Premium Office The Farthest From Loud-Talking Partner

16 September 2026

SYDNEY — Hollis, Grant & Shore has confirmed that the most desirable office in its newly refurbished Sydney premises has no window, no harbour view and almost no natural light, but is located 42 metres and two solid walls from managing partner Richard Hollis.

The internal office beside the fire stairs was originally classified as the least desirable room on the floor. It is now occupied by Special Counsel Marcus Webb, who surrendered a substantially larger perimeter office to move there in April. Webb said the new office was better suited to his practice, which had developed an increased requirement for concentration at approximately the same time Hollis moved into the southern corner.

Hollis is one of the firm’s largest originators of work and maintains extensive relationships with clients, many of whom he speaks to several times a week. He generally takes calls on speakerphone, either from his office or while walking around the floor holding his phone approximately twenty centimetres from his mouth. The firm has provided Hollis with wireless headphones. He does not use them. Most other employees now do, including, increasingly, when they are not on calls.

The arrangement has given staff an unusually detailed understanding of Hollis’s practice. Lawyers who have never worked on his matters can identify most of his major clients, the matters currently occupying them and, in several cases, sufficient detail to reconstruct large parts of his timesheet. Not all of the conversations concern legal work. Hollis considers discussions about golf, fishing, restaurants, children, school holidays and the health of elderly parents to be an important part of maintaining client relationships, a view broadly supported by the clients, who continue to send him work.

Staff can consequently identify which client recently bought a new fishing boat, whose daughter has started at university, which chief financial officer is separating from his wife and why one longstanding client should never again be allowed to choose the wine. They also know that Hollis shot 94 at Royal Sydney last month, following rounds of 96, 93 and 95, and has now been trying to break 90 with sufficient regularity that several junior solicitors have begun tracking his progress independently.

His client conversations are generally amiable and frequently funny. Hollis has a reliable collection of stories which work particularly well with new clients and remain effective with existing clients provided enough time has passed since their previous use. His wife has heard most of them hundreds of times. Staff seated within twenty metres of his office are understood to have exceeded this figure some years ago.

The firm’s knowledge of Hollis’s personal affairs is similarly comprehensive. In May, while travelling in northern Vietnam, Hollis received a $1,184 international roaming charge arising from a four-hour client call which he said had been made over the hotel’s Wi-Fi. He subsequently spent a little over six hours across five calls to Telstra disputing the charge, including two calls conducted from the corridor outside the boardroom after reception in his office became unreliable.

Telstra eventually credited the $1,184. Hollis estimated that the dispute had cost him approximately $4,000 in otherwise billable time, but said that was not the point.

“It’s the principle,” he said.

The firm engaged an acoustic consultant in June following comments in its annual staff survey. The resulting sound pressure map showed a clear concentration around Hollis’s office, declining progressively with distance and occasionally extending northwards along the main corridor. The consultant recommended acoustic ceiling panels, additional screening and enclosed phone booths. The booths have since been installed and are used extensively by staff who previously had no reason to use them.

Demand for offices at the northern end has nevertheless continued to increase. Nine harbour-view offices closer to Hollis remain vacant, while the room beside the fire stairs has a waiting list. The accommodation committee is now considering whether distance from the managing partner should formally be included in the firm’s office grading system.

Hollis said he had noticed the office becoming markedly quieter since the refurbishment and was concerned that hybrid work had damaged the collegiate culture of the firm.

“People don’t talk anymore,” he said. “You used to walk around the office and know what everyone was doing.”

Hollis said he intended to make a particular effort over the coming months to get out of his office, walk the floor and speak to people more often.

This article is a work of satire and is in no way based on anyone at Cartland Law. It was dictated in Adrian’s office and reviewed by everyone within 50 metres.