Will Somebody please Tell me to Stop Hitting Myself in the Head? It hurts.

Apparently, there are still many well-meaning Bostonians burdened with the Calvinist need to remind themselves to not only be unhappy but to seek out unhappiness wherever it may be hiding. Many pre-2004 Sox fans, including yours truly, were Baseball Calvinists. And, I must admit, I still feel that I need to suffer a bit at Fenway.

But do we need to continue to keep plunging our collective business mood ever-downward? I consider the Boston office of Jones Lang LaSalle, a firm whose long history as Spaulding & Slye and whose continued success under the JLL moniker, to be one of the finest firms not only in the real estate business but in the Boston business community.

Today, "corporate" Jones Lang LaSalle, in the person of one Thomas Doughty, International Director of the JLL law firm group based in DC, issued a press release derived from “Jones Lang LaSalle's Global Legal Perspective 2009.” The release found its way into the local press (see link) where it headlined as “Report: Boston Law Firms Shedding Jobs, Office Space.” The opening paragraph reads, “Boston law firms are shedding jobs at an alarming rate, and shedding surplus office space.” While I am not privy to hiring and firing, I do know a bit about subleasing office space, which the article covers in spectacular and wildly inaccurate detail.

Boston law firms are NOT shedding office space at an alarming rate. Far from it. I analyzed the current status of the 148 law firms who occupy space in the Boston Class A Market. These firms, in the aggregate, occupy 6.0 million square feet out of a total (including Class B) law firm occupancy of 6.3 million square feet. Of the 6 million square feet occupied, the total space on the market for sublease is 79,000 rentable square feet. That represent 1.3% of all law firm space and a whopping two-tenths of one percent of the 30 million square foot Class A Market. 0.2%. Not too alarming. In fact, barely noticeable.

But let’s dig a little deeper into the two firms specifically mentioned in the article-—Ropes & Gray and Edwards Angell Palmer Dodge. Ropes currently occupies 380,000 square feet at One International Place. They have leased 413,000 square feet at the Prudential Tower, a net gain in leased space of 30,000 square feet. When they move in December, they will make available 57,000 square feet for sublease. In terms of net effect on the market effect, the “net giveback” is only 27,000 square feet.

Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge is not listing any sublease space publicly through channels such as CoStar. I am aware that the firm has looked at this option. However, the firm’s entire lease of 211,000 square feet expires in December 2011, and the firm is in deep due diligence to address its long-term real estate strategy. I doubt that EAPD will throw a subtenant into the mix prior to the resolution of its primary issue.

As to any of this being breaking news, Ropes announced its intention to sublease on June 14. EAPD has had a floor on and off (currently off)the market for the past 3 years.

The news is that there is no news. There are shocking titles and implication by reference. The problem stems from the need for the “global” reak estate firms to force the local markets which they cover to conform to the report’s conclusions, even when the conclusions do not apply in the local market. It's hard to make Tampa be Tokyo.

And then I realized that the Calvinists in this case were not from Boston. And I got a bit upset. Therefore, let me state that I reserve the right, on behalf of myself, to hit myself in the head for no good reason. I'm not going to do it because some guy from DC tells me to. After all, we're the Calvinists, or are we?