FTI Consulting Launches Ringtail® Version 8.3

NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced that its FTI Technology practice is launching Version 8.3 of its award-winning Ringtail e-discovery software.  The easy-to-use software now can be accessed and managed in a secure, self-serve private cloud called Ringtail Software as a Service (SaaS). Additionally, Ringtail 8.3 provides improved review workflow and other management tools to support faster and more accurate legal reviews for corporate, law firm and government clients. With the addition of the SaaS offering, Ringtail users have a complete spectrum of options for handling e-discovery matters of all sizes, including a "do it yourself" approach using on-premise or SaaS software, a completely outsourced "do it for me" managed service model, or a hybrid model based on the right combination of software and services to meet the client's specific requirements.

"Corporate adoption of cloud applications is gaining acceptance, but many legal clients still prefer to keep their legal data behind their own firewalls with on premises products. In addition, there's a vast disparity in the e-discovery capacities of law firms and corporate legal departments," said David Horrigan, analyst for e-discovery and information governance at 451 Research. "We think FTI has made a smart move to address these varying needs with its three-pronged approach in Ringtail 8, giving legal clients the option of traditional Ringtail behind the firewall, Ringtail SaaS—still self-service, but with hosted software -- and Ringtail On Demand, where clients can let FTI and its consultants run the e-discovery operation with full-service processing and hosting."

The Advantages of the Cloud, Built for E-Discovery 
Ringtail provides a complete e-discovery solution that combines case management and document review in a single platform. This includes innovative data analytics and visual review tools that dramatically increase the productivity and efficiency of legal review. In total, Ringtail is a powerful e-discovery platform with flexible deployment options and market-leading functionality designed to increase reviewer productivity and reduce the overall costs of e-discovery.

Ringtail SaaS provides users with:

• Fast deployment: Delivered to law firms and corporations via a Web browser, legal teams can begin using the software immediately with no hardware to install.
• Easy administration:  The intuitive functionality in Ringtail simplifies case creation, user management, and reporting.
• Security: To address the security and legal concerns that are inherent in cloud computing, each SaaS client is assigned a private, logically separated environment called a Ringtail POD.  Each Ringtail POD resides in a secure datacenter and is fully managed by the FTI Technology team.
• Data privacy: All datacenter services and storage remain under the control of FTI Technology so Ringtail SaaS clients can confidently safeguard client data and adhere to data privacy regulations.
• Reduced hardware spend: Ringtail SaaS eliminates the capital expenditures associated with procuring, installing and managing rapidly depreciating hardware. It also removes the hidden costs associated with troubleshooting server and storage issues.  FTI Technology provides elastic computing resources and manages services to help legal teams handle any-sized matter.
• Seamless upgrades: Ringtail's SaaS deployment model provides legal teams with optimal performance. Upgrades are delivered as new software versions are released, ensuring that clients always have access to the latest version of Ringtail.

"We've worked closely with our clients to build a solution that delivers the promised efficiency and savings of cloud computing, but meets the unique legal requirements of e-discovery," said Joel Jacob, Principal Product Manager in FTI Technology.  "Our optimized Ringtail PODs keep data separate and secure, yet also allow legal teams flexibility to quickly add more computing power when large projects strike."

Improved Review Workflow Management and Automated Quality Control 
Ringtail 8.3 includes a variety of usability and performance improvements and a completely redesigned review workflow module. This module enables users to automate quality control via an easy-to-use dashboard.  Review managers can quickly create, manage, and prioritize coding rules, review phases and specialized workflows to enforce a wide variety of coding and review requirements across projects. 

Other notable improvements in Ringtail 8.3 include:

• Faster concept clustering: Ringtail's visual review interface - Document Mapper - creates its powerful concept clustering maps 10 times faster than previous versions.
• Ease of use enhancements: Ringtail 8.3 includes a number of features enhancements, including additional search options, reduction in coding clicks, and an improved user interface for early stage analysis with Ringtail Analytics.

In addition to these benefits, FTI Technology clients can combine Ringtail with other offerings from FTI Technology, including managed review, Predictive Discovery, and a secure privilege library, as well as ancillary services that encompass international data collection to expert witness testimony.

FTI Technology will provide Ringtail 8.3 product demos in Booth 2110 at the LegalTech New York 2013 conference. In addition, FTI will host a Wednesday, Jan. 30 panel session at LegalTech New York 2013 on the topic of "E-Discovery and the Cloud – a Checklist for Success," and a February webcast on the same topic. For more information on these events, Ringtail 8.3 or FTI Technology, please visit www.ftitechnology.com.

About FTI Consulting

FTI Consulting, Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic environment. With more than 3,800 employees located in 24 countries, FTI Consulting professionals work closely with clients to anticipate, highlight and overcome complex business challenges in areas such as investigations, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory issues, reputation management, strategic communications and restructuring. The company generated $1.56 billion in revenues during fiscal 2011. More information is available at www.fticonsulting.com.

SOURCE FTI Consulting, Inc.