The lawyers of Gadens Brisbane have retained their personal offices in the firm’s new fit-out, in a move which Brisbane Chairman Paul Spiro says respects the privacy and confidentiality required of the profession.

Gadens moved to  111 Eagle Street Brisbane last year and hired design firm HASSELL for the fit-out. While the design has an emphasis on transparency and the use of glass, Gadens has opted not to follow the lead of firms such as Corrs Chambers Westgarth and King & Wood Mallesons in adopting a full open plan layout.

“We understand that some firms are going down that road, but we felt that what we did gave us the best of both worlds,” said Spiro. “All of our offices are glass, you have the inclusive feeling; it’s transparent, nothing to be hidden, everyone sits in the same size offices. You get light, transparency but you also get the privacy which we think you don’t get with open plan.”

Privacy is a key consideration. “Our view is that we’re still a profession that requires privacy and confidentiality with our clients and we felt this gave us the best of both worlds,” said Spiro. “We spoke to a lot of people in the firm, and people like their personal space. That was the feedback that we got. I can understand the benefits of open plan for some organizations but the feedback that we got was that people like their personal space down to having personal items on their desk; they like being able to shut the door and have their private space. That’s understandable. And that feedback wasn’t just from the older partners, that was across the board from junior lawyers all the way through. It suits our culture, gives us a degree of privacy, allows us to have our confidential paperwork on our desks, confidential discussions with clients; it suits us.”

However, there is a novel egalitarian element in the new fit-out:  the firm has decided to allocate window seats to support staff, while lawyers’ offices will be on the inside in a reversal of the traditional layout.

“Part of our culture is that we like to be egalitarian,” said Spiro. “The years where the partners sat around the perimeters and hogged the limelight and the view, we wanted to change that and flip it on its  head. We’ve given the support staff the perimeters and the outlook to the river, which is lovely.”

Two considerations which arise in this context are the cost of open plan versus offices and the flexibility offered by each option.

“We did an analysis and even though it was slightly more expensive for offices, it’s not that much more  and we felt the benefits of having the offices outweighed the small cost savings at the end of the day,” said Spiro.

Spiro also said that, despite perceptions to the contrary, a traditional office layout was capable of being reconfigured to business requirements with the same ease as open plan. He cited a recent example where the firm removed eight offices and replaced them with open plan desks in order to accommodate a  growing team of paralegals.

“With these offices, you can put them up and down over a weekend,” he said. “The law changes so quickly it could be next year that the work type changes and we put the offices back up, but it only takes a weekend. It’s not a great cost nor a great time impediment.”

And if current signs are anything to go by, the firm will more likely be busier than not next year. “Definitely in the last month to six weeks we’ve seen an uptick in activity,” said Spiro. “It’s been a quiet year  but  there’s a lot more confidence coming back to the market; we  think next year that confidence will grow and there will be much more business activity. We think the government is doing a great job in terms of getting finances on the right footing and I think emerging confidence is coming back to Queensland.”