Dublin law firms named leaders in Europe for agile working

Adoption of new workplace strategies is limited across the EMEA area, with the UK and Ireland leading the way in implementing agile working options, according to a survey of major law firms from by real estate advisor CBRE.

The Law in EMEA report, the first-ever benchmark analysis of the legal sector internationally, reveals that London leads the way in the percentage of law firms offering some form of agile workspace (60 per cent), followed by Dublin (50 per cent), Edinburgh (25 per cent) and Manchester (12.5 per cent). 

The legal sector is widely viewed as fairly traditional in its patterns of office occupation, and unlikely to be an early adopter of new or innovative workplace practices.

However, law firms are faced with many of the same pressures as others to manage space efficiently and to provide working environments that will appeal to scarce talent.

Across the 15 markets analysed by CBRE, the average space allocated per person is 232 sq ft (21.6 sq m), with law firms in Brussels recording the highest space allocation per person at 506 sq ft (47sq m), Edinburgh the lowest at 129 sq ft (12sq m), and Dublin coming in at 168 sq ft (16sq m).

The average rent per person, based on current rent outgoings of the law firms analysed, is €10,833 pa, ranging from €3,300 pa in Edinburgh to €8,000 pa in Dublin and over €19,000 pa in Paris.