In an era when many big law firms in Pittsburgh and elsewhere consider mergers to be the way to grow their ranks and position themselves to do business around the globe, Alan Perer is thinking small.

A personal injury attorney and partner at Downtown law firm Swensen, Perer & Kontos, Mr. Perer believes tiny, boutique legal practices such as his offer clients some advantages they can't always obtain at large, traditional firms including direct access to the best attorneys and specialized services.

That's why he is helping to launch a Pittsburgh chapter of the International Network of Boutique Law Firms, an organization whose members refer their clients to each other for expertise they may not have in their own firms.

"In a smaller, boutique firm, you get to the people who are best qualified," said Mr. Perer as he introduced the boutique firms network yesterday during a reception at the Duquesne Club. "For people who want the best value and top people in each field, this is a good alternative to going to a big firm and letting them farm out your work."

Besides his firm, which specializes in personal injury litigation, other local firms that have joined the network and their specialty areas are Lieber & Hammer, civil rights and employment; Thieman & Ward, white collar crime; Williams, Coulson, Johnson, Lloyd, Parker & Tedesco, trusts and estates; Manion, McDonough & Lucas, commercial litigation; and Goldberg, Gruener, Gentile, Horoho & Avalli, domestic relations.

Mr. Perer will serve as president of the Pittsburgh chapter. The boutique firms network was founded in 2004 by New York firm Gallion & Spielvogel and has 235 member firms in the United States, as well as 13 in Europe, Central and South America.

Members are "screened and thought of by their peers as the best firms in the country for their specialties," said Mr. Perer. "So we feel confident we can refer our clients to the top people in the field. It's like a virtual law firm."

Many of the lawyers in the network left large firms to start their own specialized practices, Mr. Perer said.

"They wanted to be more in control and concentrate on their specialties and not pay for overhead for people all over the world."

His firm, for instance, was formed in 1980 and has five attorneys who all practice personal injury cases including malpractice and product liability. Among Mr. Perer's most prominent cases was one involving two 10-year-old girls who were hit by a loose hose trailing a fire engine in Coraopolis in 2004. One girl died from injuries sustained in the accident and the other girl was badly injured. A jury in September awarded a total of $5 million to both families. Mr. Perer represented the family of the girl who died.