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Do In-House Lawyers Hate Open Concept Offices?

By George Khoury, Esq. on February 21, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Despite the push of modernity demanding that businesses tear down the cubicle walls in favor of open concept offices, in-house lawyers aren't clamoring to join that club. In general, in-house attorneys do not like working in cubicles, let alone open work spaces, due to the lack of prestige that comes from not having an office.

Sure, there are privacy and confidentiality issues to consider as well. However, depending on the type of work, many attorneys don't need anything more than a computer (hopefully with a couple large monitors) to complete it, which can really put those big concerns to rest. But that still doesn't mean lawyers want to work in an open space.

Everyone Hates Open Concept Offices

It is no secret, and hasn't been one for years now: everybody hates open concept offices, even the people who say they like it. Okay, maybe not everyone hates it; after all, some open concept offices still have private offices for the select few who probably made the decision to move to an open concept office. Those select few who get new private offices in the open concept design can enjoy a future filled with the resentment of their privacy-less co-workers.

For the most part though, the move to open concept offices has a lot in common with "the sharing economy." The sharing economy sounded all good to consumers as it seemed to empower the people to bring services to other people at a more affordable rate.

However, after services like Uber and Airbnb took off, the truth was revealed that these disrupters were exploiting the public and their workers just like any other profit driven corporation would have done. Similarly, the open concept office trend was a move started to reduce costs by cramming more workers into a smaller space and telling them it's better. Cubicles and private office walls take up space that bodies could be filling.

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