Breaking precedent: four ideas shaping London’s legal workplace

As technology reshapes long-established modes of working, London’s legal sector is rethinking not only how services are delivered, but what the future of the whole professional should look like: examining everything from the role of the office itself to the value placed on human judgement.

Against an assortment of 100 representatives from law firms, workplace strategy, design and technology, workplace leaders weighed up what the landscape of law could begin to represent at CMS Cameron MacKenna Nabarro Olswang at Cannon Place on Thursday 17^th September, for WORKTECH’S latest Future Legal Workplace event.

From corner office to collaborative spaces

For decades, the office has stood as a statement of status within the legal sector. Private offices and corner suites were carefully considered hierarchies that reflected seniority and prestige, reinforcing how careers were structured to a certain degree. But, in a contemporary era of hybrid-working, that model is increasingly being tested. ‘Our biggest challenge is headcount uncertainty’ Simon Ryan, Head of Property Negotiations at CMS noted; it was a sentiment echoed by Louisa Kidson, Director of Property and Workplace at Travers Smith ‘I don’t think we’ll ever go back to a 5-day week.’ Mondays and Fridays still remain a struggle across the industry, with most people still opting for mid-week visits to the office.

With fewer people committing to the office on any given day, firms are having to reconsider whether large numbers of permanent private offices remain the most practical or fiscally conscious use of space. Open-plan layouts, shared workspaces and more collaborative environments not only allow for more office-based flexibility but encourage intergenerational mentoring and interaction.

However, it doesn’t come without a level of friction, with open-plan layouts challenging the structural privacy traditionally considered when designing legal spaces in order to accommodate client privilege. The result has amounted to a balancing act between preserving identity and status, while creating an office that actually serves how people work today. ‘You don’t have to know the future in order to build for it’ William Higham Strategic Consultant and Founder of William Higham Consulting remarked, ‘you don’t have to have the best ideas, you just need to be the quickest to pivot.’

A human edge

One of the most enduring strengths of the law firm has traditionally been the knowledge passed from one generation to the next. A junior picking up the nuances of negotiation from a senior colleague, or learning how to navigate a complicated client relationship through observing a mentor.

That human exchange has always been paramount, but with conflicting working structures a lot of the time allotted to learning through proximity has eroded away. The challenge for firms lies in ensuring that within a modern way of working, the informal interactions that build professional judgement, confidence and institutional knowledge remain.

It was a sentiment shared by most speakers at the conference, with many noting that junior staff are mandated to be in the office for four or five days of the week, facilitating that collaborative opportunity. Claire Ward, Chief Innovation Officer at SPS, emphasised just how much AI is changing the processes around how we work; highlighting how the services, tools and spaces in the workplace need to reflect contemporary flows, not the legacy processes that often enshroud them.

The value of distinct human judgement is also becoming more prominent as AI increasingly takes on more research, analysis and the laborious elements of legal work. As firms adopt more use of LLMs and AI, knowing when to question output, challenge assumptions or apply professional judgement will remain vital to ensure proper usage of the technology, while maintaining the expertise at the heart of the profession.

Future Legal Workplace London held at CMS Cameron MacKenna Nabarro Olswang at Cannon Place

A new division of labour

AI is in steadfast changing not just how legal work is done, but what lawyers actually spend their time doing. Tasks that have traditionally required hours of research, document review and analysis can increasingly be supported by technology, freeing lawyers to focus on the more complex, strategic or client-facing work. For firms, this efficiency lies in ensuring that translates into more valuable work. As a result, lawyers will need to diversify their skillsets. ‘Lawyers have almost become salespeople now that they have more time to find work’ noted Paul Byatt, Facilities Services Director at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

But AI doesn’t come without friction, many professionals through the day emphasised the brain-fry that now accompanies heavier caseloads. It’s an issue that Sophie Jackson, Head of Legal Technology Consulting at Addleshaw Goddard is well versed with, speaking on the incorporation of ‘imagination rooms’ at Addleshaw Goddard’s offices to promote both creativity and usher in more human interaction.

According to data gathered from Lexisnexis’ 2025 UK ‘The AI Culture Clash’ survey and Reuter’s 2026 ‘Global Future of Professionals Report’, 61% of lawyers are using generative AI within their legal work, with a further 58% confirming it helped them work faster in Lexisnexis’ 2026 UK ‘The Mentorship Gap’ survey.

Beyond the billable hour

For a profession that has been built in measuring the value of time, AI presents a fundamental challenge. If tech can now complete in minutes, what once took hours, billing by the hour risks becoming ever-more disconnect from the value delivered to the client; Martin Cotterill, Chief Legal Officer for Thought Machine echoed the sentiment.

As AI changes the economics of legal work, firms may need to pivot to output based compensation. This signals a shift of moving towards models that better reflect expertise, result and the complexity of individual cases, rather than simply time spent.

A case for what comes next

It seems clear the future of London’s legal sector will not be defined by technology alone, but how firms choose to embrace the human nuance it can’t afford. AI may be reshaping workloads, challenging traditional billing models or changing the way offices are designed; but the profession’s most enduring strengths: human judgement, collaboration and intergenerational experience, remain at its fundamental core.

The firms that navigate these transitions successfully will be those that embrace the efficiencies of technology while creating space for the professionals to do what they do best.