AACER: Bankruptcy Filings Continue Five-Year Downward Trend in January

Nationwide bankruptcy filings dropped by more than 13 percent year-over-year in January, continuing a five-year trend, according to AACER bankruptcy data reported by Epiq Systems.

The total number of bankruptcies filed in the United States for January was 59,037, marking the fifth January in a row that bankruptcy filings declined year-over-year. January's filing total represented a 13.5 percent decrease from January 2014, when 68,271 bankruptcies were filed, and a decline of 42.6 percent from their highest total for any January, which was 102,835 reached in January 2010. Filings have declined year-over-year each January since 2011.

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Month-over-month in January, the number bankruptcy filings declined by 6.4 percent from the total of 6,090 that was reported for December. However, there were 20 filing days in January compared to 22 in December, meaning that if the filings continued at January's daily rate of 2,952, January's total would have surpassed December's.

January's filing total of slightly more than 59,000 is 22 percent less than 2014's monthly average of 75,840.

The two states with the most overall bankruptcy filings for January were California (6,133) and Florida (4,476). Those two states accounted for 18 percent of all of the nation's bankruptcy filings for the month. The leading states in bankruptcy filings per capita for January were Tennessee, with 5.25 filings for every 1,000 people, and Alabama, with 4.61 for every thousand. Tennessee and Alabama led the nation in 2014 in bankruptcy filings per capita with 5.28 and 5.24, respectively. The national average for January 2015 was 2.28 filings for every 1,000, a decline from 2014's overall rate of 2.93.

Epiq Systems is a leading global provider of technology-enabled solutions for electronic discovery, bankruptcy and class action administration. Top legal professionals depend on us for deep subject-matter expertise and years of firsthand experience working on many of the largest, most high-profile and complex client engagements. Epiq Systems, Inc. has locations in the United States, Europe and Asia.