Musical chairs

When risk and insurance law firm BLM consolidated its two London teams in new City premises this week, it raised an interesting question for the legal profession – when is a desk more than a desk?

BLM relocated its 340 London staff from offices in London Wall and Leadenhall Street to a single City site in Plantation Place. However, the new office does not have 340 desks (though it does have ‘breakout areas and benches’).

At BLM, desks (or the lack of desks) represent a more robust flexible-working policy.

As London office head Jennette Newman explains: ‘With this move, we’re allowing anyone (unless you’re office-based) to work flexibly. It’s an extension of something we were doing [but] on an ad hoc way. We’re now encouraging people to work flexibly.’

Having no desk to call your own can also indicate that a firm is trying to reduce its property costs.

According to a recent report from commercial property and real estate consultancy CBRE, nearly half of law firms surveyed were actively considering introducing non-assigned seating or shared desks as part of their property strategy.

International firm Fieldfisher consolidated two London premises totalling 130,000 sq ft to just over 80,000 sq ft in Riverbank House, partly through adopting an open-plan layout.

But operations director Douglas Peniston says in the report: ‘We considered everything but I think hotdesking is a step too far for a legal practice. Compared to the big accountancy practices, our lawyers spend more time in the office than out with clients so there just isn’t the same incentive to have fewer desks than people.’

But there’s another debate that continues to divide the profession: cellular versus open plan.

Although there are commercial pressures for firms to change working practices and workplace strategies, CBRE says these are not easy to achieve.

Lease events provide an ideal opportunity for firms to reassess the way they work and potentially make significant changes to their office layout as part of an office move.

But CBRE says lawyers remain ‘very conservative’ compared with other professional services, ‘and even among the most progressive or open-minded firms there are pockets of fierce resistance to change’ when it comes to going open-plan.

One unidentified top-tier law firm partner says in the report: ‘I don’t think we’d ever go open-plan – there would be rebellion in the streets.’ (Or at least in the breakout area.)

Comments such as this suggest it will be a while until open-plan layouts and hotdesking become a thing of the legal profession norm. But for those attached to their desks, hold on tight – even if it doesn’t move, you might have to. 

Monidipa Fouzder is a Gazette reporter