Industry description and outlook
The paralegal service industry in California has grown in size and become highly competitive with many players. The paralegal services are mostly offered by law firms in California. In California, the paralegal services industry is estimated to have a growth rate of 17% ( Paralegal411, n.d) . It is expected that California will take a large share of the 46,900 paralegal service opportunities, which will be created by the year 2022 in the entire United States of America. It is vital to observe the fact that California had 30,060 paralegals employed by the year 2014 ( Paralegal411, n.d) . The general growth and expansion of the paralegal service industry and its established existence in California make many players to be bullish about the future business prospects.
Notably, the largest groups of clients for paralegal services in California are the corporate firms and the immigrants. The number of corporate firms is increasing in California hence bringing positive indicators about the future demand level for the paralegal services. This prospect has made many law firms to start diversifying their departments with the aim exploiting this lucrative opportunity. A lot of the business corporations are based in San Francisco ( Paralegal411, n.d) . Moreover, this area is known for its good prices charged from the clients because of the booming paralegal service business owing to increasing number of corporations.
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The paralegal industry is an established one, with substantial share of the United States GDP. The strength of this industry is that it is not affected by economic and market shocks. Therefore, as most industries get slowed down by economic difficulties caused by the oil prices and negative movements of the interest rates, the paralegal services sector does not feel any fluctuations.
Information about Your Target Market
My target market is the corporate business clients. My paralegal services business will be located in San Francisco, where the number of corporate customers is big because of the rising number of firms in the area. These business clients come for legal aid for various court cases and other issues such writing business contract agreements. It is an attractive and growing market.
Moreover, I will also target the immigrants from China and Middle East Islam countries. This group of immigrants normally faces various challenges once they enter the United States that require paralegal assistance. They always demand legal advice on the way to get the valid documentation from the California State departments ( Paralegal411, n.d) . Others are always in demand of legal briefing on the laws of both the United States and California State. Such legal briefing is particularly sought by the immigrants who intend to start businesses in California. The advice is mostly based on the business laws of the federal government, the California State and the U.S. Constitution.
Distinguishing characteristics
The corporate clients in California require paralegal services during the making of business contracts. However, this service is quite rare in San Francisco hence their demand is not satisfied. Moreover, the immigrants need paralegal professionals to educate them about the legal requirements of the country and the state. They also require assistance in getting the valid legal documents needed for stay in the country and California ( Paralegal411, n.d) . This service is not sufficiently provided because of the many immigrants demanding it compared to minimal number of lawyers and legal experts in California.
The demographics of the group where they are located include mostly people aged between 30-45 years. A lot of them are working class and business people. Moreover, most immigrants fall into this age group.
Size of the primary target market
The prospects for the corporate clients are positive considering the rise of business firms in San Francisco. Therefore, the size of the primary corporate target market is quite large and growing at a high rate ( Omachonu, Haar & Berg, 2016) . These corporate clients spend huge sums of money on paying paralegal fees considering the fact that life in San Francisco is quite expensive. It is the same for the immigrant clients who also have to spend a lot of money on paying the paralegal service professionals. It is the reason California is rated among the highest paying places for the paralegal professionals. The forecasted market growth for both the corporate and immigrant clients is about 12%.
How much market share can you gain?
Considering my vast experience in the work of paralegal services, I am quite sure that I can get at least 25% of the corporate target market in San Francisco. Moreover, the fact that I have a rich network of corporate friends in this area of San Francisco puts me at an upper hand of gaining a significant share of the business field market ( Paralegal411, n.d) . Furthermore, I believe that I can get 45% of the Chinese immigrant clients because of the many friends I have from this group. For the Muslim immigrants from Middle East, I may only manage to get 8% of the market share because I have to build the network of new friends from this group.
Competitive Analysis
My competitive advantage is derived from the massive qualifications and expertise I have in this field and an unrivaled rich network of influential people within the San Francisco area of California State. Moreover, I intend to earn huge number of referrals, which will form part of my competitive strengths ( Trilling, 1998) . My weakness is that I do not have influential friends among the Muslims who reside in California hence achieve competitive advantage for this group of immigrants will be challenging for me. I am quite sure my corporate target market is also the focus of many the law firms in California. The reason for the high focus on the corporate clients is because the service prices for this market segment are high hence making it to be a lucrative area ( Lewis & Brown, 2012) . Furthermore, it is growing at a high rate hence paralegals know its future is bright.
The barriers in this industry are quite minimal once one has the required educational qualifications ( Schmidt, 2016) . Since I have the educational qualifications, I do not think there will be any entry barriers. My window of opportunity will be setting up a law firm in San Francisco and start offering paralegal services to corporate clients in the area before starting to diversify to other areas within the California state and also targeting the market of Chinese and Muslim immigrants. It is important to observe the fact that lack of quality personnel to recruit in my law firm is the major barrier to the California market.
Regulatory restrictions
There are minimal regulatory restrictions to paralegal service business practice in California. The certification requirement in California fort one to operate paralegal services business is possession of certificate from the educational programs that are approved by the American Bar Association. Moreover, one is required to have a bachelor’s degree in any discipline. The person is needed to have the training offered to him by a qualified attorney. Other general requirements include an ethical course and some legal education background. Therefore, it can be noted that the only regulatory requirements in this industry are educational in nature. These are demands that I have fulfilled and do believe will easily secure the certification for running the paralegal services business in California.
References
Lewis, M. A., & Brown, A. D. (2012). How different is professional service operations management?. Journal of Operations Management , 30 (1), 1-11.
Omachonu, V., Haar, J., & Berg, D. (2016). Assessing quality in professional services: a framework for gap analysis. International Journal of Transitions and Innovation Systems , 5 (1), 4-19.
Paralegal411 (n.d). California Paralegal Career Guide. Available at https://www.paralegal411.org/careers/california/ .
Schmidt, S. J. (2016). Marketing the law firm: business development techniques . Law Journal Press.
Trilling, F. L. (1998). The Strategic Application of Business Methods to the Practice of Law. Washburn LJ , 38 , 13.
