How the world’s ‘most-feared’ law firm uses flexible work policies to lure its attorneys to the office

Quinn Emanuel’s new Manhattan headquarters are stunning. Is that enough to convince the firm’s cutthroat attorneys to return to the office?

At the offices of the world’s “most feared” law firm for three years running, according to the legal market research firm BTI Consulting, you might expect to see unsmiling attorneys with overly slicked coifs and severe attire beelining through the halls and behind heavy wood doors. But the new Manhattan headquarters of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan—the litigation-focused law firm known as much for its lawyers’ demanding workloads as its cutthroat approach in court and high-profile clients like Elon Musk and Alec Baldwin—looks more like a WeWork: partially frosted glass walls, high-tech conference rooms, open-plan meeting spaces, a big central staircase, and lobby plants so abundant that they require their own irrigation system.