Environmental action

The post-Covid return to the office and the demands of ESG mean that law firms are having to rethink the physical spaces they inhabit. Neil Rose looks at how the humble office is changing

After more than two years of working from home, flexible working has suddenly become about how much time workers spend in the office. Home is no longer just where the heart is – it’s where the workstation is too.

Survey after survey has shown that law firms of all sizes are moving to hybrid working arrangements, with many staff spending two or three days a week in the office at most. As a result, firms are looking to downsize: PwC’s annual survey of the largest law firms found last year that 48% expected to reduce their office footprint in the short to medium term.

The annual benchmarking report of the Law Society’s law management section this year, which looks at smaller firms, found “mixed views” on how hybrid working has impacted on firms’ use of existing office space, with some firms wishing to scale back as much as possible and others looking to use their offices in different ways.

It said: “In any case, for now, many firms will find that they are tied into lease agreements that extend beyond the pandemic, and so the true cost savings of remote working may not be fully unlocked for a number of years.”

Culture clash

There is no doubt that hybrid working here to stay. A survey by Realm Recruitment found that flexible work has overtaken pay as the top priority for lawyers looking for a change of job.

But, for most firms, the office still remains central. Indeed, Chronos Law, a law firm set up in 2019 on a completely virtual basis, recently opened an office in London to meet demand from associates who wanted the option.

Thackray Williams’ new headquarters is designed to “allow people to be at their natural best”

A report earlier this year on law firm culture by Obelisk Support described developing culture while most staff are not in the office as “the great headscratcher of the pandemic period”, with 61% of respondents to a 2021 survey of top firms by Smith & Williamson believing the pandemic has had a negative impact on cultivating a firm culture.

The report quoted Alison Eddy, London managing partner of Irwin Mitchell, as explaining how being in the office was not just about learning but also sharing the highs and lows of the job. “All those incidental conversations are not happening, and people have started to lose a sense of belonging,” she said.

“If colleagues aren’t in the office at least some of the time, I worry about their loyalty to teams because all the social interaction has gone… It is going to be more difficult to retain people, but I absolutely do not want us to go back to anything like the way we were before.”

So the law firm office of the future will be more than just a place of work. It will play a more crucial role in recruitment and retention, facilitate collaboration, and also speak to firms’ commitment to ESG – environment, social and governance – issues, which all businesses are now increasingly expected to show.

When it comes to offices, the focus is on the ‘E’. Law firms are increasingly burnishing their environmental credentials, signing up to various initiatives and aiming to move to net-zero emissions in the coming years, and offices are arguably the largest single element they can control.

Irwin Mitchell recently unveiled a series of measures as part of its green agenda, including setting a baseline for environmental impact, based on the firm’s carbon footprint, and a commitment to implementing a new roadmap to carbon net zero by 2040. The roadmap includes verifying climate targets by 2023 and, as part of this, by 2025 achieving 100% renewable electricity across all of its offices and reducing emissions from the firm’s facilities and vehicles by 60%.

“Law firms are increasingly burnishing their environmental credentials, signing up to various initiatives and aiming to move to net-zero emissions in the coming years” 

By 2030, the aim is to have halved emissions on everything from purchased goods and services to business travel and employee commuting.

The ‘S’ of ESG comes into play too as staff increasingly expect employers to make these environmental commitments as well as focus on staff wellbeing, which includes the workspace. There is some way to go, though: according to the 2022 UK law firm real estate report by property firm Knight Frank, only 25% of the offices occupied by the top 200 firms were BREEAM certified – a certification system for the sustainable built environment.

But there are undoubtedly moves to improve this. For example, national law firm TLT moved last year into what could be the most environmentally friendly solicitors’ office in the UK. The building in Glasgow has no parking spaces, though it does have charging points for electric cars, racks for 150 bicycles, e-scooters for clerks to deliver documents, ‘air-purifying’ paint, and lifts which generate electricity when braking.

TLT has fully embraced flexible working, with no requirement for how many hours staff should be in the office. John Paul Sheridan, head of TLT in Scotland, said the top floor of the Cadworks building, the first net-zero building in Glasgow, was “not cheap” but would save the firm money in energy and maintenance charges.

Cadworks is built only with recycled timber and 80% of its steel is recycled, half of its concrete and over 40% of its glass. Its lighting is LED throughout, and it is a ‘smart’ building in using sensors to detect whether rooms are being used. It is also the ‘concept office’ on which redesigns of TLT’s six other offices in the UK will be based.

The new office has hot desks with no desk-based phones, and large communal areas for team working. A fifth of the desks are for standing rather than sitting and there are ‘quiet focus pods’ with sofas surrounded by sound barriers.

Collaboration space has become a particular focus in the new world of hybrid working so that teams can make the best of their time when they are in the office.

In Bristol, meanwhile, Osborne Clarke is waiting to move into the top five floors of Halo, which is set to be another of the UK’s greenest office buildings; it has a BREEAM outstanding accreditation for sustainability. Key design features will include indoor gardens where people can work away from their desks, a yoga and spin studio, and a restaurant with a private rooftop terrace.

Osborne Clarke is aiming to achieve a WELL building standard certification for the fit-out of the internal space at Halo, meaning it has features that positively impact human health and wellbeing, through air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.

Wellbeing to the fore

Knight Frank’s report said the top three strategic agenda items identified as best supported by the law firm workplace were corporate brand and image, talent attraction and retention, and employee wellbeing. “In practice, this means a further flight to quality, amenity rich workplaces that support brand identity, culture, education and health and wellbeing.”

It found that 71% of law firm real estate leaders expected an increase in the range of amenities and services provided within their workplaces over the next three years. Notably, the top three were all wellbeing related: cycle storage, healthy food and beverage offerings, and facilities that support mental wellbeing, such as sanctuary spaces and good-quality outdoor space.

Four US law firms have acquired space in a building in the heart of the City of London whose amenities include a restaurant and terraced bar, dawn-to-dusk food stalls, limited-run supper clubs, pop-up food residencies, an event space with curated events, a ‘commuter park’ with 75 showers, over 1,300 secure lockers, up to 1,700 bike spaces and a Brompton Bike rental dock, a gym, a ‘sky-wall’ climbing window and holistic and wellness services onsite.

DLA Piper, as another example, has taken a pre-let at City Square House in Leeds, a new prime office building under construction that includes extensive cycling, electric vehicle and e-bike charging point facilities. It has multiple terraces and is adjacent to the city’s main train station.

Knight Frank said: “In short, real estate matters. It matters because it supports, facilitates or portrays business strategy.”

“A major worry that employers will have to address in the era of hybrid working is that those who are in the office are more likely to secure the juiciest assignments” 

But, says Dana Denis-Smith, chief executive of Obelisk Support, firms cannot drive culture purely through office design. And by insisting that being in the office is good for younger lawyers because they get supervision and training, managers so far have overlooked in the build of funky offices the critical importance of helping younger lawyers to build peer-to-peer relationships, social circles and lifetime networks, she continues.

“For younger lawyers, usually without families nearby, this will often be their first full-time job, so work becomes a big part of their social lives too. It’s why they want to go into the office and not be isolated at home. Firms need to understand this and help them to build those relationships – it is critical to building culture as well as personal development.”

And in a profession where a culture of presenteeism has long prevailed, a major worry that employers will have to address in the era of hybrid working is that those who are in the office are more likely to secure the juiciest assignments.

A focus on diversity

One final element that is new to law firm thinking is how to provide spaces that work for different types of people, including the neurodiverse – perhaps an element of diversity largely overlooked by many to date. Neil May, chief operating officer of Kent firm Thackray Williams, says that its fit-out of new headquarters in Bromley put at its heart the need to create spaces that allow people to be at their natural best, rather than making people fight against their natural grain.

He explains: “The neurodiverse tend to be over or under stimulated by parts of their environment, such as background noise and lighting, but also including textures, smells and temperature.” So the design maximises natural light but ensures all windows have blinds. Carpets are neutral with clear demarcation between areas and while the office is open plan, staff can use noise-cancelling headphones if they want.

“We have designed different areas for quiet work and reflection as well as more social areas, and tried to keep good space between groups. For olfactory, our new cafeteria has non-recirculating air conditioning, as does the whole office, and all windows all the way around the outside can open, unusual in a multi floor building but one we thought important after Covid. We also have policies about food at desks.

“In terms of tactile senses we have been careful with fabrics – rejecting some when choosing furniture – and also with surfaces. We have also made one of our meeting rooms a less formal ‘sofa room’ in place of using meeting room furniture.”

There was a time when law firms – like most businesses – did not put a huge amount of thought into offices. They were all pretty much the same. But those times have changed. The office is no longer just a place to work – it’s a place that reflects who you are and what you stand for.

Attributes of healthy and safe buildings include:

- High levels of indoor air quality and adequate ventilation.

- Minimum thermal comfort standards for temperature and humidity.

- Provision of individual level thermal control, where possible.

- Examples include touchless entryways and lifts, and sensors that monitor and control the performance of the building from a health and wellbeing perspective.

 - Outdoor and other sanctuary space.

- Spaces that minimise background noise.

- Task lighting for comfortable viewing.

- Direct lines of sight to exterior windows from all workstations.

- Biophilia, i.e. the building is adapted or designed to the environment, rather than the other way round.

- Healthy food and beverage offerings. Hotel quality end-of-trip facilities and cycle storage.

- Ergonomic furniture and sit/stand desks.

- Facilities for physical activity and holistic wellness services onsite.

- Community – defined by WELL as accommodating diverse population needs and establishing an inclusive, engaged occupant community.

Source: Knight Frank