Over the past decade, and sometimes even before, Chambers has designed the French offices of Proskauer Rose, DLA Piper, K&L Gates, McDermott Will & Emery, Paul Hastings, Morgan Lewis & Bockius... and right now of Norton Rose Fulbright, Hogan Lovells and Pinsent Masons. All among the major international Anglo-Saxon law firms. We are very proud of the trust they have placed in us. It also allows us to bear witness, with a certain hindsight, to the way in which these world-class players have taken to heart a form of French cultural exception, one that the representatives of these prestigious firms in Paris claim for their working environment.

We remember that 15 years ago, the agency was struggling to gain acceptance for the totally transparent partitions that had conquered the corporate world in general and, in particular, corporate lawyers in the United States and Great Britain... They are now part of the self-evident and no longer considered. Other, far more profound changes have since taken place, especially in the post-Covid era. Open space has become the norm for lawyers in New York and London. Paris remains rather resistant.

Are the Parisian colleagues of these large firms outrageously conservative? Viscerally attached to the past "privilege" of their private offices? That would be putting it mildly. There are ways of doing things at work that are as much part of a particular history as they are of practices whose effectiveness no longer needs to be demonstrated. From the point of view of Parisian associates, partners and collaborators, the closed office remains the optimal place for their activity and professional well-being. There's no reason for Chambers not to subscribe to this shared conviction. All the more so as it also knows how to reinvent itself.

Our latest project, for Norton Rose Fulbright, sees for the first time the abandonment of the allocated office. The closed office for one or two lawyers has been preserved, but it no longer belongs to anyone! In the hybrid, home-office mode of operation to which the majority has subscribed, this new space was adopted immediately. Simply because it meets today's needs, culturally and practically. As a direct consequence, more offices are available at all times, better equipped, more adapted, and able to smoothly absorb variations in occupancy over the weeks and months.