If the law firm is making significant profit and this employee is not doing anything additionally shady does it really matter? He provides value to the company

If the law firm is making significant profit and this employee is not doing anything additionally shady does it really matter? He provides value to the company regardless of whether or not he is actively working - and if one of his automations fail then he is the one who has to fix it. There are lots of jobs where we pay people for things that do not require a constant work output - think about Firemen for example. A forward thinking business would promote this guy and then involve him in other aspects of their work to try and optimize and automate wherever they can. The better small / medium size businesses recognize this and realize that IT can be thought of not just as a cost center but also a path to innovation.