Managing the mechanics, logistics and cultural issues of a merger is one of the key skills sets for any law firm IT director. And many people who manage legal IT departments have been in the job long enough to have experienced the turmoil and the processes that are set in place when two partnerships consider joining forces.
The IT department’s role in any merger begins well before any formal decision is made. In most cases, the IT director, and a few trusted IT managers, are among the very first people to be told about tentative merger plans. They are sometimes informed before the partnership-at-large gets wind of the idea and, for this reason, a merger is a time when the importance of a firm’s IT department, in the general hierarchy of fee earning and support departments, is perhaps at its highest level.
