FTI Technology Launches Acuity Integrated Document Review Offering

NEW YORK, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced the general market availability of Acuity, the company's new integrated e-discovery and document review offering. Acuity provides clients with one predictable and fixed-rate price for the processing through production stages of e-discovery. Acuity integrates advanced technology with innovative document review workflows that are guided by client's counsel. Clients gain a single point of control over the e-discovery and document review process.

"In this 'do more with less' era, corporate counsel need predictable pricing and tangible returns on their e-discovery investments," said Adam Bendell, senior managing director of FTI Technology. "Acuity delivers on this need so that corporations can dramatically reduce the overall cost of e-discovery as well as streamline the process with one of the most trusted e-discovery providers in the industry."  

Seventy two percent of Fortune 1000 inside counsel cited legal review as the most expensive phase of e-discovery in a recent FTI study.  A number of factors contribute to the cost: growth in corporate data, an increase in legal and regulatory requests and the natural time-intensive process of attorneys reviewing and tagging data. An added expense for most corporations arises from managing multiple legal service providers and law firms for various steps in legal review.

"If a company is using multiple vendors to support one or several electronic discovery projects, identifying ownership of a particular issue can be a nightmare when competitive vendors point fingers rather than work together," said Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "Efficient and comprehensive electronic discovery requires the alignment and integration of people, processes and technology.  Cost effective and risk adverse electronic discovery means an organization gets all three from as few places as possible."

Acuity was developed in direct response to client concerns about existing "all-in-one" document review offerings. "Our market research strongly indicated that corporate clients are uncomfortable when tensions arise between a review provider and the client's outside counsel.  This often results in loss of productivity and may incur unexpected expenses if it requires a re-review of documents. These unfortunate hidden costs are the direct result of a non-collaborative review workflow," said Sophie Ross, managing director of FTI Technology.  "With Acuity, we developed flexible workflows and advanced technology that fully integrates counsel into the review process without sacrificing the client benefits of centralized project accountability and predictable pricing. Both the client and its counsel have full transparency into the review process."

Acuity provides corporate counsel with an improved ability to control and predict e-discovery costs through:

• Predictable pricing: Clients can easily predict the cost of discovery at the beginning of the process with simple and transparent per-gigabyte or per-document pricing options.
• Collaborate with counsel: From the beginning and throughout the review, substantive guidance is solicited from counsel and key documents and findings are provided for feedback.
• Award-winning technology:  Acuity integrates award-winning Attenex and Ringtail software along with next-generation advances in review technology. Greater collaboration is enabled through FTI's secure hosted environment, which clients and counsel can access at any time during the review.
• Thorough and defensible review: FTI manages the review process with experienced reviewers and defensible processes that are backed by statistical validation and supporting FTI expert testimony.
• Centralized project management: Expert project managers manage the process and are a central point of contact for clients, providing regular, customized reports on the status of the entire e-discovery and review project.
• Comprehensive approach: FTI provides a broad range of e-discovery services, so clients can seamlessly add adjacent services, such as document collection, depending on their particular needs. In addition, with FTI offices in every major business center, Acuity offers the people and resources to deploy anywhere in the world while adhering to data privacy requirements. Separate pricing will apply to these additional services.

Acuity, which was first utilized by corporations on initial matters in 2009, is now generally available. For more information, please visit www.ftitechnology.com/acuity.

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 3,500 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.  

SOURCE FTI Consulting, Inc.