"Honestly, if I had been on my own then, he wouldn't be a client of mine," Blackman says. "My appeal now is to people who can look at my background, the size of my organization and say, 'I want to work with that guy, because I want to be one of a dozen, not one of 200.'"

Jumping Off A Cliff
Kenneth P. Brier of Brier & Geurden LLP was an estate and trust lawyer at several large Boston firms, working in a field where "a lot of the biggest firms were letting the trust and estate practices wither on the vine."

It reached a point where he felt something had to change. "When I turned 50, I asked myself, what else am I going to do?''

In 2003, Brier formed his own firm.

"In the first week, I thought, 'My God, is this going to work?' he says. "Leaving the big firm is like jumping off the cliff. [You] hope the parachute is going to hold.'' It held, as Brier was able to bring his clients with him to his first boutique firm.

In larger firms, Brier notes, partners don't have the luxury of  "picking and choosing who is the best lawyer. You have to refer a client to a partner. I spent roughly half of my time serving other people's clients.''

In 2007, Brier did have the luxury of choosing a partner. Along with Robert M. Geurden, Brier formed his current practice in Needham, Mass. Julia A. Rossetti has since joined the firm as an associate and there are two other office staffers.

Brier says his small firm can offer the same services as the big downtown firms, including estate planning, tax issues and planning for executives and entrepreneurs. As the operator of a small firm, he adds, he has lower overhead and can charge clients a lower fee than his larger competitors.
"There's a growing demand for this kind of practice in the suburbs and we're still close to Boston,'' says Brier.

Living Off Referrals
At Johnston Asset Management in Stamford, Conn., Cassandra A. Hardman, CFA, says referrals enable her firm to compete with larger operations.

"We are a long-only equity management boutique and in the very high-net-worth area we more often than not get new business by referral," she says. "We also run portfolios for several multi-family offices, trust companies and wealth management firms who have found us through their own research of the investment universe.''