FTI Technology Launches Ringtail QuickCull® Appliance for In-House E-discovery

WASHINGTON, D.C.  August 24, 2009 – FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced the launch of a new e-discovery software appliance, Ringtail QuickCull. As a pre-configured hardware and software package, QuickCull is quick to implement and enables corporations to cull and analyze data for litigations and investigations on-premise prior to legal review by their outside counsel. With this easy step, QuickCull provides corporations with three key benefits: a dramatic reduction in the cost of legal review, the ability to understand data earlier to conduct early case assessments (ECA), and a springboard for streamlining the e-discovery process from processing through to production.

Large corporations manage hundreds of matters every year and struggle with controlling the cost of the often complex e-discovery process. A big component of the complexity and cost is due to a crowded yet disparate e-discovery vendor market. According to the 2008 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey, there are over 600 vendors that claim to offer e-discovery products or services, and for those offering products, the majority provides niche tools that only address one or two of the nine e-discovery steps, as laid out by the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, or EDRM.

According to a 2008 Gartner report, “Enterprises purchasing e-discovery software can reduce the costs of litigation by improving their control over unstructured content, and semi-structured content, most notably e-mail. Also, they can cut costs and risks by taking control of….file collection, file processing and legal review instead of outsourcing these functions.”1   In addition, many corporations are realizing significant cost benefits by standardizing on proven technology platforms and outsourced e-discovery service providers. For corporations seeking to simplify their e-discovery process with fewer tools and vendors, QuickCull represents an integrated component of FTI Technology’s complete e-discovery portfolio of software, services and consulting.

“Our corporate clients not only want cost-effective tools for today’s needs, but also smart investments that help support a long-term e-discovery strategy,” said Patrick Strong, senior managing director of FTI Technology, a business unit of FTI Consulting. “QuickCull meets this challenge by providing immediate out-of-the-box benefits and a clear path for streamlining the e-discovery process for future matters.”

Upon installation, users can index the data set, as well as identify duplicate files, which are automatically tagged. Hidden files, columns, tracked changes and other modifications are available to view. Reviewers can search for documents using a variety of search methods, including keywords and complex Boolean queries, and queries can be restricted to specific metadata fields. QuickCull then presents the documents within the search results for preview, allowing reviewers to mark and tag each document in preview mode. These markings will be saved for export into processing, review and analysis tools via the EDRM XML standard.

“It has been my experience that deploying Ringtail QuickCull for pre-processing, culling, triage review, and data export dramatically streamlines the most time and technology intensive parts of data collection and production while maintaining forensic integrity," said Joseph Perkovich, associate with Dorsey & Whitney LLP.  "Due to QuickCull's rapid implementation and reliability in digesting data, I am aware of no better discovery tool for use in enforcement or investigative actions brought by prosecutors, regulators or legislative committees.”

Cost Reduction
The vast majority of data that corporations save and collect for e-discovery – whether in enterprise content management (ECM) systems, line of business (LOB) applications or other storage repositories – is not relevant to legal or regulatory matters. However, many corporations simply collect any and all data within the parameters of a case – all of the emails of ten key custodians, for example – and then work with their law firm or a legal service provider on processing and review. If the irrelevant data is eliminated earlier in the process, legal teams can reduce the cost of legal review and focus on the data that matters to the case.  

QuickCull, which is Unicode compliant to support international requirements, enables corporations to reduce the dataset themselves, behind their own firewall. QuickCull enables in-house legal teams to r remove duplicates and grossly irrelevant prior to legal review, minimizing the burden and cost of unnecessary document review. Plus, by first eliminating duplicates and other unresponsive data, legal teams can focus on the important documents for the matter.

“When organizations had access to unlimited to financial resources, dealing with the combination of corporate data growth and surging electronic discovery requests was fairly simplistic: hire more people to complete complex tasks such as first pass and comprehensive reviews,” said Brian Babineau, senior industry analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group.  “Clearly, the economy has dictated a more frugal approach to resource utilization, but data growth and frequency of matters involving ESI have not subsided leaving organizations no choice but to leverage technology to cut costs.   In our opinion, one of the easiest ways to cut electronic discovery costs is to invest in solutions that the cut data set as early in the process as possible.”

Understanding Data Earlier
Having an understanding of the data earlier in the e-discovery process can provide a significant advantage to corporations, including the ability to decide whether to continue with a matter or possibly settle the case, often a more cost-effective course in corporate litigation. Additionally, legal teams can start developing case strategy earlier and even to come to meet and confer meetings with a list of keywords for use in the matter. The QuickCull appliance helps corporations understand their data earlier by providing them the ability to index, search, cull and preview datasets within hours of collection without having to send data off-site. So, in a matter of hours upon receiving a legal notice, IT and legal teams can collect and preview a sample data set, leading to a deeper understanding of both the merits of the case and the key custodians involved.

Springboard for Streamlined E-discovery
QuickCull is the latest software from FTI, which also offers Attenex Patterns and Ringtail Legal software, two of the top e-discovery tools according to the annual Socha-Gelbmann survey. The addition of QuickCull enables corporations to cull, process, review, analyze and produce data using one integrated platform and only one provider. QuickCull, Attenex and Ringtail all provide customizable, repeatable workflows that are backed by a highly scalable SQL database. In addition, all three products are offered as either on-demand or on-premise deployments, so corporations can customize the solutions to meet their particular IT environment and litigation profile.

Plus, FTI can manage and execute the entire e-discovery process, including identification and collection, with the company’s expert consultants. Located around the globe, FTI consultants have managed hundreds of e-discovery matters, ranging from internal corporate fraud investigations, multinational litigation, Hart Scott Rodino “second requests,” and structured data discovery.

“For our clients, the new QuickCull appliance is a catalyst for a long-term, strategic approach to e-discovery,” said David Remnitz, senior managing director and technology segment leader for FTI Technology. “For FTI Technology, QuickCull represents another important step for us in broadening our offerings to support our clients’ complete e-discovery needs.”

The QuickCull appliance is available from FTI Technology in the fourth quarter of 2009. For more information, please visit www.ftitechnology.com.

1 MarketScope for E-discovery Software Product Vendors, 2008, by Debra Logan, John Bace, Whit Andrews, Gartner, December 17, 2008

About FTI Consulting
FTI Consulting, Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance enterprise value in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic environment. With more than 3,400 employees located in most major business centers in the world, we work closely with clients every day to anticipate, illuminate, and overcome complex business challenges in areas such as investigations, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory issues, reputation management and restructuring. More information can be found at www.fticonsulting.com.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release may include "forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that involve uncertainties and risks.  Forward-looking statements include statements concerning our plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events, future revenues, future results and performance, expectations, plans or intentions relating to acquisitions and other matters, business trends and other information that is not historical, including statements regarding estimates of our future financial results.  When used in this press release, words such as “estimates,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “projects,” “plans,” “intends,” “believes,” “forecasts” and variations of such words or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.  All forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, estimates of our future financial results, are based upon our expectations at the time we make them and various assumptions. Our expectations, beliefs and projections are expressed in good faith, and we believe there is a reasonable basis for them. However, there can be no assurance that management’s expectations, beliefs and projections will result or be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations.  The Company has experienced fluctuating revenue, operating income and cash flow in some prior periods and expects this will occur from time to time in the future.  Other factors that could cause such differences include the pace and timing of the consummation and integration of past and future acquisitions, the Company's ability to realize cost savings and efficiencies, competitive and general economic conditions, retention of staff and clients and other risks described under the heading “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in the Company’s most recent Form 10-K and in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform such statements to actual results or events and do not intend to do so.

FTI, Attenex®, Patterns®, and Ringtail® are registered trademarks of FTI Consulting, Inc.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.