Ankura, Irvine

Local Service with Global Reach

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PROFESSIONAL PROFILEOF THE MONTH 2021

Ankura Helps Attorneys Navigate Challenges in a Changing Marketplace

When clients face immediate business challenges or require expert advice to help increase corporate value or advice on how to protect themselves against all potential risks, they often contact Ankura. Ankura can design, develop, and execute solutions tailored specifically to meet corporate needs through a proven combination of experience, expertise, and foresight.

The firm’s senior-level advisors provide valuable insights in all types of situations—from government issues to complex business challenges to legal proceedings. In each case, Ankura works with their clients to deliver measurable and meaningful results that have moved law firms, corporations, governments, and nonprofit organizations in a positive direction.

Ankura provides a wide range of services and technologies directly addressing these issues. Mark Clews, Senior Managing Director in Ankura’s eDiscovery Practice, says that Ankura provides an amazing number of wide-ranging services and technologies to directly address the many issues that continue arising in a complex marketplace by hiring the best people who are capable of and committed to creating real-world solutions delivering holistic, meaningful, and sustainable results.

Ankura’s Data & Technology Practice is far more than an eDiscovery and information security provider. They assist clients and their counsel in navigating the challenges related to responding to litigation and government investigations, including cyber security, digital forensics, eDiscovery, structured data analysis, and data privacy consultancy services. The Firm offers local clients a full-service eDiscovery team in Southern California consisting of a secure digital forensic lab, project management and discovery consulting team, and digital forensics subject matter experts with complementary experts including economists, forensic accountants, construction experts, and a wide range of industry experts.

Ankura was founded in 2014 with the goal of becoming a top tier consulting firm with the belief that collaboration drives results, by attracting, acquiring, and retaining top talent that believes in a shared set of core values focused on being a best partner for their clients. The Firm has 30 offices across the U.S. and in international locations. California offices are located in Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Head of Sales and Managing Director for Ankura’s Data & Technology practice Alex Marjanovic says, “We provide the appropriate expertise, technologies, and methodologies for supporting complex litigations, investigations or any triggering event that could create the need for data challenges such as reviewing a data breach or

managing data collection requests within complicated government investigations. Through consulting at every stage of the process, Ankura’s Data & Technology practice has a well rounded team of experts who have the expertise to manage the issues at hand, but also have the creativity and skillsets when solutions and technologies don’t exist to close the gap and solve emerging data complexities. Our goal is to solve problems with the right combinations of expertise. I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of this Ankura team; we are a culturally-unified global firm that fosters our strong local footprint in each market we operate.”

“We have been using Ankura to assist us in our complex trade secret litigation and securities matters for several years and they have been an invaluable resource for us. They offered us several different platforms to use for our document hosting and review needs and worked with us to determine which one was the best fit for each specific matter. They also provided us prompt and knowledgeable support for forensic collection and analysis of our clients’ electronic devices and cloud systems and their experts were always there for us to work through a complex issue or provide guidance on the best way to proceed. With the help of Ankura we always felt one step ahead of the competition and their dedicated project management team made it easy to tackle large discovery projects quickly and efficiently. Ankura has provided us with the confidence and expertise needed to navigate and succeed in the complex and ever-changing world of e-discovery.” —Katherine S. Bowles, Partner at Shustak Reynolds & Partners, P.C.

Ankura’s Southern California-based operation combines local hands-on service backed by global resources. “We are well connected in the local community combined with a much larger international entity that can manage data challenges at scale when needed. We’re a tight team and regularly collaborate with our colleagues and we have the expertise to draw on from USA, Europe, Asia and beyond,” says Senior Director Beau Towers.

Leading the Leading Edge

Ankura has more than 64 experts recognized annually by Who’s Who Legal for their expertise in the legal consulting market. The Southern California team of Ankura is recognized regularly as well, including team leader Mark Clews. “Mark Clews enjoys a stellar reputation for his expert management of complex data sets and e-discovery know-how. Mark is recognized for his strong data security output and deep expertise in data review proceedings,” Who’s Who Legal 2020 edition.

Clients call on Ankura when they face challenges that traditional eDiscovery, information security and data privacy tools and providers cannot resolve. Ankura excels at complex data challenges and often develops custom solutions for their clients to solve problems. They can deploy digital forensics experts rapidly to preserve data in a defensible manner, providing their clients with the security that the scoping, preservation and production of responsive data will stand up to interrogation in court. Ankura’s experts have extensive experience testifying in court in relation to the steps taken and comment expertly on evidential artifacts.

The law in general and government regulations, corporate needs, and economic challenges are constant forces in the marketplace. Businesses, institutions, and non-profits must remain not only up to date with such changes, but must have the ability to react appropriately, swiftly, and with an eye to even more changes likely to arise.

Perhaps they have received a subpoena and now need to scope it out to determine a defensible way to meet the request but don’t have the necessary technology to handle. Ankura puts experts on site or remotely with the most up-to-date technology and workflows in place to preserve data in a way that is defensible.

“Our clients turn to us when they receive government investigation subpoenas, lawsuits or internal investigations. We assist our clients in investigating IP, antitrust and securities matters regularly. We have a dedicated Second Request team that has assisted some of the largest antitrust investigations that have occurred in recent years. We collaborate closely with our cyber security team which is on 93 cyber insurance panels and managed more than 1,000 data breaches in 2020 alone. We also work with Am Law 100 to regional boutique law firms on complex litigation matters that do not have the forensic and eDiscovery internal support for specific matters,” Clews says.

Ankura is a highly respected consulting firm that is regularly called on and trusted to handle the most difficult challenges in the legal and information security industry because they have the talent, technology, and, most important, the drive to help clients navigate successfully through the marketplace.

Connecting with the Local Community

The management and staff at Ankura are committed to being an active member of the southern California community at large.

“Alex, Beau and their Ankura colleagues have been more than generous with their time and resources to many organizations in San Diego. For years they’ve been a consistent sponsor of Lawyers Club of San Diego, whose mission is the advancement of women in the law and society. They not only sponsor events, but also attend functions and provide guidance on programs and events. Ankura leadership have philanthropic hearts and are not satisfied with only donating money but provide real support to causes and charities and acts. We need more people like Alex, Beau and their Ankura colleagues who understand the importance of supporting local organizations.” —Deborah Dixon, Partner at the Gomez Law Firm and Past President of the Lawyers Club of San Diego.

“Although our reach is global, we never forget our commitment to helping people and organizations locally to navigate their complex challenges,” Marjanovic says. n

Contact Alex Marjanovic Ankura Consulting 1 Park Plaza, Suite 1050 Irvine, CA 92614 (949) 660-8200 Ankura.com