Willkie, Farr & Gallagher has completed its office renovation and moved into its expanded space in Century City this week.
The newly renovated office, located at 2029 Century Park East, spans 85,000 square feet across the 27th to 29th floors, with potential plans to take over a fourth floor to accommodate growing lawyer head count, according to Los Angeles managing partner Alex Weingarten. The firm was previously operating out of a temporary office on the 34th floor of the building.
"We secured our ‘forever home,’ as I like to call it, and we continue to grow,” Weingarten said in an interview. “We quickly needed to add a third floor, just because of the growth, and we are now discussing and have had discussions with the landlord about a fourth floor, which we have right of first refusal on, and I anticipate we’ll be starting to build that out later this year.”
Willkie launched in Los Angeles’ prominent west-side destination for law firms in
September 2021,
after acquiring three lawyers from Venable’s LA outpost.
The firm's Century City office is now home to about 115 lawyers, 40 of whom are partners.
“We have been growing across many practice areas in LA with a focus on quality over quantity and our plan is for that to continue,” Weingarten explained. “We are not growing to a particular number, but our focus is on organic and opportunistic growth and client demand,” with a focus on “maintaining our culture,” he added.
Private equity and litigation are two of the busiest practice areas that are necessitating office expansion, Weingarten said. In designing the new office, each practice group’s respective floor or area of the workspace was themed loosely around their styles—for example, the litigation lounge has a water vapor fireplace and vintage arcade machines. Corporate partners on the 27th floor opted for a “wine lounge” vibe, Weingarten said, while the private wealth offices “feel like someone’s den at home.”
“It reflects the personalities of the individual groups,” Weingarten added. "The overall theme is we take the work that we do extraordinarily seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously."
The firm implemented a small garden on the 27th floor by a staircase, and added several living walls around the property to bring some semblance of nature into the high-rise. Other features Willkie was keen to show off included a new coffee bar, complete with a record player. The collection of vinyl has grown "organically" as lawyers bring in their favorite records, Weingarten said.
Like many of its Big Law competitors that have redesigned offices in recent years, Willkie’s revamped workspace contains uniform offices for attorneys at all levels, from associate to partner. It also followed the trend of creating offices that have glass doors to allow for maximum transparency and natural light throughout the building, Weingarten said.
The new office was created by architects at
Gensler
, which has worked with other Am Law firms, including Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; Baker Botts; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; and O’Melveny & Myers. Weingarten said he also had input on the design elements in the LA office.
“Everybody’s been on board; Nobody has had any issues,” Weingarten said of the staff reaction to the new location and office layout. “It's been very well received by associates and by as part of our recruiting of associates, people really like the egalitarian nature of the office space,” he added.
Feb 13
Deal Summary
