Company: CRAI
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001053706-25-000007
Chunk: 45

Company: CRA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 45
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Item 1A.    Risk Factors

Our operations are subject to a number of risks. You should carefully read and consider the following risk factors, together with all other information in this report, in evaluating our business. If any of these risks, or any risks not presently known to us or that we currently believe are not significant, develop into an actual event, then our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected. If that happens, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to Our People

We depend upon key employees to generate revenue

Our business consists primarily of the delivery of professional services, and, accordingly, our success depends heavily on the efforts, abilities, business generation capabilities, and project execution capabilities of our employee consultants. In particular, our employee consultants' personal relationships with our clients are a critical element in obtaining and maintaining client engagements. If we lose the services of any employee consultant or group of employee consultants, or if our employee consultants fail to generate business or otherwise fail to perform effectively, that loss or failure could adversely affect our revenues and results of operations. Many of our employee consultants have signed confidentiality agreements and non-solicitation agreements. We do not have non-competition agreements with a majority of our employee consultants, however, they can terminate their relationships with us at any time. The post-employment restrictions that we have with some of our employee consultants offer us only limited protection and may not be enforceable in every jurisdiction. In the event that an employee leaves, some clients may decide that they prefer to continue working with the employee rather than with us. In the event an employee departs and acts in a way that we believe violates the employee's restrictions, we will consider any legal remedies we may have against such person on a case-by-case basis. We may decide that preserving cooperation and a professional relationship with the former employee or clients that worked with the employee, or other concerns, outweigh the benefits of any possible legal recovery.

Our business could suffer if we are unable to hire and retain additional qualified consultants as employees

Our business continually requires us to hire highly qualified, highly educated consultants as employees. Our failure to recruit and retain a significant number of qualified employee consultants could limit our ability to accept or complete engagements and adversely affect our revenues and results of operations. Relatively few potential employees meet our hiring criteria, and we face significant competition for these employees from our direct competitors, academic institutions, government agencies, research firms, investment banking firms