‘Law in the Regions’ has been published by commercial property firm CBRE and provides a ranking of UK regional legal cities, measured by the total office floor-space in each city occupied by law firms in the UK Top 100. The top tier of Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester each have well over 750,000 sq ft of office space occupied by law firms, well ahead of the second tier cities of Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow, with volumes in the 300-500,000 sq ft range. 

‘Hot spots’

The report shows that office space take-up ‘hot spots’ recently have been Manchester, Leeds and Belfast. DLA Piper has taken 44,800 sq ft in Manchester, while in Leeds, Addleshaw Goddard Limited has acquired 51,500 sq ft, Squire Patton Boggs 33,000 sq ft and DAC Beachcroft 25,000 sq ft. Baker & McKenzie moved into new offices last year (28,000 sq ft) in Belfast – following in the footsteps of Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith Freehills.  

‘Global legal service centres’

CBRE identified three core business models in the regions, the most recent emerging over the last four to five years in the form of ‘global legal service centres.’ Many of these occupiers have chosen a UK regional centre after considering a number of worldwide locations from a cost, quality and risk perspective. More broadly, benchmarking analysis has shown that, on average, law firms are paying rents at a significant discount to the prevailing prime headline rent in each city.

Dual focus

James McLean, senior director of the CBRE UK Tenant Advisory Group said: ‘We are seeing a dual focus on cost control and selective investment to drive future business expansion. This has led to a wave of legal office moves or expansions in the UK regional cities, often drawn by opportunities to take high quality, cost effective office space - operating at a substantial discount to London.’