New York City law firms are accelerating their race for modern office space to recruit newly minted Manhattan attorneys who typically spend huge amounts of their waking hours at work.

In Manhattan, where law firm relocations are on the rise, Linklaters has signed for roughly 81,000 square feet for three floors of space at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, about two blocks south of its current office.

The billion-dollar London firm, which operates 30 offices around the globe, currently occupies about 107,000 square feet within the Alliance Capital Building, located at 1345 Avenue of the Americas, within the Columbus Circle area, according to CoStar data.

As a relocation, the agreement would signal a downsize to Linklaters’ footprint, but the firm could also be moving to a more efficiently designed floorplate. Linklaters did not respond to a request for a comment.

According to the most recent legal sector trends report released by commercial real estate services firm CBRE, in order to appeal to a younger workforce, law firms are “increasingly leveraging thoughtful workplace design” in order to “optimize real estate occupancy.”

In its report, CBRE modeled two floor plans, one that increases open areas to 35 percent of overall space compared to a more traditional format where only 28 percent is open. The more open plan, which CBRE says allows for increased collaboration, reduces the average amount of space per person to 284 square feet, down from 337 square feet.

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