Managing partner Barry Brooks said the firm is ‘trying to be creative’ in its use of space. He said: ‘Some lawyers have aligned themselves to the good old days, but we are now a technology-driven practice.’ Different attitudes to work space by new recruits is also having an effect. He said: ‘There’s the question of how people coming out of law school work. They’re used to working in cafes and they want to sit next to their colleagues. We couldn’t have a totally open plan, because lawyers still need their offices. But those offices don’t need to be as big as before.’ 

Bottom line

Speaking of the  law sector, Julia Simet, managing director of Paul Hastings’ architectural and design consultants Gensler, said: ‘Real estate is a firm’s number two cost [after pay]’. She added that clients in the legal sector are ‘always looking at the bottom line’. Source: Bloomberg