Law Firm Reduces Its Footprint, Expands Its Culture

People strolling past Four Gateway Center in downtown Pittsburgh might mistake the ground-floor presence of Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote for a hotel lobby, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, open seating area lined with street-facing bar counters, central serving island for events and gatherings, and conferencing areas that look onto Gateway Center Park through walls of glass.

It’s a new look—and a new era—for the venerable law firm whose roots go back to the 19th century. Employees moved in in February. The street-level conference center is the anchor to its main offices, which occupy the ninth through twelfth floors. Three years in the making, the design marries a longtime culture of warmth and comradery with spatial layouts that encourage the same.

The 12th-floor café offers a coffeehouse vibe, drawing employees throughout the day and providing ample space for catering events in the evening.

The firm’s previous offices in another building couldn’t have been more different. Jeff Young, a Perkins Eastman principal and executive director, immediately picked up on Dickie, McCamey’s vibrant atmosphere as he walked through those offices, which they’d occupied for the past 40 years. Yet the vibe he sensed was almost in spite of its inhospitable layout: the hallways were lined with solid doors. Partners, in the typical manner, had the largest offices with the best views—behind those closed doors. Administrative staff were tucked deeper into the interior, with minimal access to views or daylight. Conference rooms and the law library were windowless. “It was pretty sad in there,” Young recalls. “Their old offices had next to no kind of collaborative, in-between space, the ‘we’ space, let’s call it. There were very few places for people to congregate to support that friendliness.”

Internal space, including the reception area at the new Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote offices, enjoys daylight and views from end to end.

The pandemic was a turning point in Dickie, McCamey’s long history. Their aging workspace wasn’t serving them at a time when they were trying to draw employees back to the office. They sought to create an environment that would honor the firm’s legacy and entice new generations of attorneys to carry it forward. They turned to Perkins Eastman to strategize their next move.

Young, along with Perkins Eastman Senior Associate John Wimer, the project’s senior designer, began the search for new space with some strategic planning. “They were preparing to take some pretty progressive workplace steps, and they had the right leaders,” Young says. The process resulted in a new mindset that veered from the law-firm stereotype. Moving forward, the “corner office” would be reserved for collaborative spaces, and every attorney office would be nearly the same size—a lean 120 square feet.

Conference rooms have replaced the corner office, allowing more staff members to enjoy the best views. Individual offices that line the corridors have glass walls that allow light to infuse interior spaces.

But while personal space was shrinking, common space and amenities such as cafés and lounges would dramatically expand. “We wanted to create these opportunities for engagement and interaction,” Wimer says. The plan also locates destinations like the main reception area, law library, and the café and catering kitchen on different floors, which encourages people to move around. The administrative staff, meanwhile, received an upgrade too: Most of their workstations are in open, glassy areas that bookend each floor, while internally located staff also benefit from daylight that streams through the glass-walled perimeter offices. Even interns enjoy the views from carrels situated in the expansive, window-lined law library.

The 11th-floor law library is located just beyond the elevator bays, and it serves double-duty as a pantry where people can grab coffee or a quick bite. The open plan makes it a draw for everyone—and a strategic place for the interns to benefit from the interactions around them.

The result is a network of offices and communal areas that are much airier and open, even though their overall footprint was reduced by some 25 percent compared to the firm’s old location. By right-sizing offices, dispensing with unneeded storage rooms, and consolidating the many small pantry spaces across the floors of the former building, Young says, “we took that space and devoted it to a wider range of collaborative spaces, lounges, and food offerings. It was a huge step forward for them.”

With nearly 30 legal practices under its roof, the importance of privacy for sensitive meetings and conferences still reigns despite the move toward more open space. The Perkins Eastman team was attentive to their client’s need for top-performing noise mitigation that would provide the highest levels of confidentiality. Just as curated as the firm’s extensive art collection—though not as visible—is the deployment of various best-in-class acoustical treatments, including significant interior wall construction detailing, high STC-rated double-glazed partition systems, and sound masking. “There’s a technical, functional performance component to the work we do. One of the best compliments we can receive from our clients—particularly our legal clients—is when they boast about how they can’t hear a word between one office or meeting room and the other,” Young explains.

In contrast to the necessary containment of attorney-client privilege upstairs is the conferencing center on the ground level, where the firm opens itself outward. It can now comfortably host professional conferences, client receptions, and continuing-education workshops.

The Dickie, McCamey Conferencing Center can host many different kinds of events and gatherings. In the future, it will open to programmed space on the terrace outside its front windows.

This flexible, multipurpose space can be divided into three smaller conference rooms or used as a single large lecture space, as above.

With its park setting and prominent location near The Point where Pittsburgh’s three rivers meet, this transparent and inviting conferencing center reaffirms Dickie, McCamey’s ongoing presence and commitment to the community where it was born.