I’ve been reading the Almanack of Naval Ravikant this week (if you haven’t come across it, it’s a collection of his writing and interviews on wealth, happiness, and building a life that actually works — well worth an afternoon, it’s only 250 pages). Some of it is very Silicon Valley and not directly applicable, but there are a handful of ideas in the business section that I keep turning over in my mind — particularly through the lens of legal careers.
The three that stuck with me most: that your specific knowledge is a weird combination of your DNA, your upbringing, and your response to it — it’s almost baked into your personality before you can even hone it. That you can only really achieve mastery in one or two things, and they’re usually the things you’re slightly obsessed about. And the one I keep coming back to: escape competition through authenticity. If you’re building and marketing something that is genuinely an extension of who you are, no one can compete with you on it.
For lawyers, I think this reframes the whole niching question. Most of the time when I talk to associates about finding their niche, there’s a slight panic — like they have to invent something, or pick something arbitrary and stick to it. But Naval’s framing suggests the opposite: your niche is probably already there, in the combination of things that come naturally to you, the clients you find most interesting, the problems you can’t stop thinking about. So instead of asking ‘what should I specialise in?’, try these:
What do colleagues come to you for that isn’t strictly in your job description? What kind of client work makes you lose track of time? What do you find yourself reading about, even when no one is asking you to? What experience do you have — inside or outside law — that most of your peers don’t? The answers won’t give you a niche on a plate. But they’ll point you toward something real, something that’s already yours. And that’s a much better starting point than picking a sector because it seems commercially sensible.
The Almanack is available to read for free at navalmanack.com. Consider this your excuse to add it to your weekend reading.
