After taking a beating during the COVID-19 pandemic, the market for commercial office space is showing signs of life this year, and one sector in particular has been critical in driving growth—law firms.
Firms are leasing top-tier office space in key markets at record rates, according to multiple reports by global real estate advisory firms. Cushman & Wakefield, in its recent 2025 Bright Insight survey of the legal sector, found that law firm leasing has outpaced 2019 rates by 35% during the last five quarters. “The legal sector continues to demonstrate strong momentum in both office leasing and employment growth, setting it apart from other office-using industries,” Cushman reported.
During the first quarter of 2024, law firms with leases of at least 20,000 square feet made deals for 1.7 million square feet, according to recent data published by global real estate adviser Savills. In the first quarter of 2025, firms in the same category leased 3.4 million square feet.
What’s driving the surge in law firm leasing activity? The number of lawyers at U.S. firms has jumped 13.6% since 2020, according to Cushman, and the current “softer-than-normal office market has provided an opportunity for law firms to move into new, top-tier space with beneficial terms.”
Major Deals
As might be expected, the nation’s largest legal market—New York—has also seen the highest-profile law firm real estate deals. In the biggest transaction so far this year, Mayer Brown said in February that it would renew and expand its lease in the Rockefeller Center complex. The firm is taking an additional 75,000 square feet for a total of 330,662 square feet.
Kirkland & Ellis added 131,000 square feet at 900 Third Ave., a building around the corner from the skyscraper at 601 Lexington Ave., where the firm is leasing 400,000 square feet. The firm clearly needs the room. Kirkland, according to recently released National Law Journal data, now has the largest law firm office in New York and the nation, with 969 lawyers.
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison also expanded its already substantial Manhattan footprint with an additional 84,672 square feet at 1345 Avenue of the Americas. In 2023, the firm signed that year’s largest U.S. office lease for 765,000 square feet across 18 of the 50-story building’s floors. The law firm employs 925 lawyers in New York, according to the NLJ data.
Manhattan Moves
Not everyone in Manhattan is staying put. Goodwin Procter announced in April that it had leased nearly 250,000 square feet at 200 Fifth Ave., a historic property across the street from Manhattan’s Madison Square Park and the famed Flatiron Building. The firm, which employs 600 lawyers and staff in New York, is relocating from another marquee space, The New York Times Building in midtown Manhattan.
The new location allows Goodwin to expand its footprint in the future and to create “a vertical campus concept with interconnected floors linked by a sculptural staircase,” the firm said. Goodwin touted “unique amenities rarely found in traditional Manhattan office environments” that will be attractive to clients, and critically, to talent.
Also in April, Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff inked a deal for 90,000 square feet in a building located just eight blocks south of its current space in midtown Manhattan. Benesch’s new home will be at a 45-story tower at 1301 Avenue of the Americas, which also houses Dorsey & Whitney’s New York office. The firm, which has about 60 lawyers in New York, has grown firmwide headcount by 11% per year since 2020, according to National Law Journal figures.
Boston Boom
Other major markets are seeing a similar uptick in law firm leasing activity.
Consider Boston. From May 2024 to May 2025, law firm leasing volume rose 332% over the previous year, according to an analysis released in June by real estate advisory firm Avison Young. Bisnow, citing data from Avison, reported that law firms have represented more than 70% of downtown Boston’s office leasing activity in 2025.
Nutter McClennen & Fish, Barnes & Thornburg, Sidley Austin and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips have all signed leases in the market this year for more than 20,000 square feet of space. And in December, Ropes & Gray renewed and expanded its lease in the Prudential Tower, Boston’s second tallest building, taking on 413,000 square feet.
The activity in Boston is expected to continue. Avison noted in its report that 13 law firms are currently looking to lease offices of 20,000 square feet or more. “The rise in law firm leasing aligns with the industry's shift back to in-person work, highlighted by prominent firms securing high-end trophy and class A+ office space across the city,” Avison said.
Headcount Growth
Outside New York and Boston, major transactions have included Mayer Brown’s renewal of its 272,000 square-foot space in Chicago, as well as leases of 100,000 square feet or more by Duane Morris and Marshall Dennehey in Philadelphia; Morgan Lewis & Bockius in San Francisco, Jackson Walker in Dallas, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego, and Freshfields in Washington, D.C.
Nationwide, according to Savills, legal industry leasing transactions rose 51.6% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Total leased volume climbed nearly 101%. “This surge reflects firms’ continued appetite for office space, driven by high-profile renewals, restructures, and expansions in key markets,” Savills said.
While other sectors like finance or insurance have seen relatively modest employment growth post-pandemic, law firms have bucked the trend. According to Cushman & Wakefield, legal services providers have grown their employee headcounts by 1.3% since 2022 while other office-centric employers have seen a decline of 0.7%.
And most of the growth has been in lawyer headcount versus staff, which means more space is needed per employee. According to the National Law Journal’s annual report on the nation’s largest law firms, the number of lawyers at the 500 biggest U.S. firms grew 5.5% last year—twice the rate of the prior year.
Downsizing Space
Law firms have been downsizing offices for many years, as technology has allowed them to reduce or redeploy support staff and eliminate space-eating paper archives and law libraries. Pandemic-driven work-from-home policies accelerated the trend.
In the first quarter of 2025, roughly 40% of firms decided to downsize, according to Savills. Among them was Duane Morris, which renewed a lease in the Duane Morris Plaza tower in Philadelphia’s City Center, but trimmed its space by 45,000 square feet. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, this reduction, along with a 2022 cutback, have reduced the firm’s footprint by 25%. The renewal, however, includes a full renovation of its 183,000-square-foot office space, and the landlord will be upgrading the building’s lobby and systems.
Cushman & Wakefield’s survey found that while most law firms are looking for a more efficient use of space, significant cuts in square footage have actually slowed in the last few years. The average size of a law firm renewal has been declining by less than 2% since the beginning of 2023, it said.
Returning to the Office
The ongoing war for talent is also impacting the leasing boom. Firms are seeking spaces that will inspire and motivate employees and are using current market conditions to gain “access to higher-quality buildings, and the chance to design workplaces better aligned with evolving workstyles and more suited to new ways of working,” Cushman said.
That’s especially critical when firms are tightening pandemic-era work-from-home policies. Cushman’s survey, which included responses from 240 law firm managing partners and C-suite leaders, found the legal sector was among the most traditional in demanding employees come to the office. Some 56% of firms require three or more days on-site, compared to 46% of media and telecom, 39% of finance, and 26% of technology companies.
According to the survey, the number of firms allowing associates to work remotely just one day per week has spiked from 16% of firms to 39% this year. “Overall, most law firms provide some degree of flexibility to attorneys (and often staff), but the amount of time spent in the office has ultimately increased,” Cushman said.
Supply and Demand
If more lawyers are required to come into the office, firms will need to retain and optimize their workspaces. But for firms looking to grab space in elite office buildings on the most favorable terms, the window of opportunity could soon be closing.
Cushman noted that just 26 million square feet of new office space is under construction, a precipitous drop from the 136 million being built in early 2020. “Future supply constraints may limit options for firms prioritizing top-tier buildings,” Cushman said.
According to Savills, in the first quarter of 2025, nearly 69% of law firms opted to stay in place—a reversal from the height of the pandemic. In 2022, two-thirds of firms looked to relocate from their current spaces, and 2023 and 2024 showed “a more balanced mix” between renewals and relocations, Savills said.
Firms in 2025 appear to be reacting to “the growing impact of limited space options and elevated construction costs, making renewals a more practical and efficient choice for many firms.”
As premium office space supply dwindles and construction costs climb, law firms aiming to secure the best addresses may need to act swiftly—or risk being left without a seat at the table.
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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, creates in-depth content for legal industry clients, and works closely with Best Law Firms as senior content consultant.
