Despite a growing pool of laid off staff, including legal technologists, some legal staffing providers aren't seeing a surge in demand for tech professionals. However, many were confident law firms and corporate legal departments would rely more on temporary staffing to weather COVID-19′s economic uncertainty.

To protect the bottom line, more firms are laying off support staff, with legal technologists also receiving pink slips.

David Holme, CEO and co-founder of legal outsourcing provider Exigent, said he's seen mostly low-level legal technologists let go in recent months. "That bands together with what I've seen with the legal operations role," he noted. "That seems to have been a target of cost cutting in legal departments. You're seeing it in all support functions in legal departments and in law firms. I think it's a testament to [that there was] no real commitment to it, it was nice to have and this isn't the moment to hold onto nice-to-haves."