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Greater collaboration, increased communication, and better training for junior lawyers are some of the reasons why more law firms are finally adopting open-plan offices. Office heads share the pros and cons of this design and why some firms are still holding out.

When you go inside law firms, you expect to see corner offices and not open, communal work areas. But this is gradually changing, as the industry has slowly adopted the workplace trend of the past decade: open-plan offices.

While cutting on costs is usually an important factor in going open-plan, especially for cash-strapped startups, that’s not the case for law firms.

“Cost plays no significant part. Often, any money saved is ploughed back into the new premises in one form or another,” explains Nigel Francis, the Hong Kong office head of Addleshaw Goddard, whose offices are all open-plan. “Decisions on location – which might cause a 50 percent reduction in rent – will be made first, but there may be a linkage between location and a fit out.”

Instead, the major reason for going open-plan is the increased collaboration between lawyers, which could help generate business.

“It’s enabling our lawyers – from the youngest to the most experienced – to really understand what the other practice groups are doing, which helps remove the physical barriers of developing a cross-selling mentality,” explains Bob Charlton, head of Asia at Berwin Leighton Paisner. “Lawyers have to be quality service providers, but they also have to generate business. It’s easier to generate business as part of a team than it is on your own.”

The lack of walls or other forms of physical barriers also boosts communication. It can even lead to better training for junior lawyers, as they have more access to their mentors. As Francis observes, “People actually will see each other all the time, developing individual client relationships or particular areas of work. And the fact that people have the ability to continually share information and update each other as to what’s going on – I think can only be a good thing.”

INEVITABLE RESULT

There is, of course, a downside to the open-plan design. The biggest, particularly for lawyers, is confidentiality, but that can be easily overcome with soundproofed private rooms, counters Charlton.

And while more communication has its advantages, it could also be distracting. “One of the challenges of open-plan is the question of whether it’s too disruptive, noisy, and whether it causes lower productivity and efficiency on individual matters,” notes Francis. “That’s something that requires management.”

There is also the loss of the corner office – a status symbol coveted by many lawyers. Charlton, however, contends that nowadays, you don’t need the corner office to show you have status. “It comes in a different, more modern way. Things aren’t symbolised by the corner office with the beautiful view anymore,” he says. “They are symbolised by other things like responsibility, by relationships with clients, by involvement in key projects and how people operate in teams.”

If the benefits easily outweigh the drawbacks, then why haven’t more law firms adopted open-plan offices?

“Law firms don’t fit out offices on a regular basis,” Francis points out. “It’s something that law firms hate because it’s an expense that effectively doesn’t generate an immediate return. So law firms don’t move offices very frequently, and they look for every possible reason to avoid it.”

It also doesn’t help that law is, by its very nature, a conservative profession. “Lawyers are very conservative about change,” says Charlton. “It takes time for lawyers to embrace change. They need to see the situation and work out the benefits, understand the situation, and then they start to embrace it.”

“So I think it is a slow process with lawyers, but it will carry on,” he adds. “It’s inevitable.”

To contact the writer, please email john.kang@tr.com