While the Minter Ellison Perth partnership officially split last October, the two new firms Minter Ellison and Squire Sanders are only now settling into new premises.
Minter Ellison (now financially integrated) has moved into three floors of space in Allendale Square on St Georges Terrace while Squire Sanders will move on Monday into the top two floors of Raine Square on Murray Street.
Minter Ellison is celebrating the opening of its new premises with an official function tonight, complete with West Australian Premier Colin Barnett as the officiator. For the past eight months the Minter Ellison team had been working out of serviced offices. “This gives staff a morale boost as they now have state-of-the-art, purpose designed offices,” said John Prevost, chairman of partners. “Our aim is to grow to 12 partners and 50 lawyers, and we have room to grow in these premises.”
Prevost said the firm had chosen a more “traditional” approach for the office’s design with all lawyers in the firm receiving their own private office space instead of an open plan design. One of the floors is also dedicated to clients, complete with a Cisco TelePresence conference room.
The new Squire Sanders office has a more contemporary approach according to managing partner John Poulsen: “We have designed the offices as a work place of the future, with lots of collaborative areas, staff hubs and open space,” he said. “The staff offices are all non-hierarchical, exactly the same size set in pavilions offset from the windows.” In addition, the staff hub and clients spaces flow onto a 600 square metre balcony.
As part of a global network the new premises also come complete with a ‘hotel’ area for visiting Squire Sanders staff. “We are finding increasingly that we have more and more overseas staff coming to work in our offices on a temporary basis, so we have created a hotel area which is set up for those staff so that they can plug in and get to work without fuss. We have also got a dedicated video conference room in the new offices,” said Poulsen.