Shahzad Bashir, vice president for legal operational consulting at Huron Consulting Group, just might have some issues separating business life from his personal life—even at an NBA playoff game. Bashir had his BlackBerry on and handled e-mails throughout Game 7 between the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz. “Years ago I realized I could never really balance personal and professional life.” At best, he concludes, “you have to manage the imbalance.”

These days Bashir’s professional life is getting quite hectic. His practice area, legal business consulting, is the fastest growing practice at Chicago-based Huron Consulting, seeing a 200 percent growth last year. The practice, which focuses on the business, administrative, operational and IT law, primarily serves the general counsels of large corporations. Bashir, who is not a lawyer, concentrates on solving the business problems. “We help with two types of problems, rising legal costs and the proliferation of information,” he says.

While most managers complain about the growing intrusion of legal issues into the business process, Bashir’s clients are basking in the limelight. “Today, the legal counsel has become an important part of the management team,” he says. Increased regulatory scrutiny and compliance, in particular, are driving the expansion of the legal department.

The future for the practice seems bright. “No competitor does all that we do. We are blazing a trail,” Bashir says. For example, the practice has begun to explore business process outsourcing. “The legal industry is a huge market. The opportunities are immense; it is a wide open space,” he says. Most recently, the industry was estimated at $250 billion.

Despite his behavior at the basketball game, Bashir does try to have a personal life. He has a daughter in college and a son in high school. “We like water sports, and my son and I have recently taken up golf,” he says. A favorite expression of Bashir is: “Nothing is impossible—there are just shades of difficulty.” Advice that probably will come in handy both at work and on the golf course.