Ride the Lightning

Is it Slash and Burn Time for E-Discovery Companies?

April 21, 2020

Perhaps not quite slash and burn yet, but the portents are ominous. Bob Ambrogi, in a blog post yesterday, documented the carnage at Epiq Global. To be sure, this company had a special set of circumstances – a ransomware attack so severe that Epiq had to take their systems offline around the globe for up to a month in some cases. And then there was the pandemic.

On March 27, the CEO of Epiq Global convened a company-wide all-hands meeting. His basic message was that there would be pay cuts but not layoffs.

Just three days later, the layoffs began. 200 employees were notified of their layoffs over the course of Monday and Tuesday. After that there were more layoffs – with the reductions reportedly amounting to 400-500 employees. The e-discovery part of the company was hit the hardest.

But Epiq was not alone. Recently, we learned of the reduction in force at CloudNine. Law.com (sub.req.) had a post describing an interview with our friend Doug Austin who was caught up in the reduction in force, to our great sorrow. Doug wrote CloudNine's EDiscovery Daily Blog for years – one of our very favorite resources. The good news is that Doug is now writing a new blog called E-Discovery Today – we are looking forward to seeing Doug resurface in a new forum.

In the meantime, Doug's predictions for the e-discovery world mirror our own – more layoffs are coming. During the Great Recession, e-discovery companies were hard hit. History appears to be repeating itself.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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