Although a law firm's closure requires everyone to find a new job, mergers can also leave staff, including legal technologists, feeling particularly vulnerable.

"Mergers are very stressful," says Marti Phillips, vice president of education at the International Legal Technology Association and a former law firm technologist. "When you have duplicates, somebody is going to be cut, and a lot of firms have legal technologists on both sides of a merger. I hate to say it, but when you have duplicates, you don't need duplicate technologists."

Mergers don't automatically mean layoffs, according to some law firm leaders.

"If anything, even as we combine there is more demand that we have the ability to deliver," says Dentons global chief innovation officer John Fernandez, whose firm is embarking on an initiative to combine with smaller firms across the country that it says will make it the first truly national law firm. 

Still, those legal technologists that are laid off aren't out of luck. The legal industry is full of career opportunities for those able to use technology to assist lawyers with solving clients' challenges—as well as their own. 

The legal technologist role is in-demand, but its responsibilities differ in the law firm and corporate legal department setting. While the role in a law firm is driven by addressing clients' needs, in legal departments its focus is largely on evaluating and implementing legal and general technology in-house. For legal technologists, such a contrast makes migrating from a law firm to a legal department unlikely. 

Yet the need for legal technologists is only growing, and as demand increases, law firms and corporate legal departments are building a payscale and career track for this burgeoning role. There are, however, some barriers unique to the legal profession that may stymie innovative, entrepreneurial-minded technologists in both law firms and corporate legal departments. So while the legal technologist position is poised to take off, those looking to move up the career path should expect to encounter hurdles.

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Emerging Roles

Industry observers note that legal technologists are not just IT-minded professionals who leverage traditional technology or research to meet a firm's day-to-day demands. Instead, those who are most in-demand understand how advanced technology can solve a firm's business needs.

"There is a group of professionals that are starting to emerge in the legal space, and they have a mindset about deploying and using technology as an enabler about how we do our work," Fernandez explains.

Those emerging roles include data scientists, coders and software developers, which represent new opportunities for law firms to utilize and rethink legal service delivery. Fernandez says technologists aren't just needed to enhance clients' solutions, but also to improve a law firm's workflows and practices to attract top talent.

"I talk about the perspective from the client's needs, which is hugely important, but I think law firms need to think about how they adopt better solutions for the work we do in the context of the talent we need," he says. 

To help meet client and in-house attorney needs, legal technologists need to be versatile. Littler Mendelson chief data analytics officer Aaron Crews, for example, says his firm's legal technologist duties can vary from providing e-discovery to data analysis expertise. He notes that his data team specifically seeks professionals with a rare combination of high-level statistician and computer science experience who can help lawyers better resolve a client's challenges or build a strategy. 

To be sure, large law firms aren't the only ones hiring technologists. Unlike Big Law however, technologists in midsize law firms focus mostly on streamlining workflows and broadening tech awareness in the firm, says Red Cave Law Firm Consulting CEO Jared Correia. Having such talent in-house, he says, can give these law firms a competitive advantage in the market.

"The difference between law firms that grow and law firms that fail is efficiency and utilization rate," Correia says.

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The Right Skills for the Setting

The legal technologist role is also emerging in corporate legal departments, albeit at a slower rate compared with Big Law—and with different responsibilities, according to industry observers. Like midsize law firms, legal technologists in corporate legal departments are tasked with identifying, implementing and supporting appropriate technology to meet in-house attorneys' needs. Suffice to say, in-house legal technologists must have a keen understanding of the overall corporation and the legal department's processes to be a key strategizer in the company.

However, the legal technologist role is a rarity in corporate legal departments given that most have a small staff, says Catherine Moynihan, the Association of Corporate Counsel's associate vice president of legal management services. Instead, she says, larger legal departments in highly regulated industries are more likely to have a designated legal technologist position.

Some, however, don't believe that size matters. Jamal Stockton, Fidelity Investment's vice president and head of legal innovation and technology, argues that the maturity and goals of the general counsel's office, and not its staff size, should dictate whether a legal department appoints a legal technologist. He cites the growing variety of legal tech options as one reason technologists are appealing in legal departments.

"If you look back in history, there wasn't a lot of legal technology 15, 20 years ago, but now you are seeing an uptick in legal tech choices," Stockton says. "You need your technologists to vet those choices."

Before law firm legal technologists apply to any in-house positions, Moynihan and Stockton caution that most corporate legal departments prefer to hire from within. That preference mostly hinges on the technologist's proven background understanding the company's needs.

"The reason the best place to get someone for this role is from within the company is because they understand corporate strategy and culture is very important. It's a fairly strategic role," Moynihan says.  

Important skills for the position include being business-minded, assessing the tech marketplace and possessing strong people skills, she says, because "there's so much persuasion involved in getting the investment" for legal technology.

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The Sky Isn't the Limit

Despite the growing need for legal technologists in corporate legal departments and law firms, there's a glass ceiling for earning the top position in each organization. Simply put, you can't be a shareholder in a law firm or the general counsel without being a lawyer.

"It's a barrier for people who are very entrepreneurial or really like the startup game and the gamble of, 'If this works we'll make a lot of money,'" says Littler Mendelson's Crews. Still, he says, the law firm setting is worthwhile for technologists. "The law firms, the ones that are forward-thinking and trying to acquire this type of talent, are increasingly being creative in how they compensate and the titles they give."

Nonetheless, the rigid ownership structure of U.S. law firms may repel some.

"The ownership construct could be a barrier, particularly when you are building new applications and platforms," Fernandez says. "But I think, generally, the competition for data scientists and system engineers is an obstacle because it's a new set of skills. We don't have a track record of competing for those types of skills and for many partners in law firms they aren't sure how to price it yet."

In corporate legal departments, the legal technologist career path is less-defined and varies by organization, Stockton notes. He explains that some legal technologists may work through the ranks of an organization until they've reached the top chief technology officer role, while other corporations may cap the legal technologist position at setting the tech strategy and reporting to the chief legal officer. 

Despite limited career paths, attaining a legal technologist position doesn't require a law degree. After all, for law firms looking to deliver solutions that meet clients' needs, the key is to have a multidisciplinary team composed of lawyers and nonlawyers, including tech and data experts, Fernandez notes.

Angela Dowd, Burns & Levinson's director of practice innovation and the ILTA board of directors treasurer, adds that it's the quality of work and not a J.D. that gives a legal technologist's work authority.

"In my experience, lawyers don't put on blinders," Dowd says. "If you don't have those magical letters behind your name, it does not mean they won't listen to you."