Legal Services Provider Epiq Acquires Hyperion Global Partners
Epiq, a New York-based legal services provider, recently announced the acquisition of legal operations adviser Hyperion.
Observers acknowledge a trend in the legal industry toward reducing costs and finding efficiencies in legal operations.
The Hyperion deal includes its legal operations advisory practice as well as Hyperion Research. Hyperior Research is the analyst-driven unit of Hyperion Global Partners. It has focused on legal services market intelligence.
A team of 10 at Dallas-based Hyperion Global Partners will merge with Epiq’s team of 5,500, a representative for Epiq said.
The value of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Change in Legal Services Industry Driving Market
The recent pace change in the legal industry has accelerated the need for law departments and firms to run like businesses. Running like a business includes embracing digital legal services transformation. That’s according to Ziad Mantoura, SVP and General Manager for Epiq’s legal transformation services business.
“Hyperion has a team of expert consultants and a heritage of guiding clients to make intelligent, fact-based decisions to transform their businesses. Joining forces with this team and its impressive market intelligence capabilities adds considerable depth to the solutions we offer our clients legal services as we help guide their digital transformation.”
Clients Lookin for Aggressive Solutions
Roger Pilc is president of legal solutions at Epiq. He echoed those comments, noting that legal departments are now looking for aggressive solutions to their business problems. As a result, Epiq had to to acquire a company with that expertise. Pilc said with the size of Epiq and expertise of Hyperion, the company has everything it needs to become a leader in the legal services transformation space.
As part of the merger, Hyperion founder and CEO Eyal Iffergan will become the managing director of Epiq’s new legal operations and advisory business.
He also remarked that in the last three years, there’s been a move toward legal departments using different technologies and putting their own “spin” on existing technologies.
“Our role in that market is to help our clients draw toward that change. They have a sense of where to go but not the guidance,” Iffergan said. “It’s not so much about having to acquire new technology, but using it differently to provide legal services.
Legal Services Departments of All Sizes
Iffergan noted that corporate legal departments of all sizes continue to try to appreciate their own road maps to legal operations, Simultaniously, they consider which technologies they need to implement.
With the additional expertise in legal operations, Epiq says it will meet corporate legal departments. The meeting will take place where legal departments are in their legal services journey.
Mark Habbinga, managing director of legal transformation services. said, “They are not looking to sell anything, they’re looking to uncover the right tools the client already has, optimize those and focus on helping them drive better business decisions around legal work,” Habbinga said.
Hyperion’s History
Hyperion Global Partners was founded in 2009. The company works with the prestigious Am Law 200 law firms, Global 1000 corporations, and other legal service organizations.
Epiq has more than 80 offices and 14 data centers and employees more than 5,500 people around the globe. Its legal services clients use Epiq to streamline the administration of business operations, class action and mass tort litigation. In addition, Epiq makes court reporting, eDiscovery, regulatory, compliance, restructuring, and bankruptcy matters flow. The company was founded in Kansas City in 1988 where it started as a bankruptcy services company.
In 2016, OMERS Private Equity and Harvest Partners acquired Epiq. By 2018, Epiq acquired a majority interest in Controle, LLC, a leader in information governance services and solutions. As of April 2019, Epiq acquired a Canadian eDiscovery and litigation support firm, H&A eDiscovery.
