Browne Jacobson’s new look Manchester office set to be law firm’s national ‘blueprint’

Browne Jacobson has revealed its vision for the law firm office of the future with the unveiling of its new look Manchester office at No1 Spinningfields.

The design of its new 3rd Floor Manchester office, which will act as the blueprint for its four other UK offices in Birmingham, London, Nottingham and Exeter, is in line with the national powerhouse’s commitment to agile working and a response to evolving employee and client needs in a post pandemic world.

Working closely with office design and fit out specialists, Office Innovations, the firm has created a modern, agile and vibrant office space that it envisages will be used less as a traditional office and more as a flexible hub allowing its employees the flexibility to work both remotely and meet up with colleagues and clients for meetings, networking, socialising and collaborating.

In a recent survey of its 75 strong Manchester team, over 90 per cent expressed a desire to work more flexibly post pandemic, splitting their working week between their home and the office.

The firm’s new office has been specially designed to be multi-functional, incorporating its inclusive and collaborative brand values throughout. In doing so the firm has reduced the number of standard desks in favour of open plan workstations, introduced modern seating furniture and installed the latest in video conferencing technology in response of the popularity of video and audio conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, creating a free-flowing, flexible, working and socialising environment.

The firm has also incorporated living walls around the space and a series of striking natural images chosen by staff to create a therapeutic healing effect and aid mental wellbeing.

Amanda Callaghan, Partner and Head of the Manchester office, said:

“When the landlords approached us, we saw the opportunity to relocate within No1 Spinningfields as a win – win for us, the landlords and their new tenants.

“We have listened very carefully to how our people want to work going forwards and this has enabled us to create a modern office environment that has the perfect mix of social, private and collaborative working spaces befitting a national powerhouse law firm in a post pandemic world.

“Browne Jacobson is firmly committed to growing its Manchester office and whilst remote working is certainly here to stay, our people believe that having a visible presence in one of Manchester’s most iconic office locations is vital.”

Manchester partner Dai Durbridge, who has been leading on the firm’s Manchester office re-location, added:

“I am delighted that the new Manchester office will be a blueprint for our other four UK offices.

“The design, layout and features incorporate every aspect of our brand values and offers new technical solutions for modern ways of working. Now more client meetings and training sessions are taking place remotely we have created two soundproofed suites with high quality audio visual equipment and specialist lighting to meet client expectation. Those rooms are designed to be flexible and can very easily and quickly be adapted into client meeting rooms, private working spaces and even a prayer room.

“We’ve created a bright and vibrant space which perfectly re-creates the urban coffee lounge vibe that our people wished to see.

“For us a bricks and mortar location plays an important role in helping us to maintain a strong sense of community, culture and brand identity and ensure we offer the kind of working environment our people and clients will be proud to be a part of.”

The firm occupied Floor 14 when it first moved to No1 Spinningfields in December 2017 and will officially relocate to Floor 3 in May.