Novelists questioned about how they write, and more specifically
about how they come up with their plots, sometimes respond to the
effect that, "The characters took on a life of their own; they
told me what they were going to do next."
I occasionally have the same feeling, albeit on a far less exalted
plane, analyzing a specific aspect of the mammoth landscape of
"the economics of law firms." This
article, in
particular, thinks it’s about new "open plan" designs for law firm
offices: Architecture which, rather than stringing identical
offices down long corridors, punctuated by conference rooms, secretarial
pods, and perhaps a depressing and banal lunchroom, features more
open work areas, coffee/espresso or snack stations designed to
encourage mingling, "hot desks," ubiquitous WiFi availability,
a wider array of large and small conference rooms and war rooms,
and a generally non-traditional layout.
First, to the merits of the new design mentality: Few propose
depriving lawyers of conventional offices altogether, but rather
to make them smaller (too small to hold a meeting) and to devote
a relatively greater proportion of floor space to common areas. Lawyers
actually work collaboratively more than they may realize, and this
only serves that reality. Technology is also a driver: Documents
and files are—or should be!—stored on centralized servers,
so they are equally available everywhere. Cost, last but
not least, is reduced with this type of "build-out."
a personal note, I can report that my wife’s ad agency recently
moved from conventional offices in the Chrysler Building to new
"loft-like," open-plan space in the garment district, and her office
went from a spacious and prime corner to a 6′ x 10′ windowless
cookie-cutter. She loved it, as did practically everyone else.]
The merits of this design philosophy, then, I leave to your judgment
in light of the idiosyncrasies of your firm and the relevant egos.
By far the most interesting point, however, is how the very use
of space by law firms is changing, in two key ways:
- When firms move, they almost invariably grossly under-estimate
the amount of growth they will experience, and space they will
need, over the life of the new lease. If the move was undertaken to consolidate scattered or inconveniently-contiguous departments, then, it will be a failure at least on that score. - The ratio of support:professional personnel, now in the neighborhood
of 1:1, will decline and perhaps will decline drastically if
back-office functions are outsourced across the globe or across
the river. This in turn implies that you cannot intelligently design your new space without asking what the nature of all of your practice-support and other “invisible” functions will look like by the end of the new lease term.
In other words, an article that started out being about glorified interior design ended up being about the most challenging “what next” analysis.
Your office space is, to be sure, the visual distillation of your
brand, your identity, and your character; but none of those elements
is entirely static. So should your space not be.
