The short version
- Real estate is the second biggest cost in most law firms after people, and at board level most firms are guessing at how the office is used. That is the central claim HybridHero founder Chris Burke makes on the Leadership In Law podcast
- Past about 100 people nobody can manage space utilisation by feel. The data usually exists already in badge systems, bookings and leases, it just lives in different places
- A written hybrid work policy is not evidence. Three days a week means nothing until check-in data says whether partners and associates are actually in the building together
- Firms that measure before a lease decision typically find 10 percent of real estate cost to remove straight away. One large London firm cut 18 percent after two months of data
Law firm real estate costs are usually the second largest line in the accounts, and in most firms the decision about how much space to keep is made without utilisation data. Chris Burke, who founded HybridHero after running a 300-person consulting firm, explains on the Leadership In Law podcast why that guesswork is expensive and what managing partners can measure instead. This article pulls out the parts that matter for a firm facing a lease renewal or a hybrid policy review, with the 2026 market data alongside.
Leadership In Law, season 4 episode 175, hosted by Marilyn Jenkins of Law Marketing Zone, released 21 September 2026. Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Key takeaways and a summary are on the episode page.
Why most law firms are guessing about real estate
Chris’s threshold is about 100 people. Below that, a managing partner can walk the floor and know roughly who is in and which rooms sit empty. Above it, and certainly at 500 or more across several offices, no single person holds the picture. The facilities manager knows part of it, the executive assistants know part, HR knows what the policy says. Nobody has the whole footprint in one view, so the board decides on floors and leases from impressions.
Two examples from the episode show what that costs in time alone. An Australian client with offices in Sydney and Auckland was spending about two days a month compiling separate reports so the board could see how space was being used. A credit provider operating in around 26 countries had three full-time staff whose job was to email people and ask whether they had come to the office that week. Both were paying for the answer to a question the building’s own systems could have answered.
The one takeaway Chris asks listeners to keep: “You probably just don’t know, and you’re guessing.” The partners feel it too. He says they are often embarrassed to admit the second biggest cost in the business is one they cannot describe with numbers.
What the 2026 data says about law firm office space
The market context makes the guesswork more expensive, not less. Firms are committing to space again, but on very different terms from the pre-pandemic footprint.
| Finding | Figure | Source |
|---|
| Footprint change when a law firm relocates | 30 to 35 percent smaller on average | Colliers 2026 Law Firm North America Office Markets Report, via The Tenant Advisor, March 2026 |
| Footprint change when a firm renews in place | 10 to 15 percent smaller | Same report |
| Space per lawyer rule of thumb | From 1,000 square feet to about 600 | The New York Times, February 2024, quoting a managing partner |
| In-office expectation at major firms | At least three days a week, with 18 large US firms on four days from 2026 | CBRE Law Firm Benchmarking Survey 2026 (143 firms); Above the Law, November 2025 |
| Effect of two days a week at home | Same productivity and promotion rates as full-time office staff, lower turnover | Nicholas Bloom, Stanford, published in Nature, June 2024 |
| Average desk utilisation across HybridHero clients | 54 percent against a healthy target of 60 to 70 | HybridHero platform benchmarks |
Put those together and the problem is clear. Firms are shrinking space by a third when they move, yet asking people in more days than before. Whether that works depends on knowing which days, which teams and which floors are actually used, and the average firm is running a third below the utilisation it is paying for.
What firms recover once they can see the data, from the episode
Typical cost left on the table at the start10%
Large London firm, after two months of data18%
Mid-sized firms, 1,000 to 4,000 people18 to 25%
Many firms in Chris’s experience20%
Figures are Chris Burke’s account of HybridHero client outcomes as stated on the episode, not a published study. The London firm believed it had no spare space before it measured.
A three-day hybrid working policy is not data
The pattern Chris describes will be familiar. HR writes a policy asking everyone in three days a week. It goes out, everyone nods. Six months later the board asks whether it is working and nobody knows, because nobody is measuring attendance against the rule.
The fix is not surveillance. Most firms already run swipe cards, badges or biometrics at the door, so attendance is already being recorded. Linking that record to the policy turns a belief into a fact: this partner was expected three days and came two, this junior needs five days for a year to learn how the firm works, this team has quietly gone to one day. The coffee badging problem, where people tap in and leave, shows why a badge swipe alone is thin evidence and why booking and check-in data belong alongside it.
For a law firm the question that matters is proximity, not headcount. Nicholas Bloom’s research found in-person time is “clearly better for mentoring”, and the ABA Journal reports associates are more likely to come in when they know partners will be there. Chris gives the failure case from the other side: one US firm had juniors on the 30th floor and partners on the 28th, on different days, so for mentoring purposes nobody was really in the office at all. Anchor days set by supervising partner rather than by department are the practical answer, and the law firm office guide sets out a mentoring model built on them.
The “no data” black hole
Chris’s most useful idea for a managing partner is that gaps are as informative as empty desks. When the corporate team books desks and checks in, you can read its pattern. When another department shows nothing, no bookings, no check-ins, no status, that team is a black hole, and every decision about its space is a guess.
Closing the hole is mostly about capturing status, not policing people. Staff mark themselves on secondment at a client site, working from home or out of the office, and the calendar integration carries it through. A firm that tracks this for two months has enough behavioural data to make a lease decision, and Chris says that is the point at which behaviour itself starts to shift, because people can see who is in and plan around it.
Multi-office firms and the executive assistant desk dance
A firm with four or five offices in one state or country loses productivity in a way that never appears on a cost report. An attorney in Houston who needs to be in New York tomorrow messages the New York EA. Can you get me a desk. I’ll come back to you. What time do you need it. Chris puts the cost at 15 to 30 minutes of two people’s time for one desk, every trip.
The alternative he describes is a live floor plan with a traffic light: green desks anyone can take, amber desks that belong to a team and need a request, red desks already booked, grey desks reserved for a partner or a function. The same model runs meeting rooms and parking. The travelling attorney picks a green desk in seconds and the EA gets an afternoon back. Lifetime Legal, a legal services firm, moved from fixed departmental seating to this kind of hotdesking and room booking model and reported better management information once attendance and bookings ran through one system.
How to find out what your office really costs before the lease decision
Most of the inputs already exist. The work is pulling them into one view for a fixed period, ideally the two months before a renewal or fit-out decision. Disclosure: HybridHero is our product and does this as a platform, but the questions below can be answered with the systems a firm already has.
| Question the board will ask | Where the answer lives today | What to pull |
|---|
| What does the office cost per fee-earner? | Lease, service charge, rates and fit-out amortisation, divided by headcount | Total cost of occupancy and cost per desk, then per lawyer |
| How full is each floor, by day? | Badge or turnstile logs, desk and room bookings | Occupancy rate by floor, Monday to Friday, over eight weeks |
| Are partners and their associates in together? | Check-ins by person, mapped to supervision lines | Overlap days per partner and associate pair |
| Which teams show no data at all? | Absence of bookings or check-ins against the staff list | A list of teams to ask, not to penalise |
| How many desks do we actually need? | Peak day attendance plus a buffer | The office space calculator, or the method in how to calculate office space |
The eight-week window matters. A single week catches a trial or a holiday. Two months of data is long enough to see the real weekly shape, and short enough to run before a renewal notice falls due. The office real estate costs in the service economy piece covers how to present the result to a partnership.
Listen to the full episode
The conversation runs 30 minutes and also covers Chris’s view on AI and junior lawyers, the German client that cut three quarters of a 200-person team for AI and then rehired most of them, and why he thinks culture still needs deliberate in-person time. Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or read the summary and FAQs on the episode page. Other episodes with Chris are on the HybridHero podcast page, and if you are choosing tools for a firm, best software for law firms in 2026 is the companion read.
Law firm real estate costs: common questions
How much do law firms spend on real estate?
It is normally the second biggest cost after people. The exact share depends on city and lease, but Chris Burke’s experience across eight years of client work is that firms typically have around 10 percent of that cost to remove once they can see how space is used, and many find 20 percent.
How much office space does a law firm need per lawyer?
The old rule was about 1,000 square feet per lawyer. The New York Times reported in 2024 that firms now plan around 600, because not everyone is in at once. Colliers data shows firms cutting 30 to 35 percent of their footprint when they relocate. The right number for your firm comes from peak-day attendance, not a rule of thumb.
Do partners actually come into the office?
Most firms cannot answer this from data, which is Chris’s point. Badge, swipe-card or biometric entry records already capture it. Linked to bookings and check-ins, they show attendance by person, team and day against the policy the firm has set.
Is hybrid work bad for associate mentoring?
Not by itself. Nicholas Bloom’s study in Nature found two days at home matched full-time office staff on productivity and promotion. The risk is partners and associates being in on different days or different floors. Fix the overlap with anchor days by supervision line and measure whether it happens.
How quickly can a firm see savings from utilisation data?
Chris describes a large London firm that ran the model for two months and cut 18 percent of real estate cost, having believed there was nothing to cut. Two months is long enough to see the real weekly pattern and short enough to fit before a lease decision.
What size firm needs workplace utilisation data?
From about 100 people the picture stops being visible by walking the floor, and from 500 upwards or across several offices it is impossible without a single system. HybridHero’s clients range from a seven-person team to an organisation with more than 45,000 daily users.
Where can I listen to the Leadership In Law episode with Chris Burke?
On YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, linked above, or through the episode page on this site, which carries the summary, key takeaways and FAQs.
Sources and further reading
- Leadership In Law, S4 E175: HybridHero to Manage Real Estate Costs with Chris Burke, Marilyn Jenkins, Law Marketing Zone, 21 September 2026
- What law firms are actually doing with their office space in 2026, The Tenant Advisor, citing Colliers, March 2026
- Law Firm Benchmarking Survey Highlights 2026, CBRE, March 2026
- More top law firms embrace a four-day attendance mandate, Above the Law, November 2025
- Benefits of hybrid work examined in new study, ABA Journal, on Nicholas Bloom’s Nature paper, 2024
- Law firms do more with less space, LinkedIn News, citing The New York Times, February 2024