Law firms continue to buck the office downsizing trend, taking on millions of square feet during the third quarter of 2025 in prime locations across the country.
Firms like Moore & Van Allen, Latham & Watkins, and Ropes & Gray all grabbed more than 100,000 square feet each, expanding their space in key financial centers like New York and Charlotte. Overall, this was the strongest third quarter for law firm leases since before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new commercial real estate data.
Legal industry leasing is so strong that law firms have doubled their share of the overall market for commercial office space, Reuters reported. Law firms “accounted for 10.5% of U.S. office leasing activity” through the third quarter, up from 5% pre-pandemic, Reuters said.
Helping drive the buoyant leasing market is the rollback by many firms of pandemic-era remote work options. In recent months, major firms across the country have announced more stringent return-to-office mandates, requiring most lawyers to spend a greater share of their time on site.
“The pendulum is absolutely swinging back toward the majority of partners' and associates' time being in person, in the office,” one Washington, D.C.-based legal recruiter told Reuters.
Outperforming the Norm
Law firms leased 8.3 million square feet of office space through the third quarter of 2025, according to an analysis by Savills focusing on lease transactions exceeding 20,000 square feet. The numbers are “well above the six-year average, underscoring sustained demand across major U.S. markets,” Savills said.
Most leasing transactions traditionally occur in the first and fourth quarters, Savills said. But Q3 2025 saw a 30% spike in square footage leased and represented the strongest third quarter total since 2018.
Half of the transactions were office relocations, a figure highlighting a more intense focus by firms on upgrading their office spaces, Savills said. And 40% of firms sought to expand their square footage, either by relocating or adding to the footprint in their current locations.
“Overall, leasing activity in 2025 continues to outperform historical norms, reflecting sustained demand for modern, high-quality office space across major markets,” the Savills report said.
A Big Deal in Charlotte
Not surprisingly, the nation’s largest legal market had the most office-related deals in the Savills report. New York firms accounted for just under 30% of U.S. law firm real estate transactions in the third quarter.
The largest individual transaction, however, occurred in Charlotte, Savills said. There, 400-lawyer Moore & Van Allen inked a 15-year lease to become the anchor tenant in a new, 43-story office tower in Uptown, Charlotte’s central business district.
The firm, the largest based in the city and in North Carolina, will move from its current 165,000-square-foot headquarters in the Bank of America Corporate Center to 206,000 square feet in the new Queensbridge Collective project, according to Law.com. The move is expected to be completed by 2028.
Moore’s managing partner and chair told Law.com that the firm had maximized its current space and that “getting to some new space is really necessary for our growth.” The firm will take nine contiguous floors in the new building and will have prominent signage at the top of the tower, Law.com reported.
Other Major Moves
One firm—Latham & Watkins—was responsible for the second- and third-largest transactions of the quarter, according to Savills. Latham confirmed that it will expand its New York footprint with a new, 119,000-square-foot lease at Midtown Manhattan’s 1285 Avenue of the Americas, a 39-story building that also houses Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
The deal represents a 25% increase in Latham’s New York space. Currently, the firm has 435,000 square feet across the street at 1271 Sixth Ave., which it intends to retain. In addition, Latham renewed the lease on its nearly 120,000-square-foot office space at San Francisco’s 505 Montgomery St. The renewal and its guarantee of income for the next several years, according to news reports, allowed the building’s owners to attract a buyer for the 24-story tower.
In Chicago, Ropes & Gray renewed its lease at the 37-story 191 North Wacker Drive, adding 26,000 square feet to its current space. Overall, the firm will now have 105,000 square feet in the building. Other large third-quarter transactions included a 97,000-square-foot Miami lease for Stearns Weaver Miller; a new, 77,699-square-foot headquarters for Kanner & Pintaluga in Boca Raton, Fla.; and 77,000 square feet of New York office space for Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith.
Back to the Office
According to Savills, 37% of transactions in the third quarter involved law firms expanding their space. That’s up from 34% in Q3 2024. Conversely, fewer firms reduced the size of their offices.
At least in part, office expansions are being driven, Savills said, by return-to-office policies. “Law firms are increasingly mandating in-office attendance for attorneys and staff, a trend that has boosted occupancy levels and sustained demand for physical office space,” Savills said.
Above the Law, which has been tracking which Big Law players have been instituting return-to-office mandates, said that as of late November, at least 18 Am Law 100 firms are now requiring lawyers work in the office at least four days a week.
The list includes: A&O Shearman; Cooley; Covington & Burling; Davis Polk & Wardwell; Dechert; DLA Piper; Goodwin Procter; Hogan Lovells; Latham; Paul Weiss; Ropes & Gray; Sidley; Simpson Thacher; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom; Vinson & Elkins; Weil Gotshal & Manges; WilmerHale; and White & Case.
‘Connection and Collaboration’
One of the latest firms to adopt a new policy, Goodwin Procter, said in November that it would require lawyers in its U.S. and U.K. outposts to work in the office Monday through Thursday. That’s up from a three-day in-office requirement established in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Goodwin management said in a memo to employees obtained by Reuters that “delivering on our ambitious strategy takes the kind of strong relationships that benefit from close and frequent in-person connection and collaboration…Many of our clients—and many of our peer firms—are embracing similar approaches.”
Some firms are making distinctions based on seniority and practice area. In August, DLA Piper ramped up its in-person attendance policy to four days for corporate lawyers. And in November, Dechert said it expected second-year associates to work four days in the office starting Feb. 2, 2026. Third-years and counsel will work at the office three days per week, Reuters reported, adding that partners were already required to report to the office four days each week.
Raising Expectations
Fully remote work policies had nearly disappeared, with most firms opting for a hybrid approach that required a certain number of days in the office, The American Lawyer reported, citing a Savills report.
More than 80% of firms, the Savills study found, required specific days of attendance, and around half required three days in the office.
In-office schedules were gradually increasing and were likely to evolve, the report said. As firms tweaked their hybrid approaches, they would likely rely on “more defined schedules, anchor days, and stronger policy enforcement," The American Lawyer said, quoting Savills.
Indeed, punishments for employees who run afoul of their firms’ attendance policies are already in place at 17% of the Am Law 200. Bonuses, paid time off, and promotions are being targeted, and in some cases, firms are eliminating “the lawyer’s opportunity to work remotely,” The American Lawyer said.
Remaining Remote
Not every firm is pushing associates and partners back to the office. Firms like Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Husch Blackwell, and Fennemore Craig “continue to promote remote-work options, in some cases as a recruiting tool,” as Reuters noted.
Quinn Emanuel, for instance, allows all of its associates and of counsel to work from anywhere in the United States, with approval from the firm. Attorneys can come to the office if they wish for in-person meetings, team building, and trial preparation, the firm’s website says. The firm touts its approach with the catchphrase “talent mandatory. Office optional.”
“Our lawyers should work from wherever they do their best work,” Quinn writes on its website. “Over the past several years, our lawyers have mastered the art of collaborating remotely and at the highest levels—without sacrificing camaraderie or the free sharing of ideas.”
Husch Blackwell promotes its virtual office, The Link, on its website’s careers page, saying that the effort allows “team members to work from the location that makes the most sense for the individual, whether it's from home, onsite with a client, or in a hoteling arrangement inside one of the traditional Husch Blackwell offices.”
Members of the virtual office team remain, the firm asserts, “constant and active contributors to the Husch Blackwell offices in the cities in which they live.”
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David L. Brown is a legal affairs writer and consultant, who has served as head of editorial at ALM Media, editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and Legal Times, and executive editor of The American Lawyer. He consults on thought leadership strategy and creates in-depth content for legal industry clients and works closely with Best Law Firms as senior content consultant.
