Can I win the battle to rank inner pages over someone’s homepage?

Hello, New to this group and I’m hoping someone can answer my question:I am using Surfer SEO to help create content on pages that I’m trying to rank higher on. On SERP Analyzer, when I put search term as, “Chicago Criminal Lawyer, ” the URL’ s that rank highest are my competitor’s Home pages rather than their practice area pages. I have been trying to rank my practice area page with that term and not necessarily my home page. Should I be using the “content editor” to create content for my practice area page by including their home page content? It’s kind of comparing apples to oranges. The amount of words and terms will be completely different when the program compares their home pages to my single practice area page. Or should I just write that content for my homepage and 301 my practice area page to homepage?Bottom line question: If my local competition’s home pages are ranking for the keywords I’m gunning for, should I just try optimizing my home page for those keywords instead of trying to rank inner pages? Can I ever win the battle to rank inner pages over someone’s homepage in a very competitive market with a very competitive keyword?!?Thanks!