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The Pfizer/Wyeth proposed deal could be bringing a glimmer of hope to law firms and investment banks that have seen mergers and acquisitions activity on the decline since 2007.

But one lawyer's hope may be another's misery. What's to become of Wyeth's 300+ legal department?

According to an article by The Legal Intelligencer, Pfizer Inc. has made no secret of its intentions to slash thousands of jobs once a planned merger with pharmaceutical competitor Wyeth goes through.

How Wyeth's 300-person worldwide legal department will be affected is still a question mark.

A source, offered by The Legal Intelligencer, familiar with the $68 billion deal said it was too early to tell how the internal law departments will be affected by the acquisition, though he expected to see some impact. Prior to the proposed merger, Pfizer had already made some significant cuts to its legal department.

"The good thing," the source said, is that for a merger of this size, there is "remarkably little overlap." Wyeth, for example, has vaccine and biopharmaceutical departments that Pfizer doesn't have. It also still has a consumer health care division. Pfizer sold off a similar division in its company not too long ago. All three of those Wyeth divisions have attorneys dedicated to them, the source said.

One can hope that current Pfizer CEO, Jeff Kindler, a 53-year-old Harvard Law School graduate and former legal clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., will look kindly to Wyeth's legal department. However, in light of the recent history of mergers and the fate of in-house legal department, the future of Wyeth's legal staff is precarious.

Mergers typically result in legal departments layoffs. Here are a few examples of big company mergers and ensuing legal departments layoffs:

• Akzo Nobel - International Chemicals: resulted in a 25% reduction in legal staff (Dec. 2008)
• Linde-BOC: reduced lawyer count by 40% (August 4, 2008)
• BellSouth - AT&T: resulted in a 30% reduction in legal staff (May 5, 2008)
• Nextel-Sprint: resulted in a 30% reduction in legal staff (Sept.13, 2005)
• Oracle - PeopleSoft: resulted in a near 100% reduction of its lawyers (Dec 13, 2004)
• El Paso - Coastal: resulted in a 30% reduction in legal staff (January 29, 2001
• Honeywell - Allied Signal Inc.: reduced lawyer count by 50% (December 1, 1999)

If you do the math, as a member of the legal department's merged company, you have a 30-50% chance of losing your job post-merger.

Some of the post-merger consolidation issues faced by legal departments include duplication of positions, attorney attrition from those unwilling to stay or relocate, replacement of top legal positions by new management, the sale of business units supported by attorneys etc.

In the majority of case, layoffs and a reduction on staff will ensue in the short-term. However, over time, law departments tend to maintain about the same number of lawyers per unit of revenue. How well the newly merged company is doing financially-speaking will have a significant impact of the size of its legal department.

This may be a small consolation to members of the Wyeth legal team facing cuts. We can only hope for the best.