A previous post opined on open cubicles for lawyers (See my post of Feb. 20, 2005.), so I was glad to read about the law department at SEI Investment Co. and its completely mobile desks, which lock into place with casters (GC Mid-Atlantic, Oct. 2005 at 25).
What really caught my eye was the statement that the “38-member legal department occupies a space roughly 50 feet by 75 feet.” For those with a penchant for metrics, the approximately 3,750 square feet gives each of the those members about 98 square feet, or a 10 by ten office – if there were no conference rooms, hallways, file room areas, or other uses of the space.
For best-in-class law departments, diligently seeking optimal practices, cram your staff into the first quartile – nay, first decile – space of sub-hundred square feet per legal department member! Or, if you prefer, 220 square feet per lawyer (SEI has 17 in-house lawyers).