Law firms across South Florida are examining an aspect of their business that has little to do with law — their real estate.

From office size and the number of support staff members needed to the office design and location, law firms are taking a closer look at their square footage, according to new CBRE Inc. research.

Some firms here already have moved to redesign their offices, but the trend is expected to become more sweeping in the next five years, said Christos Costandinides, senior research analyst for CBRE, based in Miami.

“This is something we expect will happen as their leases expire and as they look at their plans going forward,” said Costandinides, who wrote the CBRE Legal Sector Trends in South Florida study released March 12.

Among the major changes either already taking hold or expected to happen are a smaller footprint, decreasing from the traditional 800- to 1,000 square feet per lawyer down to 550- to 700 square feet per lawyer, according to the study. Also, staff ratios are changing from one support staff member for every two-to-four lawyers to one for every five-to-10, according to the study.

“One of the lawyers we talked to, he cited artificial intelligence as an example. … That enables them to automate things a lot more, so they have less need for, let's say paralegals to be going through things manually. It's a lot more efficient, not just in speed but in also being able to locate the relevant information,” Costandinides said.

Also, it used to be that seniority within a firm was denoted by a bigger office, but now the location of the office speaks more than its size, according to the study.

“In the past, more senior people tended to have bigger offices. More junior people tended to have smaller offices. Now we are moving toward an environment where people have equal-sized offices and the seniority is actually based on where the office is actually placed. For example … an office with a better view,” Costandinides said.

Other changes include more emphasis on amenities, such as lunchrooms and cafeterias, according to the study.

The changes are in part a way for law firms to deal with an aging workforce and to cater to millennials, as fewer people choose to become lawyers, he said.

In that way, the real estate is becoming a selling point to attract and keep talent.

Just ask people at Akerman, which about two years ago moved its Miami office from the SunTrust building at 1 SE. Third Ave. in downtown to Three Brickell City Centre, where about 300 Akerman staff members occupy offices from the sixth to the 12th floor.

The office's design and location in the mixed-use development has proved to be attractive for new talent, especially millennials, said Neisen Kasdin, office managing partner.

“They (offices) are also very light, a lot of glass, a lot of natural light comes in. It's a great recruiting tool,” Kasdin said. “Young attorneys coming from out of town or transferring love the open, egalitarian … office we have and being at Brickell City Centre. It very much positions us where we want to be thought of as a law firm.”

The egalitarianism comes from another change at Akerman: All attorneys have the same sized offices regardless of seniority, Kasdin said.

Akerman also implemented other changes in its office that reflect the CBRE study findings.

The law firm allocated less square footage per attorney but added a cafe on the 12th floor, Kasdin said.

“It's a beautiful space that people can come in and bring their lunch. … It has a beautiful view of the (Miami) River and the skyline and the Metrorail, so it's a very popular gathering place. We didn't have that in the (downtown) office. The lunch area wasn't a place where you particularly wanted to hang out,” he said.

South Florida vs. Other Markets

South Florida is behind some areas in the U.S. in adopting office space changes, said Shay Pope, CBRE senior vice president in Miami.

“Some of that's a function of the average size of the law firms (here) … . There are certainly some large law firms that operate here in South Florida, but from a scale perspective, the average size … smaller than firms in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, (Washington) D.C., LA,” said Pope, who together with Costandinides led the rest of the CBRE team in conducting the study.

South Florida is the third largest legal market in the U.S., employing 47,600 legal professionals, 20,400 of them lawyers, according to the study. It also is the fourth-fastest growing market in the U.S., with a 15.5 percent growth rate of lawyers between 2011 and 2016.

In terms of office changes, South Florida is “not that far behind in what's happening in the rest of the country,” Costandinides said.

“We are just not ahead of these very huge law firm hubs like New York or (Washington) D.C.”