Technology

Someone In Biglaw Absolutely Has To Buy This Wacky Phone Helmet

And then send me pictures of famous lawyers wearing this thing.

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via Hochu rayu

Biglaw offices, like offices everywhere, are starting to adapt to the demands of an increasingly younger workforce and an increasingly more expensive price per square foot. Ring in the open architecture, shared offices, and collaborative spaces! These changes can shock and frighten the more staid attorneys out there, but the results are undeniably cool.

But with more open spaces comes more distraction. Taking a call at your desk isn’t as simple as closing a door anymore. How can attorneys concentrate on their work in this sort of environment. They could find a quiet conference room, commandeer the office of an out-of-town colleague, or the firm could expand its acceptance of telecommuting. Or lawyers could dress up like Deadmau5.

Ukranian design firm Hochu rayu has an innovative new product called the Helmfon that purports to fully reflect outside sound waves and block the noise of the wearer from bothering nearby co-workers. Here’s a picture of the product in action:

via Hochu rayu

I’m not sure if it delivers on blocking sound waves, but I’m fairly certain it prevents CTE. The story behind the development of this latter day cone of silence underscores the office space challenges facing firms:

So the Helmfon story has started in September 2016, when the local department of Limelight Networks company asked us to create couple of new meeting rooms in their office, where they’d be able to make Skype calls (they mean creating a typical meeting room for one person (3×3 meters, where their employers will make Skype calls alone). We did the interior design for that company a half year before, so we knew how much space was taken by this type of meeting rooms and didn’t want to fill the space in this useless way any more.

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While this helmet may look a little silly, the logic behind it isn’t. Meeting rooms for the sole purpose of taking phone calls are a waste of real estate for rooms that will spend the majority of the day unoccupied. When I toured White & Case, they showed me telephone booths they’d built in their bullpen area to afford employees working in the open area a measure of privacy without giving up too much space. But a product that allowed an employee to take a call from their desk — without having to relocate their materials to a telephone closet would be a boon. I’m starting to think this thing sounds like a pretty good idea for the Spaceball lawyer on the go.

But it’s just hard to imagine a product like this invading law firms. Tech companies can embrace the Helmfon because the Great Gazoo look is a step up in professional wear for them. Lawyers can’t afford to look that ridiculous when clients casually stroll the halls.

But there’s got to be a firm out there — in Silicon Valley, obviously — where modeling tech culture is both appropriate and business savvy. That’s where the Helmfon can find its opening in Biglaw. Let’s make it happen.

And then let’s schedule a call.

Earlier: White & Case Has Built The New ‘Modern’ Law Firm Office — And It’s Awesome

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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