CBRE Roundtable: The Legal Workplace in the Era of COVID-19

Acceleration of pre-existing trends:

a. Reducing square footage per attorney by shifting to one-size offices and right-sizing space standards
b. Realigning growth and reducing held vacancy, increased outsourcing
c. Re-evaluating support staff and secretarial ratios to align with modern day needs (10 to one, to 5 to 1 ratio)
d. Digitizing files and reducing library, file and copy center spaces


POLL QUESTION 1
Which functions/departments/roles within your firm do you imagine will have some degree of work from home flexibility?

We will likely see a hybrid approach to how work from home is implemented. It's going to be very rare at law firms in particular for any role—partners, associates, staff—to be 100% remote or 100% on site.

The answer to the work from home question will be driven by the climate of talent attraction and retention, which has always been top of mind for law firms as they think about partners’ retiring and needing to backfill that with the next generation of talent, particularly that middle level of experienced attorney. In the future, work from home is going to become an expected benefit of workplace environments, and some law firms are going to make that move, and the other law firms who do not are going to very quickly put their firms at a disadvantage.

KEY QUESTIONS:

1. How have the last six months of working from home impacted the point of view about the office, both from a leadership perspective as well as an employee perspective? How often will people expect to work from home in the future?
   

What we saw in surveys from 2017 to 2019 is that a majority of U.S. workers across professional services, financial services, technology and even law firms were expressing an enhanced desire to have some degree of flexibility.

In the current Covid environment, there is an even higher degree of interest in having flexibility to work from home, at an average of 2-3 days per week. Employees want neither a 100% in-office nor 100% remote work, but rather a hybrid experience.

POLL QUESTION 2
How many days per week would an attorney need to work from home for the firm to even consider a mobility strategy where attorneys share space rather than having dedicated offices?

Occupiers around the world are considering how remote work and how free address strategies might become part of their workplace strategy going forward. Acceptance of remote work is pretty defined – nearly 60% will implement some part of a free-address strategy.

What does this all mean for law firms?

Design options for law firm occupiers responding to the new ways of working introduced by COVID-19:
a. Hoteling (change in behavior, not space)–-cost effective but less desirable
b. Activity-based Working (ABW)–both a behavioral and a space change–greater positive impact on culture


POLL QUESTION 3
Three years from now, what impact do you think COVID-19 might have in the workplace?

Over the last six months, law firms have proven that it is possible to work from home. There is a whole new argument on the employee side so it will be incredibly difficult for law firms, or any organization, to continue sticking with the philosophy that working from home is detrimental to productivity. This forced work from home experiment has had a very habit-forming duration. The bottom line is that offices will have to do better at attracting employees back to the office to enjoy the elements of a successful work experience.