better copy.

First, compression. A position must be simple enough to survive transmission between minds. "Father's rights divorce lawyer" travels. "Comprehensive family law services" dies in transmission. If it takes a paragraph to explain, you have a description—not a position.

Second, opposition. Every position implies what you refuse to be. The father's rights lawyer has chosen enemies—they don't represent mothers. The one who represents "either spouse" hasn't taken a position at all. Position requires excluding entire categories of clients you'll never serve.

Third, construction. You must actively build this association through consistent, repeated action. One custody victory for a father doesn't create position. Fifty victories for fathers, using the same aggressive approach to maternal gatekeeping, might. Position is accumulated proof, not proclaimed expertise.

There's no formula, but there are patterns. Some firms define themselves by what they refuse. The personal injury firm that only takes catastrophic cases. The white collar criminal defense attorney who won't touch street crimes. Every "no" sharpens their "yes."

Others serve tribes, not practice areas. The DUI lawyer for commercial drivers. The divorce attorney for military families. These firms understand the culture, the fears, the Friday night conversations. They're insiders with law degrees.

The difference between commodity and category isn't size or sophistication. It's the choice between fighting for fragments of existing demand or creating your own—an identity that filters clients before they even call.

Suppose you’ve handled the first two elements of position building. You've compressed your identity into something transmittable. You've chosen your enemies through opposition. 

But position doesn't exist until it lives in other people's minds.

This is where most positioned firms fail—they define who they are but never construct that reality in the market's consciousness. Position requires active building. Every action either puts you in someone's mind or keeps you out of it.

The blog post about recent DUI law changes? Generic—forgotten before it's finished. The father's rights lawyer who publishes data on custody outcomes by county? That's construction. The Facebook ad about "aggressive representation"? Noise. The motorcycle injury lawyer who posts videos reviewing dangerous intersections? Building position, ride by ride.

Most firms broadcast capabilities. Positioned firms demonstrate perspective.

The father's rights attorney doesn't claim bias in family court—they document it. Case outcomes, judicial patterns, custody statistics by gender. Each piece of evidence constructs their position in another mind. The motorcycle lawyer doesn't promise they "understand riders." They show up at bike nights. They sponsor safety courses. They know the difference between a Sportster and a Street Glide, and why it matters in court.

Position accumulates through evidence. Through demonstration. Through consistency that outlasts campaigns. One blog post doesn't build position. A hundred posts from the same perspective might. One case victory doesn't create mental real estate. Fifty victories for the same type of client, solved the same way, does.

Generic feels safer: bigger market, no one excluded, no controversy. But generic means you rent attention. You don't own it. You're forever negotiating for space that was never yours.

Position means being irrelevant to most so you can be irreplaceable to a few. The father's rights lawyer loses every mother's case—by design. The motorcycle attorney turns away car accidents—even profitable ones. They've chosen depth over width, ownership over rental.

Most firms will never position themselves. They can, but they won't.

They'd rather be mediocre for everyone than essential for someone. They'll stay generic, broad, interchangeable. They'll compete on price and proximity. They'll confuse activity for strategy. And they'll wonder why clients see them as replaceable.

Position is the space you occupy in someone's mind before they need you. Built through systematic choices about who you are—and who you refuse to be.

The positioned firm doesn't just attract—it selects. Clients come pre-filtered, pre-sold, and prepared to pay a premium.

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Nima Ostowari
Founder, JusticeArch