White paper exploring the impact of recent interior renovations for Fried Frank LLP's Washington, DC office and the general trend in the industry towards more flexible office design.

1. TheResilient
LegalWorkplace
Flexibility in Practice

2. COVER—Photo Credit: Eric Laignel | THIS PAGE—Photo Credit: © 2019 Gensler

3. INTRODUCTION
Seldom is a light shone on the workplace experience of first year and
summer associates. Gaining a private office as a first year associate
can feel like a milestone, but it can be challenging to connect with new
colleagues if working in an enclosed environment, especially coming
straight from law school. And if we’re being honest about where
summer associates are seated, it isn’t always ideal. These bright, eager,
enthusiastic young minds often find themselves in the least savory
parts of our spaces: windowless internal offices, the odd cubicle, war
room, or otherwise undesignated table.
It’s understandable. First year associates are new. They won’t demand
a corner office or customized workstation. And a summer associate’s
time at a law firm is short-term, learning as much as they can on the
job until, hopefully, receiving an offer. But we ignore the workspaces of
both groups at our peril. Here’s why.
IT’S NO SECRET THAT LAWYERS ARE WORKING
DIFFERENTLY THESE DAYS. EMPLOYEES
EVERYWHERE ARE.
Expectations for what a workplace should provide have changed
dramatically in the last 20 years. And yet law is known for
conservatism when it comes to office design. The legal industry is
generally of a different mindset than Silicon Valley tech companies
with their nap pods, on-site bearded baristas, and bean bag chairs.
To be clear, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s appropriate. The gravity and
precedence-based work of lawyers at major firms who have argued
cases before the Supreme Court calls for an entirely different
set of cultural expressions than one would expect for computer
coders, app designers, bankers, or even federal employees. Law will
always carry a different weight than other industries, but there are
important commonalities in how workplaces are getting more open,
comfortable, and collaborative that apply no matter your profession.
THIS PAGE—Photo Credit: Eric Laignel
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Jackson Walker | Dallas, TX | Photo Credit: Michael MoranTHIS PAGE—Photo Credit: © 2019 Gensler
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5. WHY DOES THIS MATTER FOR
FIRST YEAR AND SUMMER ASSOCIATES?
And, for that matter, fresh out of college paralegals considering law
school? They are, for lack of a better word, impressionable. They are
not yet steeped in the legal industry. They aren’t used to its norms.
Their expectations—and perceived employment alternatives—are
shaped by what they know about where their friends are working.
They have friends in tech. In consulting. In advocacy. And whereas
in-house legal work used to be reserved for attorneys with at least 5
years of litigation experience at a firm, this norm no longer applies for
many major corporations. As CVS General Counsel Thomas Moriarty
notes, “that trend I do believe is shifting. So it is now very possible
to come in as a first year into a large corporate legal department.” So
while summer associates have traditionally been likely hires, nothing
is guaranteed, and the drain of early career associates going in-house
is starting even sooner.
What this means is that law firms can no longer take the workplace
experiences of their young associates for granted. If the investments
made in associate hires is to pay off, firms must regard the spaces in
which they work with the same attention as those of partners and
other permanent staff.
Fried Frank, with the recent renovations to its DC office, provides
a bold example of how to make this forward-thinking design
happen. Facing space constraints with a large amount of incoming
summer associates, Fried Frank set out to create a tight-knit team
among the new class. Rather than breaking them up into whichever
workstations and offices were free, they instead created an associate
“Neighborhood.” That’s right—a space designed with early career
associates specifically in mind, alongside a plethora of other
workplace offerings poised to bolster the firm’s ability to attract and
retain talent. The experiment went so well that the space is now a
permanent fixture for both summer and first year associates.
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“THENEIGHBORHOOD”
Rather than breaking
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workstations and offices
were free, they instead
created an associate
“Neighborhood.”
3

6. Twenty individual sit-to-stand workstations form the core of the
space. Each is equipped with noise-cancelling headphones, curved
monitors, and Bluetooth headsets for individual focus work. And
when the time comes for collaboration, the associates can switch
to a new work mode seamlessly. Rolling pedestal cabinets double as
cushioned impromptu guest seating for group work.
The collegial design extends beyond The Neighborhood into the
features of the entire office. Glass-front offices increase transparency
and access to natural light. The enhanced café has monitors in
its comfy booths which can display connected laptop screens for
collaborative work or cable television if a team wants to unwind.
Speaking of unwinding, full-body massage chairs and an Arcade
Legends machine in the café leave no doubt that Fried Frank is
serious about curating an enjoyable experience for every single
member of its staff.
The results have been exciting: the pilot group of formerly disparate
summer associates became a friendly, trusting team that, upon
receiving offers to return to the firm, were excited to find out that
they would be staying in The Neighborhood as first year associates.
They’ll move to private offices after their first year, but for the time
being they appreciate the soft transition that The Neighborhood
provides in bridging the gap between the collegiality of law school
and the more individual nature of a legal career.
IT’S ALL PART OF A VISION FOR A
HEALTHIER LEGAL WORKFORCE.
In August 2018, Lindberg, et. al published an article in The BMJ on
the effects of workstation type on physical activity and stress. The
results were striking. Workers in open plans exhibited significantly
more physical activity and less perceived stress than workers in
cubicles and private offices. Surprisingly, the benefits extended to
outside of the office too: “Higher physical activity at the office was
in turn related to lower physiological stress outside the office as
measured by heart rate variability.” It is easy to fall into the habit of
hunkering down in our offices all day, but this, combined with the
legal industry’s chronically high rates of stress among attorneys in the
first 10 years of practice, can be a hazard.
Pioneering law firms have a real chance to set themselves apart
on this front. Whereas The Law Society notes that “the work lends
itself perfectly to flexible working and yet most firms will only make
a nod to flexibility,” Fried Frank has chosen to make a courageous
investment in its own talent.
Contrast this with the running narrative we see regarding open
plan offices in the media. The Register says that “Open plan offices
flop – you talk less, IM more, if forced to flee to a cubicle: Scratch
the surface and most of us are misanthropic recluses.” Back in 2013,
Jackson Walker | Dallas, TX | Photo Credit: Michael Moran
THIS PAGE—Photo Credit: © 2019 Gensler
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7. THIS PAGE—Photo Credit: © 2019 Gensler
BACK—Photo Credit: Eric Laignel
The Guardian proclaimed that “Open-plan offices were devised by
Satan in the deepest caverns of hell.” A recent Harvard study that
attempted to measure collaboration levels after one company’s
renovation asked some serious questions about the relationship
between technology, office design, and in-person communication,
leading countless media outlets to seize on the story and engage in a
veritable arms race of provocative headlines. It is a topic that, because
nearly everyone has personal experience with a poorly designed
workplace, lends itself particularly well to clickbait.
It’s unfortunate, because the “open plans” under consideration in
these conversations are misrepresentative. They’re extreme examples:
barren, bullpen-like spaces that make no attempt at the kind of
flexibility and thoughtful design that makes an office like Fried Frank
DC so impressive. These straw man “open plans” lack any form of
privacy partitions, neglect to offer employees options for where and
how to work, and fail to equip employees with the technological and
cultural tools they need to make their space work well. A point of
contrast: the welcome booklet Fried Frank provides to explain how to
use the space and what cultural norms make it enjoyable
and effective.
In their 2016 U.S. Workplace Survey, Gensler compared the
effectiveness of space types across the entire spectrum from
individual offices to shared offices and high-, medium-, and low-panel
open spaces, as well as bench seating. Space type proved not to be
determinant of high function for innovative companies. Gensler’s
“high function” group of respondents—those who ranked highly
across the three criteria outlined below (design, noise management,
and access to people and resources)—showed little variation in terms
of which individual space was most effective. Open benching worked
just as well as a private office for companies with spaces designed for
their culture and their needs. When Leesman dug into same topic in
their “The Next 250K” research report, the results were even more
pointed. Of their top 10 most effective offices, only one location
consisted of primarily private or shared offices. In the workplace they
measured to be most effective, 92% of the employees worked at
designated open-plan settings. Their conclusion? “[D]emonizing open
plan is just factually incorrect.”
An office that is designed well for your organization will work well
for your organization. That doesn’t mean it has to be open plan—or
private. Both—and anything in between—can work. For Fried Frank,
finding the right balance and introducing flexibility and openness
has been absolutely transformative. Remember that initial class of
summer associates? All of them accepted offers to come on as full
associates. It’s a tight-knit group whose camaraderie will now form a
lasting part of the firm’s culture and continued growth.
ENHANCEDCAFÉ
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The enhanced café has
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5

8. Relman, Dane & Colfax | WASHINGTON, DC | Photo Credit: Gensler
AUTHOR
Joshua Barthel is a marketing writer in Gensler’s Washington, DC office. A former
paralegal, journalist, and activist, he brings an interdisciplinary approach to storytelling
for Gensler’s southeast region. Writing about architecture, interior design, and brand
strategy, Josh investigates the impact of the lived environment on the world of work and
employee happiness. Contact him at Joshua_Barthel@gensler.com.
CONTRIBUTORS
Steven J. Martin, AIA is a principal in Gensler’s Washington, DC office and is a firmwide
leader of Gensler’s Global Law Firm Practice. Steve applies more than 30 years of
experience in strategic planning and design as project director for a diverse group of
global, national, and local law firms. He is also a Fellow of the College of Law Practice
Management. Contact him at Steven_Martin@gensler.com.
Katie Mesia is a Studio Director for Gensler’s Southeast Regional Consulting Practice
Area. She has vast experience in leading teams in the successful implementation of
change management services, in projects ranging from single moves to ongoing portfolio
renovations. Katie is an empathetic listener who excels at using systems and tool sets to
define process and implement change. Contact her at Katie_Mesia@gensler.com.
Katie Costa is a Design Strategist at Gensler’s Washington, DC office. A specialist in
solving complex problems, she develops new workplace strategies for a variety of client
types while using design thinking to improve workplace efficiency and effectiveness. She
can be contacted at katie_costa@gensler.com.
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