Designing productivity: Why law firms need activity-based office layouts

One person's interaction is often another person's distraction and, as with all human concerns that touch on behaviour, it is very much a matter of habit. The social construct of the workplace is built on habits - good and bad - which are, in effect, the unspoken protocols of the manner in which we work. It is often only confronted as a problem when there is the will to implement better management models more aligned with business objectives, client outcomes and productivity in general.

That is perhaps why HR departments all over the world have been busy adopting psychometric tools that help them to profile new recruits, with a view to creating cohesive teams of complementary skills. With a
greater focus on flexible working across
the generations, law firms need to ensure their working environments and office designs are appropriate.

In a traditional cellular office, the layout will most commonly comprise enclosed offices planned along the facade, in accordance with status, need and certain functional relationships, such as between
a partner and an assistant.

In an open-plan office, this will play out
in accordance with a non-discriminatory, equal and democratic planning logic designed to strike a balance between efficiency and effectiveness.

A third option, an activity-based layout, will accommodate a bespoke variety of settings that are uniquely indispensable to conducting various activities, including meeting a client, reviewing a case, conducting mock court proceedings, coaching and mentoring.

The conversation to date seems to have concentrated rather narrowly on a planning dilemma of open plan versus enclosed cellular office design, resulting in fierce and entrenched positions.

Key arguments

The main argument in favour of open-plan offices is that they offer social interaction and social support. The traditional concerns about privacy, confidentiality and the need to concentrate remain. However, some law firms have been quick to adopt new working practices and have embraced the necessary technological and policy changes.

Reed Smith's London office accommodates 630 lawyers in 160,000 square feet. It is intended to promote increased contact and communication between lawyers across practice areas to maximise potential in London business to serve clients in this way. Most lawyers work in predominantly quiet environments in which to concentrate, but each of the 12 floors have several breakout spaces in which to gather in order to exchange ideas or work on shared assignments.

Other recent solutions range from fully open-plan models (as seen at Pinsent Masons, Speechly Bircham and Reynolds Porter Chamberlain) through to more traditional cellular solutions (as seen at Norton Rose and Mayer Brown, where dual-occupancy offices are provided). Firms that have taken a hybrid solution include Eversheds, which has a frontless cellular layout. Meanwhile, Addleshaw Goddard has chosen a more collaborative office structure for fee earners, where workstations are arranged in discrete reconfigurable groups.

Defenders of the open-plan office promote their sociable aspect. But, open offices were not designed with workers' welfare in mind. They remain popular because they allow the maximum number of people to be accommodated per square metre of floor space. The supposed benefits of collaboration are more about improving efficiency and productivity than people's enjoyment of their workspace.

Most of the North American legal practices have half-heartedly experimented with the open model, fearing a partner mutiny, only in order to swiftly retreat
back to the familiarity of a traditional
cellular arrangement.

Key arguments raised in favour of traditional enclosed office planning
are familiar but nonetheless important
and include:

• the senior/junior partner mentoring relationship is best nurtured in the intimacy of an enclosed office;

• the relationship between career promotion and office status, which sometimes includes a 'corner office'; and

• confidentiality and the need to have enough quiet time to concentrate and have confidential discussions.

It's important to analyse and clearly define the need for confidentiality. Intelligibility and visual privacy are very different conditions of use and lead to entirely different spatial solutions. Also, walls or barriers are sometimes not the only answer. It is often necessary to establish protocols of use and policies of noise tolerance and
noise management.

An office floorplate will accommodate the functional basics, including utilities, circulation and support functions within the reality of contemporary building footprints.

All but activity-based models are now commonly used in law firm office planning, although more firms will likely be looking to move to this practice in the future. All of the UK's magic-circle firms currently use the traditional cellular office approach, in which there is double or single occupancy.

Often, the evidence supporting arguments in favour of traditional office design is flimsy and anecdotal; can one unequivocally link workplace planning to performance? The focus of the conversation is also too narrow and misleading (see box: Pros and cons of different law firm office designs).

 

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Pros and cons of different law firm office designs

1. Traditional office

Opportunities

• Supports focused working

• One-to-one mentoring

• Confidentiality

Challenges

• Creates a hierarchy of space

• Inflexibility

• Redundant support space cannot be utilised by fee-earners

2. Studio

Opportunities

• Supports focused working

• Greater usability (internal space can be converted to fee-earner studios)

• Greater flexibility (partners can arrange studios into blocks of 2, 4, 6 etc)

Challenges

• Mentoring requires close monitoring

• Requires the addition of quiet rooms, telephone rooms, etc.

• Noise transference – need for conference call protocols and technology review

3. Open plan

Opportunities

• Promotes collaboration and communication

• Highly efficient usability factor (all space can be used for fee-earners, deep floorplates become suitable for legal planning)

• Non-hierarchical

Challenges

• Mentoring (people tend not to chat freely in open plan and can feel inhibited)

• Loneliness and less social (large space will amplify sense of being on your own, working late)

• Rise in distraction levels – noise, visual and interruptions (people feel they can interrupt due to no closed doors!)

4. Activity-based

Opportunities

• Choice of work setting according to requirements – but, in law firms, the desk is usually still allocated (partners may sit in the centre of the space where they are easily accessible and can surround themselves by their team – they are also more mobile and less tethered to their desk; associates prefer to occupy studio space to conduct focused work)

• Efficient and effective

• Promotes collaboration, communication and accelerates integration of new starters

Challenges

• Lack of hierarchy

• Lawyers default to offices if choice is available (cannot mix open plan with cellular)

• Rise in distraction levels

Note: Contributed by Caroline Pontifex, Partner, KKS Strategy

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The answer lies in creating, in the first instance, a bespoke menu of options and to allow, over time, for such activities to mutate, transform and adapt according to changing needs.

On a typical (single-aspect) floor plate, the correct balance between open plan and traditional cellular layouts would yield greater daylight penetration, a variety of workspaces and an environment more conducive to social interaction.

In other sectors, conversations revolve around a bespoke yet flexible meshing of work settings, enabling work to be done in activity-based spaces. The premise behind this is a more dynamic and nuanced way of thinking about the workplace and the recognition that knowledge exchange operates in different manners.

Knowledge exchange

Nonaka and Takeuchi introduced the
SECI model (see Figure 2), which has become the cornerstone of organisational knowledge creation and transfer theory.1 They proposed four ways that knowledge types can be combined and converted, showing how knowledge is shared and created in organisations:

1. socialisation (noisy, social places);

2. externalisation (meeting rooms);

3. combination (quiet places in the office, home, library); and

4. internationalisation (team spaces).

The model is based on the two types of knowledge:

1. explicit; and

2. tacit.

Most knowledge is tacit. A major challenge that firms encounter is transforming their tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Knowledge management requires the kind of culture that encourages a free-flowing exchange of ideas and acclimatises people to the habits of sharing and learning. To maintain a communal knowledge space, there must be knowledge transfer infrastructures that encourage interaction.

The essential nature of legal work is team-based and collaborative. Teams assemble, work intensively for a period of time, disband and re-form, as part of their normal work process. Hence, over the course of a single day, work involving several individuals and practice groups can begin in a private office and migrate to the meeting room, the litigation room or even the courtroom. In short, work flows across the team and across the spaces that support it.

Versatile teams

Law firms increasingly need to maximise efficiency through the use of new technologies and collaborative ways of working. Their workspaces should be, accordingly, adaptable and feature a diverse menu of work settings, with perhaps fewer fixed workstations and more flexible and adaptable meeting spaces.

The design of the workplace plays an important role in supporting a versatile approach to practising law, through:

• assigned meeting spaces where teams work in a non-residential project space for the duration of the project;

• group-scheduled meeting spaces in conference rooms;

• co-located team spaces incorporating collaborative and individual workspaces within team boundaries;

• shared special areas such as project rooms, videoconferencing, training rooms and libraries; and

• virtual spaces for teams collaborating, mostly through the use of technology.

A formulaic approach to legal planning does not hit the mark and one size does not fit all. What is needed is a balanced workplace that adopts a more task-based approach to space allocation and offers varying degrees of enclosure.

Giuseppe Boscherini is a qualified architect (UCL/RIBA), industrial (RCA) and interior designer, with 30 years’ experience in leading and inspiring design teams for global clients (www.boscherini.com)

Reference

1. See The Knowledge Creating Company, I. Nonaka and H. Takeuchi, Oxford University Press, 1995