Law Firms Continue to Lead US Leasing in 2025 as Volume Doubles in Q1: Report

Looks like law firms’ dominance of the United States office leasing market isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Office leasing by law firms saw a good year in 2024, with a record high of 10.2 million square feet of transactions. However, 2025 is on track to be even better, according to a recent report from Savills.

During the first quarter of 2025, law firms across the country leased a total of 3.4 million square feet, double the 1.7 million square feet leased during the first quarter of 2024, the report found.

The average quarterly volume for law firms’ office leasing also reached 3 million square feet over the past year, compared to 1.5 million square feet between 2020 and 2023, according to Savills.

A spokesperson for Savills did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Law firms have been on a leasing tear since 2023, after seeing a slump in 2020 and 2021, Reuters reported.

One big trend identified among law firms in the U.S. was a preference for renewals and restructures rather than new leases and relocations, due to the “rising buildout/construction costs and limited premium space,” Savills wrote in its report. In the year’s first quarter, 68.8 percent of law firms chose to renew instead of move.

Law firms in markets with tighter supply — such as New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas and San Francisco — are also signing longer-term leases in response to those rising costs and to secure high-quality space, as top-tier and amenity-rich office properties “play a key role in talent retention and client experience,” according to the report.

New York City accounted for 23 percent of the legal sector’s total quarterly leasing volume and 17.5 percent of all lease transactions nationally, Savills found. The largest legal deals in the city during the first quarter were Mayer Brown’s expansion to 330,662 square feet at Rockefeller Group’s 1221 Avenue of the Americas and Kirkland & Ellis’ lease for 131,000 square feet at Paramount Group’s 900 Third Avenue.

In San Francisco, Morgan Lewis took 123,008 square feet to move to Michael Shvo’s Transamerica Pyramid.

Meanwhile, in “tenant-friendly” markets such as Boston, Chicago, Houston and Washington, D.C., firms are negotiating for flexibility in their leases with extensions and restructures, the report found.

That includes Nutter, which renewed roughly 125,000 square feet at 155 Seaport Boulevard in Boston during the quarter, according to Savills.

But there was also a trend of law firms reorganizing their spaces to better fit their needs. During the first quarter of 2025, 40.4 percent of relocations and renewals were from firms that dropped space by an average reduction of 27,011 square feet, Savills found.

Expanding firms, meanwhile, added 23,770 square feet, and the net footprint change decreased by 58,851 square feet, according to the report.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.