Rise of the battery hen lawyers?

Lawyers occupy more floor space than virtually any other professionals. Now one law firm has come up with an answer to the waste of space: young lawyers are to given cubicles instead of offices.

Paul Hastings LLP, which is moving into new premises in Manhattan, New York early next year, has confirmed that its first- and second-year associates will be seated in “pods of 12” at the ends of floors.

They will be cordoned off from the rest of the office by a wall of glass, while each young lawyer’s desktop will be separated by a “divider”.

Barry Brooks, chair of the firm’s New York office, told the Wall Street Journal: “I really do believe first- and second-years will benefit from true collaboration – they feed off each other. I don’t feel bad about it.”

Steven Martin, a principal at Gensler, which designed the new office, added: “It’s going to be pioneering.”

However, cubicles are not an entirely new development for law firms.

As long ago as 2012, pundits and bloggers were remarking on some US law firms’ decision to swap offices for cubicles and eliminate corner offices in favour of shared workspaces.

Rising property prices and rents were identified as the most likely rationale behind the shift, rather than management efforts to increase collaboration.

But Andrew Lu, blogger at FindLaw, wrote in 2012: “Even as law firms downsize, you should probably not expect a complete office-free environment anytime soon.

“Unlike the tech industry, law is a service industry and partners will need their private space to schmooze clients.”

In the UK, law firms are increasingly choosing to move to open-plan offices as opposed to introducing cubicles. Up to a third of London-based law firms have already done so.

According to research conducted by the CBRE Legal 100, law firms with an open-plan layout use an average of 380 sq ft per fee earner, compared with 510 sq ft per fee earner overall for their cellular counterparts.

Over 43 per cent of law firms responding to CBRE’s Law in London survey also said they would consider introducing non-assigned seating or shared desks – meaning hotdesking could be one of the next big trends in law, rather than battery hen lawyers.