CRA International,Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Charles River Associates' third quarter 2020 conference call. Today's call is being recorded. Today's release and prepared remarks from CRA's Chief Financial Officer are posted on the Investor Relations section of CRA's website at crai.com. With us today are CRA's President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Maleh, Chief Financial Officer, Dan Mahoney, and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Chad Holmes. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Mahoney for opening remarks. Please go ahead, Dan.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning to everyone. Please note that the statements made during this conference call, including guidance on future revenue and non-GAAP EBITDA margin and any other statements concerning the future business, operating results, or financial condition of CRA, including those statements using the terms expect, outlook, or similar terms, are forward-looking statements as defined in Section 21 of the Exchange Act. Information contained in these forward-looking statements is based on management's current expectations and is inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements due to many important factors, including the extent and duration of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our financial condition and results of operations. Additional information regarding these factors is included in today's release in CRA's periodic reports. including our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed at the SEC. CRA undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this call. Additionally, we will refer to some non-GAAP financial measures and certain measures presented on a constant currency basis on this call. Everyone is encouraged to refer to today's release and related CFO remarks for reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures Thanks, Dan.

And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I hope everyone is doing well, staying safe and healthy during these challenging times. Although the pandemic continues to affect the global economy, CRA built on a record fiscal 2019 and first half of fiscal 2020 to deliver noteworthy growth during the third quarter of 2020. Highlighting the resiliency of our company, CRA delivered year-over-year revenue growth for the 19th consecutive quarter as we continue to invest in our portfolio of services. During the quarter, we welcomed 65 new colleagues for a net increase in headcount of 11.5% year-over-year and 3% relative to the second quarter of fiscal 2020. At the same time, we saw utilization improve to 69% from 66% in the second quarter of fiscal 2020. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, we expect to see a net increase in headcount of less than 3% relative to Q3. During the third quarter, we saw growth across both Thank you very much. excuse me, more than 97% of the revenue obtained in Q3 of fiscal 2019, its largest quarter ever. Transactions across a broad range of industries, including retail, healthcare, and technology, are drawing on CRA's expertise in merger review and analysis. In addition, the practice continues to support clients on a wide variety of litigation matters. Our experts are providing testimony in cases covering allegations of price fixing, attempted monopolization, and other potentially anti-competitive behaviors in the consumer goods, food and beverage, and technology industries, among others. CRA experts are also involved in several ongoing disputes at the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property. Looking more broadly at the legal market, in the third quarter, total case filings were down 16% year over year, Focusing on types of litigation matters that are more closely aligned with CRA services, we saw case filings decline by roughly 13%, although the rate of change varied greatly depending on type. For example, securities case filings in the third quarter increased 5% year-over-year, while antitrust filings declined 18%. Within the courtroom, the number of court judgments during the third quarter were down approximately 35% relative to the third quarter of 2019. This suggests that courtrooms continue to be impacted in their ability to handle normal litigation caseloads. Despite these less than ideal conditions, our finance, forensic services, and risk investigations and analytics practices all delivered double-digit revenue growth year over year. Within our finance practice, CRA continues to work on matters arising from the government's investigation and prosecution of institutions and individuals for alleged spoofing and manipulation in the financial markets. In addition, we continue to work on securities litigation, international arbitrations, and merger-related litigations, including appraisal actions. Our forensic services practice continues to experience strong demand from companies that need help responding to allegations of fraud, cybercrime, misconduct, and noncompliance. These issues have been exasperated by COVID-19 as employees have transitioned to remote working environments and certain industries face unprecedented financial stresses and operational challenges for which their internal control environments may not have fully adapted. During the third quarter, The practice was retained to investigate allegations of overcharges for parts and inappropriate allocations of costs involved in a 30-year joint venture covering all of North, Central, and South America. With over $1.5 billion in claims and counterclaims, our team will be providing expert witness testimony next year in the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris, France. The practice also continues to conduct hundreds of cyber incident response matters each quarter across a broad range of industries and geographies. For example, during the quarter on behalf of a global insurance broker, the forensic services practice leverages deep cyber incident response and e-discovery competencies to help the client respond to a ransomware attack. During the third quarter, CRA's risk investigations and analytics practice investigated possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by a U.S. government supplier in multiple foreign jurisdictions. The team also issued an expert report examining allegations of money laundering over a 10-year period at a large global financial institution based in the EU. They also completed an investigation for the board of directors of a large and many more. Next, I'd like to turn to our management consulting services. While our life sciences practice enjoys single-digit, year-over-year growth, I want to highlight our energy practice, which in August welcomed 15 new London-based colleagues. During the third quarter, the practice continued to work on a large engagement to help a UK-based utility transform and modernize its business. We also continued work on a long-running engagement assisting the Federal Republic of Germany in an international arbitration dispute related to the costs of a nuclear power plant shutdown. Congratulations to my colleagues for delivering another strong quarter. Through the first three quarters of fiscal 2020 on a constant currency basis, Thank you for joining us today. on a constant currency basis relative to fiscal 2019. We expect revenue in the range of $498 million to $504 million and non-GAAP EBITDA margin in the range of 9.7% to 10.2%. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chad and then Dan for a few additional comments. Chad?