Social Forces

The Division of Legal Labor

Because the kind of work that professionals do is consequential for their careers (and the structure of inequality more generally), research on occupational inequality has long separated workers into functional categories, and research on the legal profession is no exception (Heinz et al. 1998:770). The kinds of work that lawyers do can be classified along four lines: (1. specialty area, (2. client type, (3. professional purity and (4. professional power. Early investigations by Heinz and colleagues (1982) demonstrated that lawyers work in various specialty areas (also called practice areas) that rely on different legal doctrines, and these practice area(s) are highly consequential for their careers. For example, antitrust law has more prestige and accords greater compensation to practitioners than divorce law. Subsequent analyses by Heinz and colleagues suggested an unexpected but strong effect of client type: lawyers who represent businesses are accorded greater prestige and pay than lawyers who represent individuals. Client type bifurcates the field (and correlates with class and ethnic background) so strongly that it effectively creates what Heinz and colleagues call "dual hemispheres." Related to but theoretically distinct from practice area and client type is a third way in which legal work is classified: by the professional purity of tasks. Abbott's (1988) professional purity thesis suggests that lawyers who work closely with core, abstract and legal knowledge (i.e., engage in pure legal work, untainted by, say, administrative duties) will receive greater deference and prestige than those whose work is sullied by laypersons and nonlegal matters. Last, some legal environments and tasks imply greater or lesser degrees of professional power, which is significantly related to earnings (Hagan and Kay 1995; Hagan 1990:836). In sum, we know from previous research that lawyers work in different practice areas, serve different kinds of clients and perform tasks that vary in terms of both purity and power, and that all of these "kinds of work" are related to valued career outcomes like earnings.

If we shift our focus from the kinds of work professionals do (i.e., its content) to the form it takes, new distinctions emerge that could illuminate the earnings determination process. The distinction of theoretical interest to us is the extent of specialization. [End Page 1103] Some lawyers devote all of their time to a single practice area and thus can be considered specialists.² Other lawyers spend a small amount of time in many different practice areas and can be considered generalists. Between these two extremes lies the majority of lawyers who work in a limited set of practice areas. Thus, the degree to which lawyers specialize in their work varies, and we consider this heretofore neglected variation to be theoretically interesting and integral to career outcomes like earnings.

This dimension of specialization (extent) is distinct from the dimension more typically studied (area). Indeed, there is no necessary, i.e., imposed, relationship between the two.³ To assess the extent of specialization, we must consider the number of areas a lawyer practices in, and the amount of time devoted to each, but the substance of the areas is irrelevant. This is demonstrated in Figure 1. Lawyers who share the same four practice areas could be highly diversified (like Lawyer A, who devotes 25% of his time to each area) or highly specialized (like Lawyer B, who devotes 85% of her time to one area, and only 5% of her time to each of the other three). A comparison of lawyers B and C shows that lawyers who have no practice areas in common could easily specialize to the same degree. For this reason, we carefully distinguish—both theoretically and analytically—between these two dimensions of specialization: areas of specialization (and their respective levels of prestige) and the extent of specialization. This also allows us to consider their interaction, a novel hypothesis we develop in the next section.

While previous research has conceptualized and developed ways to measure the extent of specialization (Leahey 2006; Leahey 2007; Heinz et al. 2005), we are the

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Figure 1.

Demonstrating No Necessary Relationship between Areas and Extent of Specialization

[End Page 1104]

first to incorporate it into a model of lawyers' earnings. Heinz and colleagues (2005:37) use an entropy measure to create a specialization score for each lawyer in their Chicago datafile, but then aggregate these scores to describe differences across time and across practice areas. They do not include the extent of specialization as an explanatory variable in their analyses of the determinants of individuals' earnings (see Table 7.2, p.170). In a series of papers, Garicano and Hubbard (2003, 2007) have also explored the extent of specialization among U.S. lawyers, but their focus is on the relationship between individual specialization and characteristics of firms (such as their size, boundaries, and hierarchical structure), for example, how the ratio of partnered lawyers to associates may decrease coordination costs and thus increase efficiencies and returns to skill. The question of whether and how the extent of specialization affects individual earnings remains open.⁴

Our theoretical and analytic focus is specialization across practice areas, to the neglect of specialization across other divisions, such as tasks or clientele. We invoke this generalized scope condition for several reasons. First, a focus on specialization across practice areas is consistent with previous research on specialization in the legal field (Heinz et al. 2005; Garicano and Hubbard 2003, 2007).⁵ Second, a focus on specialization across practice areas makes our research generalizable to other professions where specialty area is a dominant and consequential form of classification, such as medicine (Weeks and Wallace 2002) and academe (Leahey 2007; Moody 2004). Indeed, a scholar's career, reputation and earnings are defined more by specialty area than by tasks performed (e.g., writing, reading, analysis, mentoring) or by clients served (e.g., colleagues, collaborators, community, students). Third, of all the ways in which legal work can be divided, practice areas are the most visible to outsiders and the most relevant to the decision to hire a particular lawyer or law firm. Outside the legal community, lawyers are known for the kind of law they practice, more so than for the clients they serve or the tasks they perform. Indeed, those outside the legal profession are not privy to the various tasks lawyers regularly perform, like memo writing, negotiation, deposition, and internal administration, especially before legal services and payments are contracted. Specialty area trumps other kinds of divisions like tasks and clientele because it is more visible to, and more consequential for, prospective clients as they make decisions about whom to hire. And as we show, building clients, contracts, and billable hours are critical to economic rewards in the legal profession.⁶

Economic Gains From Specializing by Practice Area

Although the extent of legal specialization has not been incorporated into an individual level analysis of earnings to date,⁷ its effects can be theorized. We incorporate theories of productivity and organizational processes to develop hypotheses. Many of the theories we draw upon are macro-level theories developed to explain institutional behavior, yet we use them to hypothesize about individual careers. We thus agree with Vaughan (1992) that alternating levels of analysis is fruitful for theory elaboration and refinement. [End Page 1105]

As Adam Smith (1776) noted more than 200 years ago, one mechanism by which specializing may enhance income is via increased productivity. This may be just as true for individual members of a profession as it is for nation states. Focusing in one or a few practice areas leads to efficiency gains (Garicano and Hubbard 2009) and heightened productivity, which (all else equal) should boost earnings. Our previous research on academics (author references removed) found empirical support for this process. The same process may be operating in the legal profession, especially now. In an earlier time, when law firms were small and less likely to be internally organized by practice area, firms rotated new associates across departments to assess their strengths and to allow preferences regarding practice area to develop (Heinz et al. 2001). Increased competition and cost-consciousness among larger firms, however, limited this practice. Firms now realize that "most types of lawyers become more productive when they specialize" (Heinz et al. 2001:383), likely due to efficiency gains associated with mastering a finite amount of legal doctrine. Thus, firms encourage new recruits to specialize and to "hit the ground running" once hired to be as productive as possible. Our argument about the gains from specializing in practice area(s) rests largely on the efficiencies gained from mastering a finite amount of abstract legal doctrine; it is unlikely that specializing in more concrete and codified domains such as clients or tasks would boost productivity. Rather, as Gorman and Kmec (2009) find, it is the less codified, less classifiable and more "uncertain" kinds of work tasks that are rewarded most handsomely.

Specialists may also garner higher earnings because they tend to work in large firms. We know that large firms pay higher salaries than small firms because they are more insulated from market fluctuations, and because they emulate the practices of their (predominantly) corporate clients by paying their top lawyers and managers an inordinate share of the firm's income (Dinovitzer Reichman and Sterling 2009; Heinz et al. 2005:165). But why might specialists be more likely to work in large firms? Previous research suggests that the organizational structure of large firms may be more appealing to specialists, and it might also be best able to capitalize on specialists' knowledge and expertise. Large firms are best characterized by a "corporate model" that contains multiple divisions and employs many permanent associates and part-time lawyers (Heinz et al. 2005: 108). And firms with greater hierarchies, that is, associates per lawyer, can better leverage and exploit the "depth" that characterizes specialists' knowledge (Garicano and Hubbard 2007). While we acknowledge that this mechanism is likely relevant to lawyers who specialize in a certain type of client (i.e., lawyers who work primarily with business clients tend to work in large firms), the argument for greater leverage pertains to the abstract legal knowledge specific to practice areas rather than the more concrete and interpersonal knowledge specific to client type.

Given these theoretical mechanisms, we hypothesize that specializing by practice area will boost lawyers' earnings, even after controlling for other known determinants of earnings. Previous research has identified a number of factors that contribute to earnings in the legal profession and thus are critical control variables. Going to an elite law [End Page 1106] school and being in the top 25 percent of one's class, having more experience, making partner and working in a prestigious specialty area all promote earnings (Hagan 1990; Heinz and Laumann 1982; Heinz et al. 2005; Noonan Corcoran and Courant 2005). Serving business clients (Heinz and Laumann 1982; Heinz et al. 2005) and networking with notables in the field (Kim and Laumann 2003) are also beneficial. Lawyers who engage in more purely legal work (i.e., inferential work in Abbott's terms) garner more prestige (Sandefur 2001) and presumably the compensation that accompanies it. Lawyers who wield professional power also see financial gains (Hagan, Huxter and Parker 1988; Hagan 1990; Kay and Hagan 1995). Given the recent influx of women and minorities into the bar, we also control for gender and race, with the full understanding that most of our control variables are themselves gendered and racialized, thereby absorbing main effects that would otherwise be associated with gender and race (Ely and Padavic 2007).

As noted above, previous research documents the importance of the kind of work professional do, and in the legal field this is typically manifested by lawyers' practice area(s) and their associated prestige levels (Heinz et al. 2005; Kay and Hagan 1995; Kim and Laumann 2003). We devote special attention to this variable, distinguishing it from other controls, because it is conceptually and operationally close to our key explanatory variable: the extent of specialization. We expect the effect of specializing to depend on the prestige of one's practice area(s). While it may be intuitive to expect that specializing in a high-prestige area(s) brings added rewards, the benefits of pursuing both a high degree of specialization and working in high-prestige areas may offset each other when pursued jointly. Thus, we hypothesize a negative interaction term: specializing should allow lawyers to compensate for a structurally disadvantaged position, such as working in low-prestige specialty area. For example, personal injury law may not be the most economically rewarding practice area, but lawyers who pursue it almost exclusively might be able to foster efficiencies and become well known for that kind of work, thereby bringing in business and boosting earnings, to a greater extent than lawyers who practice personal injury law "on the side," as part of a broader repertoire of legal services. Thus, specializing may be particularly advantageous for those with lower status (Zuckerman et al. 2003). Conversely, diversifying may be most advantageous for lawyers in already advantaged positions, like those working in high-prestige practice areas. In these areas, legal work likely requires a greater amount of task uncertainty and a broader range of skills (Gorman and Kmec 2009) and typically involves working with clients (be they firms or wealthy individuals) with a broad array of legal needs (Fried 1976).

Data and Sample

We located two secondary data sources perfectly suited to test our hypothesis: the National Survey of Lawyers' Career Satisfaction (NSCLS) and the Chicago Lawyers Survey (CLS). In 1989, Ronald Hirsch was commissioned by the American Bar Association (ABA) to conduct the NSLCS. This mail-out survey was fielded to a [End Page 1107] probability sample of U.S. lawyers who were members of the ABA; the response rate of 67 percent yielded a sample of 2,189 lawyers. In 1995, John Heinz and colleagues conducted the CLS by mail, randomly sampling lawyers who were in good standing with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and who also had a Chicago address; the response rate of 82 percent yielded a sample of 788 lawyers. Response rates for both surveys were well above average. The topics covered in these two surveys are remarkably similar, including background characteristics, attitudes and, importantly, work histories and experience.

While both of these datasets have been used extensively to investigate inequality in the legal profession (Chiu and Leicht 1999; Heinz et al. 1998; Heinz et al. 2005; Kim and Laumann 2003; Sandefur 2001) and both, fortuitously, provide information on allocation of time to different practice areas (which is critical for measuring the extent of specialization), each offers distinct benefits: CLS is more recent and has a direct measure of percent of clients that are business and NSLCS is national in scope. Each datafile contains a rich set of variables; imperfect overlap allows us to control for important variables in at least one, and sometimes both, datafiles. Finding support for our hypothesis using two distinct data sources—collected on different samples, at different time points—strengthens the external validity of our argument.

We impose some restrictions to obtain a sample of lawyers from each datafile. The analysis samples (n = 534 for NSLCS, n = 781 for CLS) include only lawyers who (1. answered all questions about their practice and (2. were working in private practice (i.e., a law firm or as sole-practitioner). We impose this second restriction, which excludes lawyers working for government and for corporations, because the income-determination process differs in these practice settings (Dixon and Seron 1995:395) and because billable hours and position in the firm (partner/associate) are important to control for, but are only relevant to private practice. This restriction does not limit our external validity because the majority of lawyers continue to engage in the private practice of law (Curran 1986). In fact, most other studies of the legal field focus on lawyers in private law firms, often further restricting the sample to firms that serve corporations or firms of a certain size (Garicano and Hubbard 2009; Gorman 2006; Gorman and Kmec 2009).

Measures

Extent of Specialization

We follow Heinz et al. (2005:37) in measuring the extent to which each lawyer's work is specialized. (Recall that Heinz and colleagues constructed a measure of the extent of specialization, but never used it in an individual-level analysis.) In our previous research on the academic profession (Leahey 2006; Leahey 2007; Leahey et al. 2010; Leahey et al. 2008), we measured the extent of specialization in work output; here, we measure the extent of specialization in work input, or the allocation of time. This decision is largely a function of the kind work members of these professions do and how it is quantified in the data available to us. Respondents to both surveys were asked what percent of time they spent working in a fixed set of practice areas in the past 12 months (see Appendix A). From the categorical responses to this question (e.g., 6%-20%, 21%-49%, etc.), we constructed a continuous variable by taking the midpoint of each category. Then, for each individual lawyer, we calculate entropy, a measure of the diversity of one's effort across practice areas:

where P_i is the proportion of time allocated to practice area i by respondent j.

We adjust this measure to make it more interpretable, and also consider modifications. We reverse code the standardized measure of entropy (specialization = 1 - Ĥ_j / H_max), so that higher values indicate greater specialization. The variable thus ranges from 0 to 1, where a value of 0 indicates that work time is uniformly distributed across practice areas, and a value of 1 indicates complete specialization (devotion of all time to one area). We also constructed two modified versions of the measure: one that adjusted for instances in which total time allocation summed to more than 100 percent⁸ and a relative measure that assessed the extent of specialization of each lawyer compared with fellow respondents. Because these various measures are correlated at 0.94 or above, and results do not depend on the measure used, we do not report results based on the modified measures.

Our measure of the extent of specialization is, importantly, not confounded with Heinz and colleagues' (2005) key variable: percent of clients that are businesses. To ensure this, we consider areas differentiated solely by client base to be the same area. For example, in the CLS, "tax, personal" and "tax, corporate" are considered separate categories, given Heinz and colleagues' interest in assessing their dual hemisphere [End Page 1109] hypothesis. However, for our purposes, we consider both of these areas to be one practice area: tax law. After collapsing categories in this vein (see Appendix A), we computed entropy values based on 36 areas in the CLS and 16 areas in the NSLCS. Differences in practice areas between the two datasets are not problematic,⁹ as we standardize the entropy measure by dividing it by its maximum possible value (Ĥ_j/H_max), as suggested by Heinz et al. (2005). These differences may in fact be advantageous if our hypothesis is supported regardless of how the substantive structure of the legal field is perceived.

Analytic Strategy

To assess whether the extent of specialization in practice areas affects lawyers' salaries, we estimate a series of path-analytic models using the statistical package AMOS. This package can handle missing data by using full information maximum likelihood estimation, which is more ideal than listwise deletion or imputation (Anderson 1957). Path analysis is particularly ideal for specifying the effects of intervening variables (productivity and firm size). We specify three nested models for each sample, the CLS and NSLCS. We begin with a model that includes our key variable—the extent of specialization—as well as prestige of practice area and all control variables. Our second model assesses the relevance of two mechanisms: productivity (captured by billable hours) and firm size. Our last model includes the hypothesized interaction between specialty area prestige and the extent of specialization.

Results

A comparison of the national and the Chicago-based samples suggests that the extent of specialization, earnings and the two mechanisms (billable hours and firm size) are associated. In the CLS, average values on all of these key variables are higher than in the NSLCS, suggesting that specializing may indeed be related to earnings (see Table 1). We also assessed whether the area and extent of specialization are empirically related (as we discussed earlier) by running a series of t-tests comparing the mean "extent of specialization" score between lawyers with and without a particular modal practice area. Using the Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons, we found that two areas in the CLS and four areas in the NSLCS are significantly related to the extent of specialization.¹⁴ Of course, our main interest is less in the practice areas themselves than in their prestige, and how this interacts with the extent of specialization; we investigate this in a multivariate context, below.

As hypothesized, the extent of specialization positively affects earnings. We found this to be the case in both samples—the CLS (Table 2) and the NSLCS (Table 3): the coefficients are statistically significant and of roughly the same size (standardized coefficients for the direct effect of specialization are 0.293 and 0.253, respectively). This finding holds in all models, whether or not mechanisms (models 2b and 3b) or the interaction term (models 2c and 3c) are included (indeed, once mechanisms are included, the total effect of the extent of specialization increases). Because we have a logged dependent variable and an unlogged explanatory variable, the exponentiated coefficient gives the percentage increase in the dependent variable for a one-unit shift in the explanatory variable. Among Chicago lawyers (model 2a), a one-unit increase in specialization, that is, shifting from a complete generalist to a complete specialist, increases earnings by over 80 percent (e^0.61 = 1.84). Among lawyers nationwide (model 3a), such a shift doubles expected earnings (e^0.73 = 2.07). These effects are consistent across genders and racial groups.¹⁵

The extent of specialization's effect on earnings is mediated by firm size, and to a lesser extent, individual productivity (see models 2b and 3b). All direct paths that link [End Page 1112]

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Chicago Lawyers Survey and National Survey of Lawyers' Career Satisfaction

[End Page 1114]

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Table 2.

Determinants of Annual Income, Chicago Lawyers Survey (CLS)

[End Page 1116]

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Table 3.

Determinants of Annual Income, National Survey of Lawyers' Career Satisfaction (NSLCS)

[End Page 1118]

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Figure 2.

Interaction Effect in the CLS

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Figure 3.

Interaction Effect in the NSLCS

specializing to earnings via productivity and firm size (in both datasets) are positive, all are statistically significant in the NSLCS and all but one (the path from specializing to productivity) is significant in the CLS. At least in the national sample, specializing boosts productivity, which in turn boosts earnings. In both samples, specialists are more likely to work in large firms, and this also boosts their earnings. Once these two mechanisms are added to the models, the total (i.e., direct plus indirect) standardized effect of the extent of specialization increases from 0.79 to 0.103 in CLS and from 0.090 to 0.146 in NSLCS, further attesting to their role. This suggests a relatively large degree of empirical support for our proposed mechanisms, which help illuminate how specializing boosts earnings. [End Page 1119]

While we corroborate previous research that finds that prestige of practice area positively affects earnings (Heinz et al. 2005), we also find more nuance to this relationship. As expected, the extent of specialization and the prestige of specialty area interact in both CLS and NSLCS (see models 2c and 3c), and must be considered jointly. While each has a positive effect on earnings, these two factors offset each other somewhat, as suggested by the negative coefficient corresponding to the interaction term. To aid interpretation, we graph these effects (see figures 2 and 3) using only plausible values and plausible combinations of the values (i.e., those that exist in the data). While salaries are higher in the Chicago sample, both figures depict very similar interaction effects. Lawyers working in both medium-prestige (50^th percentile) and low-prestige (10th percentile) practice areas benefit from specializing, but the latter gain the most from specializing (note the steeper slope for this group). Interestingly, specializing actually depresses earnings for lawyers who work in the most prestigious practice areas (90^th percentile); this negative slope is particularly steep in the national (NSLCS) data. Specialists in low-prestige field(s) earn just as much and sometimes more than specialists in high-prestige fields.¹⁶ Exploratory analyses of other possible interaction effects revealed few insights and did not change the results reported here.¹⁷

Most of the controls operate in ways we expected based on previous research. Like Heinz and colleagues' recent analysis (2005:170), we find that women's disadvantage disappears once we account for practice setting (firm size). And some (but not all) measures of professional purity and of professional power reach statistical significance, especially for the Chicago sample, corroborating Abbott's and Kay and Hagan's results. The number of clients, which may be related to rainmaking capacity, also positively affects earnings. However, a few effects run counter to previous research. Surprisingly, the percent of clients that are businesses loses its statistical significance in the CLS (but not the NSLCS) after productivity and firm size were introduced (see model 2b), partly because firm size and percent business clients are highly correlated among Chicago lawyers (0.34). We also find, surprisingly, that going to a top law school has no effect on earnings in either sample and being in the top quartile of one's class has a significant and positive effect only in the CLS. Further investigations reveal a significant and positive interaction term between school prestige and class standing (not shown) in both datasets, which suggests that gains from class standing are only manifested in the most prestigious schools.

Discussion

Why is income inequality growing, even within professions? Intraoccupational differences are partly responsible (Mouw and Kalleberg 2010). Previous work highlights the "kind of work" that members of an occupation do: their specialty areas, their clientele and the power or purity associated with their tasks. In this article we focused on another way in which lawyers' work is differentiated: by the extent to which they specialize by practice area. Is specializing economically beneficial and thus a contributor to wage [End Page 1120] inequality within the legal profession? Theories of productivity and organizational processes led us to suspect as much.

We found empirical support for our hypothesis concerning specialization's effect on income. Among Chicago-based lawyers (the CLS) and lawyers nationwide (NSLCS), specializing is advantageous, at least in terms of earnings. Lawyers who focus on one or a few practice areas earn more than lawyers who spread their time across a larger number of practice areas and these results hold even when we control for a host of relevant variables.

Firm size, and to a lesser extent, individual productivity, help explain how specializing boosts earnings. In both samples, we find support for previous research that documents that (1. large and hierarchical firms can better capitalize on specialists' skills and thus be more attractive to specialists (Heinz et al. 2005)¹⁸ and (2. larger firms pay higher salaries than smaller firms (Garicano and Hubbard 2007). In our nationwide sample, our results support research documenting a specialization → productivity → earnings relationship (Garicano and Hubbard 2009; Leahey 2007, 2009; Smith 1776). The first of these links was not statistically significant in CLS. We attribute this to a variety of factors: (1. descriptively we found that specialists earn more per hour in Chicago than in cities nationwide, so there may be less incentive for specialists in Chicago to increase billable hours (our measure of productivity); (2. the positive relationship between specialization and productivity does not hold for solo-practicing lawyers in either sample, and solo-practice is more common in Chicago (20% vs. 15% nationwide); and (3. city size. We consider this last factor to be most compelling, as when we restrict the national datafile (NSLCS) to respondents living in cities of Chicago's size (1 million+), the relationship between specializing and productivity loses statistical significance. Perhaps large cities provide a greater number and richer variety of law firms, enabling not only interfirm mobility (through which a lawyer might negotiate for conditions, such as more associates, that enhance productivity) but also greater competition, which could boost rainmaking efforts (a mechanism we could not measure).¹⁹

Other mechanisms that we could not empirically assess are also likely operating and provide opportunities for future research. Specializing by practice area may also facilitate visibility and the development of network ties, which is positively related to earnings (Dinovitzer, Reichman and Sterling 2009; Kim and Laumann 2003; Leahey 2007). Of course, the kind of network matters: although specializing may not extend a lawyer's connections to other lawyers (it may merely intensify existing ties), it could extend a lawyer's connections to potential clients. And it is this kind of network development that contributes to "rainmaking": the ability to recruit and retain new clients, which is highly valued and compensated (Blair-Loy 2001). Thus, lawyers who specialize in one or a few practice areas may be better at identifying prospective clients, recruiting them and thereby bringing business to their firm (which is handsomely rewarded). And to the extent that rainmakers are in high demand, their incomes should also benefit from the increasingly common practice of moving laterally (as partner) between law firms (Heinz et al. 2001). [End Page 1121]

Our results corroborate a previously documented positive relationship between specialty area prestige and earnings; however, we also find more nuance to this relationship. We found that specializing is more beneficial for lawyers working in less prestigious practice areas, allowing them to compensate for their disadvantaged position. Specializing is actually disadvantageous for lawyers working in high-prestige areas, suggesting that there may be penalties for double dipping: both specializing and working in a high-prestige practice area. These effects are strong and evident in both the Chicago-based and national samples.

We offer several possible interpretations of this somewhat counterintuitive conditional relationship. First, perhaps the mechanism of enhanced productivity works differently in low-prestige and high-prestige practice areas. To be more productive, lawyers in low-prestige practice areas may simply have to do "more of the same," whereas lawyers in high-prestige practice areas may have to tread into a variety of complex and possibly diverse bodies of law, especially if elite individual clients have diverse legal needs (Fried 1976).²⁰ To the extent that work in high-prestige areas is akin to work at high organizational levels, it likely involves a wide and less predictable variety of problems and requires decisions to be made based on ambiguous information (Gorman and Kmec 2009). In other words, being productive in high-prestige areas may require skills and dispositions that specializing does not foster. While we find (descriptively) that lawyers in prestigious practice areas engage more frequently in sophisticated tasks like negotiating (9% of their time, compared with 5% for lawyers in less-prestigious practice areas), our models control for such differences in the professional purity and professional power associated with such tasks.

Second, we find Zuckerman and colleagues' (2003) theoretical insights about another labor market (feature film actors) to be persuasive and applicable here. They note that the relative risks and benefits of specializing depend on an actor's status (p. 1021, brackets added):

Once the candidate has sufficient recognition to obtain a sustainable line of work in a particular category, the value of having strong associations with that category begins to be dwarfed by its cost. The question of whether simplicity [i.e.., specializing] or complexity [i.e., diversifying] is more advantageous turns on whether one has established oneself beyond the point at which a multivalent identity is construed as no identity at all.

Thus, membership in a high-prestige practice area provides evidence of skill, a lucrative and sustainable line of work and the concomitant recognition. By establishing themselves in this way, high-status lawyers need not fear that they will be perceived as incompetent and thereby disregarded. Lawyers in high-status specialties thus have less to gain from specializing, and the costs of specializing (e.g., having less flexibility and autonomy in their work and becoming typecast) begin to outweigh the benefits. Lawyers in low-prestige specialty areas, on the other hand, face greater risks, as Zuckerman and colleagues (2003) note (p. 1067, brackets added): [End Page 1122]

A worker who attempts to be a generalist faces the threat that she will be regarded as a dilettante who is not competent at any type of work. As a result, assuming a simple focused identity [i.e., specializing] is a more viable strategy . . . when one is at risk of being screened out of consideration.

Lawyers in low-status specialties face a greater number of competitors and can be disregarded more easily: individual clients can take their business elsewhere more easily than firms in contractual relationships with law firms. For low-status lawyers, specializing may be particularly advantageous.

Finally, a related possibility is that some "generalists" are actually bridging and mixing practice areas, a practice that entails significant risks (Hannan 2010; Hsu, Hannan, and Kocak 2009). And if departing from recognized practice areas is appreciated only among the elite (Rao, Monin, and Durand 2005; Zuckerman et al. 2003), then this could help explain the negative interaction we find between the extent of specialization and prestige of practice area.²¹ Because our data and measure capture only lawyers' variation along a specialization-diversification continuum, not bridging and mixing processes, we encourage future researchers to devise quantitative measures of such constructs. It may be most easily assessed at the case level (where relevant legal doctrine can be ascertained) rather than the individual level.

While our theoretical focus is on the impact of specializing, we encourage future research on the opportunity structure for specializing. This could take multiple forms, including (1. a thorough investigation of the "determinants" of specializing, including both structural forces and more personal choices (and their interaction), as well as (2. a broader exploration of the contexts and conditions that might make specializing more or less rewarding. For example, perhaps the returns to specializing are greater in large cities or for equity partners, and a focus on these and other conditional relationships may illuminate the relationship between specializing and earnings even more.

Results of this study add to our understanding of the income determination process in law and perhaps other professions. Our decision to highlight specialization across specialty areas rather than across tasks or clients permits comparison to other professions in which specialty area trumps other divisions of labor. Indeed, our findings are consistent with previous work on academe: while increased specialization may not always serve a profession—Heinz and colleagues (2005) note lack of communication and disintegration among the drawbacks—it appears to serve individuals, at least in the short term and in terms of earnings.²² Our findings suggest that in addition to the kinds of work lawyers do—that is, the areas they practice in, the clients they serve and the tasks they perform—the extent to which they specialize by practice area is critical to understanding why some lawyers are compensated more than others. Of particular importance is our finding that specializing is most beneficial to lawyers practicing in low-prestige practice areas, and thus can help compensate for a structurally disadvantaged position. In the [End Page 1123] future we hope to collect longitudinal data that will allow us to examine the longer term effects of specializing, assess the multiple processes by which specializing may boost earnings and extend our analyses to a third profession: medicine. Although we found the effect of specializing on earnings to be similar in academe and law, differences among the professions may emerge in the process by which this effect comes about.