Pittsburgh law firms are trending toward renewing their leases rather than moving, but that's not stopping them from making upgrades, a recent report on law firm real estate trends says.

Recent law firm real estate transactions in Steel City have consisted largely of renewals, according to "A Shifting Landscape: 2019 North American Legal Sector Trends," by real estate services provider CBRE. And landlords are working hard to get and keep those law firm tenants, the report said.

From the third quarter of 2018 through the second quarter of 2019, the study said, law firms with Pittsburgh locations have been involved in 259,288-square-feet worth of transactions for their own office space.

The report said 25.4% of law firms that had real estate deals in Pittsburgh expanded their space, 38.6% contracted and 33.8% were stable. Meanwhile, 2.3% of law firm offices were new to the market during the period.

Among those that contracted, they did so by 20.8% on average.

Looking at some of the broad trends in Pittsburgh, CBRE said law firms are seeking greater efficiency and modernized workspaces as part of their talent acquisition efforts. At the same time, landlords have been making increased concessions "to capture large legal occupiers."

Those concessions include rent abatement, and oftentimes deals for firms looking to renovate their space, said Jamie Pivarnik, a first vice president for CBRE, based in Pittsburgh.

"It's so expensive to build out space that landlords need to offer the large tenant improvement package to attract tenants," Pivarnik said.

Landlords are open to cutting these deals with law firm tenants in particular, he added, because they are seen as a stable presence in the Pittsburgh business community.

"A lot of the household-name law firms have been around for a long, long time, and will continue to be," Pivarnik said. Having law firm tenants "attracts other firms or businesses that want to be close to [law firms] for physical [convenience] reasons and because the professional environment they bring to any building really enhances the tenant roster."

The report pointed to "trophy properties and historically renovated buildings" in the central business district as the most preferred space for major law firms.

The biggest Pittsburgh law firm real estate transaction from third quarter of 2018 through second quarter 2019 was completed by Clark Hill, which renewed its space but contracted some, at 79,473 square feet.

Others among the top law firm transactions were Houston Harbaugh, which renewed 26,548 square feet of space; Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, which renewed 20,822 square feet of space; and Jackson Kelly, which renewed and expanded with 14,647 square feet of space, according to the report.

CBRE also pointed out some demographic trends regarding Pittsburgh's lawyer population. The legal services industry employs 13,021 people, giving it a concentration of 1.1%, which is greater than the national average of 0.8%, the report said.

That population of legal services workers was exactly flat from 2016 to 2018, while it grew 1.6% nationally. And it is projected to shrink drastically, both in Pittsburgh and nationally. According to CBRE, from 2018 to 2023 legal services employment is expected to decrease by 8.7% in Pittsburgh, and by 5.5% nationally.

Lawyers, however, were greater in number in Pittsburgh in 2018 than they were two years before.

The lawyer population grew by 3.5% in Pittsburgh, to 5,340. That was greater than the U.S. average, which showed 3% growth in the lawyer population.

The average lawyer wage in Pittsburgh was $132,330, versus a national average of $141,890. And the average paralegal wage was $55,780, compared to a national average of $53,910.

Interestingly, when comparing across the state, Philadelphia lawyers make significantly more on average than Pittsburgh lawyers, at $152,100. But paralegals make slightly more on average in Pittsburgh than in Philadelphia, where the average was $55,740.