Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are attempting to navigate a tight 30-day deadline imposed by the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee earlier this month for the production of key business documents. However, continuing regulatory activity in the tech space could spur demand for more e-discovery resources and skill well beyond October.

Think of it like dominoes. Per Mary Mack, executive director of the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), antitrust investigations tend to spawn other actions that involve e-discovery.

"You've got governmental inquiries and then you can get some civil suits… and then there's shareholders suits. There could be states and other governmental units. So it tends to get bigger and more and more actions based on the same data set," Mack said.

With multiple actions comes a variety of deadlines, production schedules and formats that need to be serviced, which could strain whatever pre-existing e-discovery resources that companies or their outside counsel already maintain.

On top of those demands, organizations also have to possess enough manpower to withstand vacation or sick days that might otherwise hinder progress. Mack expects to see e-discovery teams bulking up.

"The folks that are doing that front end identification of where everything is and how to get it out, they'll be in the first demand. Then, the data reduction and analytics people," Mack said.

Whether or not that talent is brought in-house or leveraged via the services of an outside e-discovery provider is anybody's guess.

Wendy King, senior managing director at FTI Consulting, agrees that as long as regulatory activity continues on an upswing, e-discovery professionals who have experience with large data volumes and short time-frames will continue to be in high demand.

She thinks corporations will likely mix bolstering their own internal teams with assistance from external providers, but the exact ratio is likely to come down to cost effectiveness.

"Having that blend where you've got the internal expertise that can work with external experts as well will give [companies] a really balanced approach," King said, "so that they can continue to, as they implement [e-discovery] programs, really maintain those and support them."

The sensitive nature of some of the documents being produced may also impact staffing strategies. In the case of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee inquiry, for example, companies are being directed to provide internal communications, data related to mergers and acquisitions and other information that could be subject to privilege.

While Michael Pontrelli, managing director at the e-discovery and managed review provider Consilio, doesn't necessarily believe that the regulatory interest in the tech industry is creating new corporate job opportunities in e-discovery, he does foresee a need for specialized assistance with some of the more delicate information that's coming into play.

"I think given the highly sensitive nature of the requests in each of these inquiries, [tech companies] will need to rely on both outside counsel and a very robust e-discovery provider that has had experience working on these types of productions for these committee inquiries and other regulator investigations," Pontrelli said.