The legal industry is by far the most fragmented industry in the United States. Between more than a million lawyers and over 400,000 law firms across the country, law entrepreneurs must battle their way to stand out in such a conglomerated market.
James Helm, the founder of the Philadelphia-based injury law firm TopDog Law, has unflinchingly accepted this challenge. Helm, 31, is an ambitious Philadelphia-native attorney who is not reticent about sharing his bold vision for his law firm.
“I have very lofty ambitions for TopDog Law,” declared Helm during a recent interview. “I want TopDog Law to be a nine-figure law firm. I think the opportunity to do that is right there for the taking.”
Helm established TopDog Law in 2019, one year after graduating from Rutgers University Law School. After only three years in the market, TopDog Law has grown into a thriving multi-seven-figure law firm with two offices in Philadelphia and one in Baltimore. To this day, Helm and his team have helped accident victims across Pennsylvania recover millions of dollars in compensation for their injuries.
One of the main factors behind TopDog Law’s success has been its original marketing strategy. With entertaining law-related videos on the social media platform Instagram, Helm provides practical law tips to the general public while creating brand awareness.
Helm is confident that this disruptive marketing strategy, along with his commitment to providing top-quality representation to his clients, will lead TopDog Law to grow into one of the preeminent injury law firms in the country.
In a video interview back in May, Helm connected via Zoom to talk about his vision for TopDog Law and his take on the legal industry’s future.
Helm acknowledges that TopDog Law still has a long way before reaching the nine-figure benchmark. This ambitious goal will require Helm to continue to expand his firm within the Philadelphia metropolitan area and eventually venture into new markets in the Northeast United States.
“To [reach our vision], we will need to be the most prominent law firm in Philadelphia,” said Helm. “But, we will also need to have a significant presence in five to seven other major markets.”
Helm’s vision is a highly ambitious quest in an industry as competitive as the American legal industry. Unlike other sectors, no one major law firm owns a significant percentage of the national market. Instead, the legal industry is fragmented into city-level local markets.
“Right now,” said Helm, “no single law firm owns more than 1% market share, which is something very unique among industries.”
Nonetheless, Helm foresees that the legal industry will tend toward consolidation in the upcoming years. Across the nation, those firms that better adapt to the ongoing shifts in the legal sector will be able to grasp a larger share of this market. Helm and his team are working to ensure that TopDog Law will position itself among the dominant players in the industry nationwide.
“As a whole, there is going to be a lot of consolidation in the legal industry,” explained Helm. “As the market naturally sees some consolidation, I want TopDog Law to be one of the 25 or 50 national brands standing atop.”
Despite being a relatively young law firm, TopDog Law has become one of the fastest-growing injury law firms in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The firm’s commitment to delivering top-quality representation and its innovative marketing strategy have allowed it to gain significant notoriety as a promising rising star in the legal industry.
Today, Helm continues to use social media platforms as the backbone of his marketing strategy. He is confident that these new digital channels will allow him to reach larger audiences, making TopDog Law one of the most recognizable injury law brands in Philadelphia and across the nation.
“The way to achieve our goals,” concluded Helm, “is by spreading our message far and wide so that everyone knows who we are and what our mission is.”
By Juan Sebastian Restrepo,
With Artistic Initiative Agency
