Biglaw

Biglaw Firm Designs New Office Around The Reality Of Telecommuting

With its new office, the firm tries to strike a balance between face-to-face office work and the realities of modern efficiencies.

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Arent Fox’s reception area — a striking work showing the hint of a skyline. Art by Shuli Sade.

At the end of the day, the goal in designing a new Biglaw office in Midtown Manhattan is creating a space that lawyers want to work in. That’s the message of Andrew Silfen, Arent Fox’s New York managing partner describing the firm’s new 76,000 square foot office in at 1301 Avenue of the Americas, between 52nd and 53rd, which some long-time readers might remember as the former home of Dewey & LeBoeuf. In a world where partners — and even associates — increasingly take advantage of technology allowing them to work remotely, a law firm office has to become an affirmative draw for attorneys. A reason to come in and engage in the face-to-face interaction that facilitates sound mentoring.

And, not for nothing, but at the rates New York real estate goes for — upwards of $95 per square foot in that area — a firm can’t afford to be keeping cavernous offices empty for attorneys who prefer to avoid the lost billable time that comes with the daily commute.

And, as one might expect, there’s a small cafe with free snacks for attorneys looking to refuel or have a nice meeting over coffee.

What Arent Fox has done is build a sleek, modern office built on collaboration, cutting-edge tech, and plenty of natural light. Similar to White & Case’s office design, Arent Fox relies on glass offices to keep the interior well-lit. As Silfen jokes, the firm should invest in Windex stock. Traditionalists may balk at the idea of working in plain view of everyone, but the effect upon interior spaces is striking. In a classic office, walking to an administrative station feels like entering a fluorescent-lit horror chamber. With these glass offices, on the other hand, the stations and the staff who sit there have plenty of light and great views of their own. It’s hard to overstate how much this improves the overall office environment.

Confidentiality is maintained by keeping office spaces sequestered from the outward facing conference space. Clients and adversaries can be kept out of the day-to-day working areas to avoid prying eyes.

The doors to all these offices are set up to close whisper quietly, in part to foster a comfortable environment and no doubt in part to avoid damaging all this glass through blunt trauma. It’s a cool effect to see in practice, but some part of me felt sorrow that a litigator won’t be able to slam a door after hearing the latest absurd demand from opposing counsel. There’s a value to catharsis.

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For attorneys in need of privacy amidst all the glass, Arent Fox has them covered with a number of internal quiet working spaces — and, naturally, maternity rooms — that lawyers and staff can set up in when they need to get away from it all.

Arent Fox’s boardroom-style conference room

The design element that really resonated with me was the level of variety Arent Fox provided it comes to collaborative and conference spaces. A lot of firms have their cookie-cutter rooms, but Arent Fox went out of its way to give attorneys a number of options in picking the room that suits them up to and including the massive, intimidating boardroom conference space, with separate entrances and exits for Arent Fox attorneys — leading back to their offices — and visitors. Different sizes, different layouts, different furniture. Encouraging collaboration has to recognize that not everyone is looking for the same collaborative experience. Offering choices between a small corner working space and a midsized conference room and a mid-floor war room helps draw attorneys out of their offices. And with these rooms decked out with the latest in teleconferencing equipment, attorneys can have that face-to-face interaction even when someone is on the road or working from home for the day.

And, yes, the corners are working spaces, with the partners ceding the vaunted corners to the greater good. They also took smaller offices to let the associates get a little more breathing room in their offices.

The Landing Pad. One of the smaller mid-floor meeting spaces is visible in the background.

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Par for the course for a new Biglaw office, Arent Fox boasts the latest high-tech bells and whistles, with a Joan computerized conference room scheduling system, dongles that plug into a computer to allow it to toss things immediately up on the conference room screen from Barco, and giant Microsoft Surface Hubs in collaboration rooms. There’s a massive video screen at the landing between floors — the Landing Pad as they call — with a comfy couch, and a series of internal conference rooms that can open up into an all-hands meeting space.

Having the latest and greatest isn’t limited to the technological either. Each office is equipped with the ever popular adjustable sitting/standing desk. Silfen notes that the millennial attorneys are the ones most often found standing. For all the flack they get from the press, they’re generally aggressive go-getters and that spills over into their interest in spending the day standing.

Telecommuting presents a difficult balance for law firms. Traditionalists might just demand face time out of all attorneys, but this isn’t realistic. Working from home isn’t a perk for these attorneys, it’s an advantage they’re taking to cut a couple hours of dead commuting time out of their busy day. Yet young attorneys need mentoring and mid-level attorneys need guidance on how to become effective managers. Building an office space that makes people want to make the trek into work, building technology that facilitates face-to-face conversation from afar, and building it all somewhere easy to get — and let’s be fair, even though the firm only moved a couple of blocks, it moved a world away in terms of getting outside the tourist trap part of New York — is exactly how a firm strikes that balance.

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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