FTI Technology Receives Highest Possible Rating in Leading Analyst Firm’s E-discovery Report

NEW YORK, NY  January 19, 2010 – FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced that its technology practice has been named a “strong positive” vendor in Gartner Research’s "MarketScope for E-discovery Software Product Vendors, 2009" report (Debra Logan, John Bace, and Whit Andrews, December 21, 2009). “Strong positive” is the highest possible rating given in the report, which also forecasts an annual growth rate of 21% for e-discovery software and services through 2013. Download the Gartner E-discovery report.

“In addition to proven products that help control costs on today’s matters, our clients also need us to make smart long-term investments that will support their strategic responses to future e-discovery demands,” said Seth Rierson, senior managing director and practice leader of FTI’s Technology segment.  “We believe Gartner’s ‘strong positive’ rating validates our approach to e-discovery and the ability of our software to deliver real results.  We are honored to be recognized in this influential report.”

The report states that, “Enterprises are continuing to acquire e-discovery tools tactically but are increasingly guided by a strategic framework. Those vendors that have capabilities across the discovery spectrum (from identification through production) will be best positioned to take leadership of the e-discovery market. E-discovery projects are being seen in the context of an overall information governance or enterprise information management strategy.”

Large corporations and government agencies manage hundreds if not thousands of matters annually and struggle with controlling the cost of the often complex e-discovery process. A significant component of the complexity and cost is due to a crowded yet disparate e-discovery vendor market. According to the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey, there are over 600 vendors that claim to offer e-discovery products or services.  The majority offering products provide niche tools that address one or two of the nine e-discovery steps, as laid out by the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, or EDRM (www.edrm.net). For corporations seeking to simplify their e-discovery processes with fewer tools and vendors, FTI Technology provides a complete e-discovery portfolio of software, services and consulting.

Through a flexible mix of software, services and consulting, FTI Technology is transforming the way corporations and their law firms globally manage e-discovery for litigation and regulatory requests. FTI Technology services and consulting can streamline the entire e-discovery process, with a single point of accountability. The award-winning portfolio of FTI Technology software, including Attenex® Patterns®, Ringtail® LegalTM and Ringtail® QuickCull®, can be deployed on-premise or on-demand to control the most mission-critical steps of e-discovery. Altogether, FTI Technology provides a smart and comprehensive approach to improve the e-discovery process, contain costs and manage enterprise information demands.

“Companies today increasingly want to work with one provider that can support an organization’s complete and global e-discovery requirements,” said Mike Kinnaman, senior managing director of FTI Technology. Purpose-built for e-discovery and investigations, our software provides the features and scale that corporations, law firms and government agencies require for the effective management of e-discovery and document review projects.”

According to the Gartner report, “to be included in this MarketScope, a vendor must meet the following criteria:

• Have software product that can be licensed for implementation and use inside a company's firewall or by a third-party service provider.
• Cover at least three of the functional areas of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).
• Have e-discovery-related product and maintenance revenue of at least $15 million.”

After meeting the above criteria, vendors were rated according to the following criteria: “overall viability, customer experience, market understanding, sales execution and pricing, offering (product) strategy, the product or service offering, and sales strategy.”

In Gartner’s rating framework, a “strong positive” rating is given to those companies “viewed as a provider of strategic products, services or solutions.” For customers, Gartner advises that they “continue with planned investments” and for potential customers, “consider this vendor a strong choice for strategic investments.”

The MarketScope is copyrighted December 2009 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The MarketScope is an evaluation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the MarketScope, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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.

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