1. The Lawyer | 12 September 2016 The Lawyer | 12 September 201610 11
Cover story UK 200: Workspace Trends executive summary
Matt Byrne and KimTasso
technology and trends such as the rise of co-work-
ing and remote or flexible workers radically
changing the way lawyers and business services
professionals live and work.
Crucially these trends are also having a signifi-
cant impact on firms’ real estate strategies, not
least the amount and types of space firms require.
This year’s UK 200 real estate-focused report,
re-named Workspace Trends to reflect these
changing dynamics in the UK market, includes
more insights into these trends than ever. It spot-
lights a wide range of UK firms including Bird &
Bird, Fieldfisher and Freshfields Bruckhaus
Deringer, US firms such as Ropes & Gray, and
barristers chambers such as Atkins Chambers.
In short, while this year’s report extends the
traditional data-led and primarily benchmarking
coverage of law firms’ property costs and usage it
also includes detailed insights into how firms are
attempting to make their real estate future proof.
Take Ropes & Gray.In London the US firm has
grown from 60 to 150 lawyers in just four years.
In October 2015 it moved 235 staff from offices
sub-let fromTaylorWessing in New Street Square
to 45,210sq ft across two floors in the new Land
Securities building at 60 Ludgate Hill,just around
the corner from the Old Bailey. It has since taken
a further 15,000sq ft on the fifth floor as the firm
continues to expand.
Real estate partner Iain Morpeth and senior
office administration manager Deborah Eastwood
were key members of the team that planned the
move.
“Our two biggest offices are in NewYork and
Boston,” says Morpeth, “but London has been
growing at a fast pace and we were crammed into
our previous accommodation in New Street
This is an executive summary of the UK 200:WorkspaceTrends 2016 report
puts it,“workplace environment,worklife balance,
and your workspace are now all critical issues. Do
you really need to come into an office to do your
job? A lot of people these days are looking for
something more than just a place to go to. The
issue for us is how to be more attractive.”
Warmbold says the new generation of profes-
sionals are looking for more flexibility in their
hours, not necessarily 9-5, and more flexibility in
where they can work.
“It’s not about reducing the hours,” saysWarm-
bold, “and so long as we get the output it
shouldn’t matter.This is the issue we’re all looking
at today.”
Warmbold highlights the example of one senior
professional services individual who was recently
able to take six weeks with his family as they went
on holiday to Portugal.
“He was with his family for six weeks but was
only on holiday for two of those weeks,” says
Warmbold. “He had uber flexibility.Will that guy
ever leave his company with that amount of flexi-
bility? If that’s the way our people want to work,we
have to provide the environment to let them do it.”
Inner space
Workplace strategy has jumped to the top of the
agenda at many firms over the past 12 to 18
months, with elements such as the use of new
The new space age
Wellness’, a clunky-sounding term if ever
there was one, is the new buzzword in real
estate circles. It has become shorthand for
how future-proof your office is.
And in turn,that means whether your office has
the right configuration of shared space, cellular
but adaptable office units, open plan, tech, airi-
ness and quite possibly pool tables surrounded by
graffiti artwork.
Clearly the reason is not simply bragging rights.
This trend, which is topping many a managing
partner’s agenda, is not just about making sure
that instead of having space for armies of para­
legals crunching data and documents, your
office is capable of accommodating the AI-­
powered robo-adviser of the (not too distant)
future. It is really about ensuring that your office
is attractive to the current and next generation of
professionals.
This is the single biggest property-related issue
facing all major law firm leadership teams today.
And crucially, unlike many other legal market
trends, this is an issue that is anything but
restricted to suppliers of legal services.
As Karl Warmbold, director of facilities and
property at DWF (which won the‘most innovative
use of office environment’ prize at the 2015 Law-
yer Business Leadership Awards for innovations
in its Fenchurch Street Walkie Talkie building)
t
Our biggest
design
decisions
were on the
communal
client areas”
Bambos Georgiou
The 2016 edition
examines the data,
trends and innova-
tions behind firms’
efforts to make their
offices future proof.
The Lawyer UK
200:Workspace
Trends report
To purchase the full report contact Richard Edwards on +44 (0) 207 970 4672 or email richard.edwards@centaurmedia.com
The feature staircase
(above) was incredibly
important to promote
circulation and it really
makes a statement”
Deborah Eastwood
Maximising value is still high on firms’ workplace agendas
but having state-of-the-art, inspirational offices fit for 21st
century workers and clients is the new holy grail
In association with
Square.We’re now the third largest office globally,
even though just 25 per cent of our work is US
linked”.`
Eastwood says the firm trialled a number of
flexible and agile office arrangements in its old
premises and it became clear that there was a pref-
erence for cellular offices, but with plenty of com-
mon areas for people to connect.
“We have standard sized two-person offices
and, on the corners, three person offices,” says
Eastwood. “Support staff are in an open-plan
configuration.The feature staircase was incredibly
important to promote circulation and it really
makes a statement.”
At Bird & Bird over the summer the IP and
tech-focused firm has moved into 147,000sq ft of
new-build space over 12 floors at 12 New Fetter
Lane.The building allows for 25 per cent growth
and as the firm’s head of London Nicholas Perry
points out, both lawyer work areas and client
spaces have been redesigned.
“Old buildings often have spaces that can’t be
used productively and so there is wasted space,”
says Perry. “We’ve made a conscious decision to
make every square foot work for us in the new
building.”
The base build configuration is for a two-per-
son workstation, but Bird & Bird achieves more
flexibility by having moveable partitions and fur-
niture solutions throughout the building that can
be moved easily over a weekend to provide differ-
ent configurations.
“It gives us the flexibility to make up team
spaces as and when required – for example, to
create a temporary team space for those involved
in a major tender exercise,” adds Perry. “There
was a clear view of our direction of travel to have
greater communication and collaboration.”
DWF’sWarmbold confirms that this flexibility
was key to the design both of the firm’s Walkie
Talkie space and its Glasgow office, where
Cost(£)perstaff
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
Under £15m£15m-£25m£25m-£50m£50m-£100mOver £100m
Average annual UK workspace cost per person, segmented by UK revenue
cost per partner cost per qualified lawyer cost per fee earner cost per staff member

2. The Lawyer | 12 September 201612
Cover story UK 200: Workspace Trends executive
number of firms that ever. Nowhere else is such
a detailed analysis of the UK law firm real estate
market available.
The sample this year includes 105 firms with a
combined fee income of £4.4bn and over 34,000
staff spending over £258m on 7 million square
feet of offices in the UK.A third of this space (2.5
million sq ft) is in London.
Where we have several years’ data from partic-
ipating firms, it is possible to look at three-year
trends which show a steady increase in the average
cost per square foot from £36.71 in 2014 to
£38.93 in 2016.
The percentage change on 2015 is 1.03 per
cent and on 2014 it is 6.05 per cent, suggesting
that there has been a slowdown in the growth of
average cost per square foot among the UK’s larg-
est law firms.
The average percentage revenue allocated to
real estate cost is 6.6 per cent with 39 per cent of
the sample spending between 5 per cent and 7 per
cent.What is interesting is that 8 per cent are pay-
ing over 9 per cent of their revenues on real estate
– a very significant investment.
Looking at the distribution of cost per square
foot we can see that the majority of firms (57 per
cent) are paying less than £40 per square foot.
The average across the entire sample is £41 per
sq ft. Just over a third (36 per cent) of firms in the
sample are paying between £40 and £80 per sq
ft. Only 6 per cent of the firms in the sample are
paying more than £80 per sq ft.
Highest users of space
While the average amount of space used by the
sample is 68,605sq ft there are significant differ-
ences between the largest and smallest users of
space.
Last year, among those that provided data, the
top five highest users of space – with a combined
total of 1,821,129sq ft – were:
Eversheds – 572,000sq ft
DWF – 344,000sq ft
Clyde & Co – 343,000sq ft
CMS – 295,000sq ft
BLP – 264,000sq ft
the total space DWF now utilizes has reduced
from 32,000sq ft to 18,000 (in London, where
previously DWF operated out of two buildings,
total space has reduced from 52,000sq ft to
43,000sq ft).
“We recognise teams often need to be together
but the whole team doesn’t necessarily need to sit
together all of the time,” saysWarmbold.“So, for
example, if you have a team of eight we will allo-
cate them a set of desks on a permanent basis but
less than they need. So they could, for example,
book four desks if half of the team need to be
together. But you also have to build in the flexi-
bility in case the whole team is in on any given day
so the team can still be connected.”
The impact on desk utilisation has been dra-
matic, saysWarmbold.Across the London market
generally the rule of thumb is that a desk will be
used 65 per cent of the time, he says.
This is an executive summary of the UK 200:WorkspaceTrends 2016 report
t
Eversheds real estate statistics
VARIABLE VALUE RANK
Total sq ft 572,892 1
Total annual cost £24,271,115 1
Annual UK revenue £339,457,000 1
Number of UK staff 2408 1
Annual average cost per sq ft £42.37 55
Annual cost per person £10,079 67
Annual UK average sq ft per person 238 74
Annual UK average revenue per sq ft £593 49
Annual UK average revenue per cost £13.99 65
Sqftperstaff
0
300
600
900
1,200
1,500
Under £15m£15m-£25m£25m-£50m£50m-£100mOver £100m
Annual UK sq ft per staff, segmented by UK revenue
sq ft per partner sq ft per qualified lawyer sq ft per fee earner sq ft per staff member
Workplace
environment,
worklife
balance and
your
workspace
are now all
critical issues”
Karl Warmbold
“In our London office the rate is in the high 80s
or early 90s,” he says.
In short, the report significantly expands the
coverage included in last year’s report, the first
time The Lawyer focused specifically on real estate
usage among the top 200 firms, and provides (in
association with insights and data from JLL) clear
signs as to the direction of travel in the UK legal
market.
Cost models
Today’s feature is an executive summary of the
full UK 200:WorkspaceTrends report, providing
a snapshot of some of the report’s key findings
(the full report is available for purchase from
today, see access details below).
And while there is a significantly increased
focus on workplace trends, this year’s report con-
tains more benchmarking data from a greater

3. The Lawyer | 12 September 2016 The Lawyer | 12 September 201614 15
Cover story UK 200: Workspace Trends executive summary
To purchase the full report contact Richard Edwards on +44 (0) 207 970 4672 or email richard.edwards@centaurmedia.com
Eversheds is spending £24,271,115 per annum
on real estate which is 7.1 per cent of its UK rev-
enue. However, in terms of the highest office costs
as a percentage of UK revenue, Olswang is top of
the list with 10.7 per cent.
Across the sample only two other firms spent
over 10 per cent of revenue on real estate – Mor-
ton Fraser in Scotland (10.64 per cent) and
ClarkeWillmott (10.08 per cent) which is primar-
ily in the SouthWest and London.
The amount of space per person in the 10 most
modest users of space ranges from 30sq ft to
152sq ft – an average of 110sq ft per person – a
massive difference to the 10 biggest users of space
at 209sq ft.
Client experience – the new priority
This year’s report also contains several new
­sections, including insights into the growing
importance of real estate in client experience
management (CEM), with case studies from
Mishcon de Reya in Africa House, Fieldfisher in
Riverside House and Atkins Chambers barristers
in Gray’s Inn.
Mishcon in particular has gone the whole hog
in transforming its client experience, following its
move from Red Lion Square to listed building
Africa House.New arrivals are greeted by a waiter
offering coffee from the barista and providing
wi-fi details on a card.
As chief operating officer Bambos Georgiou
puts it, the firm had an army of external consult-
ants advising on the deal including principal
architectsTP Bennett and Hambury Hird to help
with the heritage issues relating to the listed status
of the building.
“The biggest design decisions were on the com-
munal client areas,” adds Georgiou.“As with the
lawyer offices upstairs we made clever use of glass
to create a hybrid open-plan and cellular work-
space. On each floor we have internal meeting
rooms and kitchens (containing honesty fridges)
as well as more informal spaces.
The attention to detail in the choice of décor
and fittings appears to have been worth it.As one
of the firm’s clients, the former chair of the FTSE
FD Club, puts it, “the front of house experience
is the best in the City”.
London vs the regions
As already highlighted, this year’s report includes
more data than ever before including real estate
and office statistics from more than 100 firms
across the UK. And while a third of the £258m
real estate spend is in London, the full report
includes in-depth analysis from JLL on the key
regions around the UK.
These commentaries include property deals
tables and unique, in-depth case studies from sev-
eral firms including Squire Patton Boggs, Pinsent
Masons, DAC Beachcroft and Eversheds.
The report also includes a particular focus on
the dynamic Manchester market where the influx
of firms such as Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
and Latham & Watkins, both of which recently
launched low-cost shared services centres, is
shaking up the local market.
The report also includes a focus on European,
Middle East and international issues, including a
case study of Trowers & Hamlins’ international
real estate strategy.
To buy the report,contact Richard Edwards,richard.
edwards@centaurmedia.com
This is an executive summary of the UK 200:WorkspaceTrends 2016 report
Users of least UK office space (among sample)
FIRM UK SQ FT UK SQ FT PER PERSON
Keystone 6,830 30
Wallace 8,150 146
Bott & Co 8,584 90
Kerman & Co 9,009 127
Kemp Little 9,738 143
Seddons 10,000 97
Greenwoods 12,450 152
Hamlins 12,500 100
Hunters 13,000 118
Shulmans 15,000 93
Users of most UK office space (among sample)
FIRM UK SQ FT UK SQ FT PER PERSON
Eversheds 572,892 238
DAC Beachcroft 318,685 155
Weightmans 284,708 215
CMS 248,463 229
Berwin Leighton Paisner 233,400 215
Nabarro 194,330 n/d
Mishcon de Reya 166,358 231
Blake Morgan 165,890 178
TaylorWessing 155,280 236
Osborne Clarke 144,943 189
Firms with the highest UK office expenditure (among sample)
FIRM NAME
ANNUAL
COST (£)
ANNUAL AVERAGE
COST PER SQ FT (£)
PERCENTAGE OF OFFICE COST
OUT OF TOTAL REVENUE (%)
Eversheds 24,271,115 42.37 7.1
DAC Beachcroft 14,882,028 46.70 7.8
CMS 14,672,069 59.05 6.7
TaylorWessing 10,261,000 66.08 8.1
Olswang 9,800,000 82.59 10.7
Charles Russell Speechlys 9,297,885 72.38 7.2
Mishcon de Reya 8,143,454 48.95 6.4
Kennedys 7,953,000 57.63 7.8
Weightmans 7,087,322 24.89 7.5
Osborne Clarke 6,824,000 47.08 6.0
Firms with the lowest UK office expenditure (among sample)
FIRM
ANNUAL
COST (£)
ANNUAL AVERAGE
COST PER SQ FT
PERCENTAGE OF OFFICE COST
OUT OF TOTAL REVENUE (%)
Porter Dodson 133000 4.03 1.3
Express Solicitors 197468 10.55 1.6
Fletchers 226761 8.56 1.4
Bott Co 234002 27.26 2.1
Brachers 279000 9.30 2.2
Roythornes 282000 7.05 2.1
BPE Solicitors 290000 12.08 3.2
Flint Bishop 294000 9.48 3.0
Aaron Partners 304000 nd 3.8
Roberts Jackson 322000 14.05 2.9
Old buildings often
have spaces that can’t
be used productively
and so there is wasted
space”
Nicholas Perry
Mishcon’s attention to detail led
one client to call it ‘the best front
of house experience in the City’
Law for an Uberworld
The UK legal services market is at a cross-
roads.There is much debate, commentary
and research saying the industry must adapt
or it faces the risk of being ‘Uber-ised’. I
believe we are some way off this yet; how-
ever, in the last 12 months it has become
evident that a real momentum is building
towards firms wanting to change the way
they deliver legal services to their clients.
This is still being driven by the need to focus
on and improve operational efficiency as fee
pressures remain high.While new entrants to
the market are not so new anymore, they are
really starting to challenge ­established players
in some areas of legal service delivery, ­putting
further pressure on the more traditional
model to change and evolve with the times.
The question around the role of the office
has never been more important than it is
today, and the legal sector is not alone in try-
ing to answer it.With the rapid development
of technology, rising popularity of alternative
workspaces, such as co-working clubs, and
greater focus on user experience-led design,
the very raison d’etre of the office is being
put under the microscope.What is its true
function in the business world of the 21st
century and what do employees of today and
tomorrow expect from it?
One theme that remains strong since last
year’s report is that leadership teams are
increasingly focused on maximising the best
value they can get out of their corporate real
estate as the war for talent intensifies and
technological advancements continue to put
pressure on businesses. A trend towards more
agile workplaces and environments geared
toward optimising employee experiences is
really starting to ramp up.
We are beginning to see offshoring coming
back into the UK legal sector with some of
the larger firms making wholesale changes
to how they support their lawyers internally.
Moving business services roles out of Lon-
don, to either the likes of ­Manchester, Leeds
or even Europe, is not uncommon.This
enables the law firms to start right-sizing
their portfolios and employee cost bases in
one strategic move.
There is also a separate subject of Brexit.
As reported in JLL’s recent paper Making
Sense of Brexit – Update III, after an initial
period of market volatility in the wake of the
vote, corporate occupiers are increasingly
focused on portfolio assessment and scenario
planning.With many businesses articulating
a ­preference for the UK to remain within
the EU, teams are ­engaging with executive
leaders to assess and review CRE ­strategy.
­Internal groups are actively assessing opera-
tional implications, risks and scenarios.
One conclusion that emerged from this
year’s report is that whilst the overall themes
around corporate real estate remain largely
the same, law firms are developing unique
approaches to how they organise and manage
their space.What works for one firm, may
not necessarily deliver the same results for
another. However, I believe those that are
taking the opportunity to act now will benefit
in the long term.
Alexander Low, head of client develop-
ment - Office Agency, JLL
This year the top five providing data are using
2,484,949sq ft. It’s interesting to note that CMS
has reduced its space by 46,757sq ft (no doubt as
part of its move into the new Canon Street build-
ing which was featured in last year’s report) and
BLP has reduced its space from 264,812sq ft to
233,400sq ft – a reduction of 31,412sq ft.
This suggests greater efficiencies in driving
down the amount of space that firms use –
which is interesting bearing in mind that the space
In association with
per partner, lawyer and staff member has
increased. Many have commented on the more
efficient new buildings which have much more
usable space.
The amount of space per person varies signifi-
cantly in the top 10 users of space from just 155sq
ft per person at DAC Beachcroft to 238sq ft per
person at Eversheds.The average across the top
10 is 209sq ft per person.
Lowest users of space
Last year, the five lowest users of space were:
Express Solicitors – 3,200sq ft
Keystone – 5,800sq ft
Bott Co – 8,600sq ft
Kemp Little – 9,700sq ft
Pemberton Greenish – 13,000sq ft
Keystone (which featured in last year’s report)
has increased its space by 1,045sq ft yet this year
is the lowest user. However, Hamlins has reduced
its space from 15,350sq ft to 12,500sq ft. Bott
Co, Kemp Little and Shulmans are using the
same amount of space as last year.
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