Although a 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.”