Featured in The American Lawyer
As law firm employees continue to spend far less time at the office than they did before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, firms are responding both by reducing unused office space to save on overhead while concurrently expanding the amount of space dedicated to collaborative work.
Professional technology software company Maptician surveyed 26 law firms to ascertain current workplace trends with regard to office real estate, hybrid work technology and remote work offerings. The company found that more than 58% of firms surveyed reported increasing flexible in-office seating, while 46% of firms have reduced their ratio of seats to total professionals. Meanwhile, respondents indicated that they’d increased space dedicated to meetings and group work by an average of 6.6%.
In an interview, Ashlea Allberry, Maptician’s chief operating officer, said the increase in flexible in-office seating was one of the things that stood out to her the most from the findings. “There’s often some resistance internally at law firms for flexible seating,” she said.
But the economic benefits of being able to share space are clear, particularly as average law firm occupancy rates across major U.S. cities hovers between 55% and 60%, well below the pre-pandemic level of 90%, according to the report.
Meanwhile, even as firms put a higher value on flexibility, they’re simultaneously expanding collaborative spaces.
“This investment is being driven by a combination of factors: increased peak-day attendance, a rise in cross-functional team structures, and a growing reliance on face-to-face interactions for mentorship and business development,” the report states. “The office is no longer a place for quiet, solo work-it is a collaboration hub that must be purpose-built for dynamic use.”
The report says that technology has played a huge role in fostering greater connectivity during hybrid and remote work, with 50% of firms surveyed reporting using at least one dedicated workplace management system to support flexible work arrangements, a significant shift from even just a couple of years ago.
As for what does drive in-office attendance, the report said that incentive-based strategies, such as office events and team-driven schedules, seem to work better when it comes to enticing folks back into the office than any type of punitive office attendance mandates.
“My overall feel just from being in law firms a ton last year and even this year was that people were getting a little bit more specific with their requirements of in-office,” Allberry said. “It was very much like, ‘We’d prefer you to be in-office three days a week, maybe four days,’ but there was never any push to make that an official rule or mandate. And I still have seen some resistance to mandates.”
Maptician says its findings were supported by broader market observations, which show that “firms that link presence to purpose … are more successful in sustaining in-office momentum.”
While the sample size for the survey was 26 law firms, Allberry said the company actually works with more than 100 law firms domestically, so they have greater insight into overall trends.
Things have changed in the legal industry pretty significantly in the past couple of years, the report states. In 2023, just 51.9% of seats were “hoteling”-or reservation-based unassigned seating-while 46.1% were permanent or assigned. Now, however, the industry is seeing a shift in this regard, with more than 58% of surveyed firms reporting they’ve increased hoteling and other flexible seating arrangements while less than 20% added more dedicated, assigned seating.
Maptician says that law firms must start to rethink physical space as a strategic tool to optimize workplace operations, and while reducing footprints can be beneficial in some regard, especially when it comes to saving on overhead costs, firms should really be focusing on recalibrating space to support the way lawyers actually desire to work today.
“Hoteling systems must be intuitive,” the report states. “Offices must feel like places people want to go-not relics of a pre-2020 model.”
According to Allberry, office real estate can, on average, comprise about 10% of firms’ annual budgets, meaning a reduction of unused physical space can translate to significant dollar savings.
She added said she has seen a reduction in office real estate in some geographies, but the reduction is typical only if the strategy internally is to allow for more maximum flexibility.
Remote work continues to be important in the legal industry, as it reflects the desire of many lawyers in the business, the report states. Still, firms must provide cultural rituals, peer alignment and incentives to engage inperson, otherwise “flexibility can devolve into disengagement.”
The report also stresses that market indicators show the office is being reimagined as a collaborative arena, rather than a solo workstation hub, and that this increase in team spaces reflects the fact that colleagues need physical space to work together effectively.
Still, for some law firms, reducing real estate remains a main cost-cutting strategy, and the firms who go this route are likely ones that already have sparse hybrid attendance, the report states. Only 14% of firms cutting space, however, cited fewer client meetings as a driver behind the reduced physical space.
“The data suggests this is more about operational size than a decline in collaboration needs,” the report states.
The report also breaks down the reasons behind firms increasing their meeting spaces, with the top drivers being collaboration, changes in work styles and peak-day attendance.
Additionally, the report highlighted that 62% of surveyed firms offer specific office events or other perks that are designed as return-to-office incentives. But financial incentives-like linking attendance to compensation or bonuses-remain rare: only 15% of firms responding took this step.
