By Ben van der Meer – Senior Reporter, Sacramento Business Journal

Sep 22, 2023

Civil litigation law firm Porter Scott Attorneys started needing new space a few years ago — and the solution wasn’t downsizing. Instead, the 47-year-old firm is celebrating its first month in a slightly larger space of about 29,872 square feet at 2180 Harvard St. in Sacramento’s Point West area.

“We struggled for a long time, thinking, ‘do we downsize?'” said Carl Fessenden, Porter Scott’s CEO and managing partner. “Ultimately, what we concluded was best for our clients and employees was to be in a space where you can collaborate. You can do it remotely, but we’ve found it to be better if it’s face to face.”

There were other factors at play as well, said Fessenden and David Melton, Porter Scott’s chief operations officer. The firm’s previous home at 350 University Ave. was 29,350 square feet, but split between two floors.

Melton said finding a floorplate big enough for the entire firm was a big goal — no more duplication of supply closets or break rooms, for example.

When Porter Scott’s search began two years ago, fortune was on the firm’s side. In the post-Covid world, most office tenants are looking for smaller space if they’re keeping an office at all. As a result, landlords are trying to be as appealing as possible.

Harvard Square at 2180 Harvard St., owned by Ethan Conrad, has a central location that appealed to the firm. Porter Scott had been on University Avenue, in the Campus Commons area of Sacramento, for its entire existence.

Also, Ethan Conrad Properties took a lead role in helping the firm get the space the way it wanted, even making suggestions about tenant improvements that hadn’t occurred to the firm’s directors, they said.

“Conrad’s people have been more collaborative than we ever would’ve thought,” Melton said, adding, “We’re pretty good attorneys, but we’re not architects or engineers.”

In the new office, there are not only multiple spaces for collaboration, but also amenities like three refrigerators, a big screen TV and couches with data port hookups. There will also be exterior signage for the first time in the company’s history.

Porter Scott is using a hybrid schedule for its 90-odd employees. But a key component of the move was making the new office a place employees wouldn’t mind being in.

“We’re competing with people’s homes,” Fessenden said. “It was part of the decision making.”

Fessenden and Melton wouldn’t say how much the tenant improvements for the new office cost, describing it as substantial. But with a 10-year lease, Fessenden said, it’s clearly a spot they’re embracing for the foreseeable future.

Their footprint at 2180 Harvard could get bigger. The firm has an option to lease another 4,000 square feet on the same floor, a move Melton said Porter Scott is likely to make within a few years.