S04E175 HybridHero to Manage Real Estate Costs with Chris Burke

Your office might be costing you far more than rent, and not because it’s “too big” in a simple way. The real leak is uncertainty: partners and leadership teams making high-stakes decisions about space, staffing, and hybrid policies without reliable workplace utilization data. I sit down with Australian entrepreneur and advisor Christopher Burke, founder of Brickendon Consulting and the workplace platform HybridHero, to unpack what law firm leaders are missing and how to fix it.

We dig into the hidden cost of underused desks, meeting rooms, and floors, plus the operational drag that shows up when people waste time hunting for a workspace or routing every request through an EA. Chris explains how most firms are still guessing, why that breaks down fast as you scale across multiple locations, and how a single view of your real estate footprint can reveal quick wins. We also talk through what “good” hybrid management looks like in practice: clear goals, consistent one-to-ones, mentorship for junior attorneys, and policies you can actually measure rather than assume.

Chris shares concrete examples like heat maps, “no data” black holes, and how swipe-card signals can connect to workplace planning without turning the firm into a time clock. We even zoom out to the next five years, including a sharp reality check on AI, training, and why culture still needs intentional in-person time.

Reach Chris here:  

https://hybridhero.com/podcasts/

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Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins