WASHINGTON, DC–DC-area's law firms are just about finished their rightsizing — specifically, this process is about 75% complete, according to Cushman & Wakefield calculations. Starting in 2011 and continuing to the end of last year, C&W estimates there has been two-million-square feet of give-back by law firms in the area.
Interestingly, there were signs of a backlash against this multi-year push for space efficiency in the last quarter of 2017 when several firms expanded — major deals included Wilmer Hale, Morrison Foerster, K&L Gates, Akin Gump, Goodwin Proctor, and Paul Hastings — indicating that they may have underestimated their space needs.
That said, mergers and acquisitions among law firms are expected to continue into 2018, which will mean further space consolidation, according to Nate Edwards, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield's Washington, DC Region Research Department. “We have seen some select firms overestimate the efficiencies they could get from rightsizing but that is not going to make up for the consolidation we will see from future mergers,” he tells GlobeSt.com.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
