Internet and digital technologies remove many of the constraints to providing niche services and reaching audiences across much wider geographic areas. For small and medium-sized law and professional services firms, especially “Boutique” firms that specialize in niche areas, this means that the advantages many large firms and their superior resources once enjoyed are diminishing.

Broadband Internet, Wi-Fi, and VoIP allow small firms to communicate easily with customers that may be half the world away. Collaborative technologies like extranets, web conferencing, and Skype makes servicing far flung clients practical and efficient. Using social networking services like LinkedIn, the cost of acquiring a customer drops dramatically, eroding another advantage of large firms. As access to information and other resources becomes cheaper, the resource advantage large firms once held is shrinking daily (think of the Google vs. Lexis/Nexis subscription for basic research, or RSS feeds compared to costly clipping or news aggregation services).

The phenomena rapidly attracting the public’s attention is “The Long Tail:” large numbers of small sales and niche services that looks like a tail when viewed on a graph of demand. The point is, the Long Tail rivals the “hits” at the head in revenue and profitability. Apply this idea to law and professional services firms, where big firms are the “hits” at the head, and small and medium firms are the long tail. Before the Internet, that tail was much shorter, and couldn’t rival the big firms for revenue in the aggregate. But now, that’s changing.

Reputation and quality of service become deciding factors over sheer resources in many cases. There are still instances throwing lots of people at a problem are warranted, but that’s is becoming less so everyday. As part of the “Long Tail,” small and medium firms can often rival the giants.