Case Study: How a multinational law firm saves money on litigation translations

Case Study: How a multinational law firm saves money on litigation translations

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The Challenge

Often, legal documents include a wet signature that is typically in PDF file format – and image files, in general, are not designed to be edited. When converting PDF to Word format the result is usually garbled text that is incredibly difficult to read, let alone translate. 

The situation is further complicated when PDF fonts are in a foreign language that includes diacritics, accent marks and double-byte (i.e. Chinese or Japanese) characters. As a result, standard file conversion software does not lend itself to this part of the translation process.

This is what BURG Translations encountered when a multinational law firm needed to translate 51 documents, totaling approximately 368,000 words from six languages into English. The six languages that needed to be translated were German, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish and Polish. This was also a rush project that needed to be done as soon as possible. 

The Solution

In consultation with the client, we outlined the four steps needed to take them from where they were to where they needed to be for their litigation translations:

  1. Translate all files to English
  2. Review the files to determine which were relevant
  3. Review relevant files to locate the information needed
  4. Copy or summarize the information into a spreadsheet

Given the client’s input and their intentions, we offered an alternative approach that would help them reduce both cost and time:

  1. Conduct the Document Review service and catalogue all files: In collaboration with the client, we created a spreadsheet for the translation team to complete. Each row was a file, and for each row the translator provided the title in English and the year of the signature. Although this task is technically part translation and part document review, we calculated the budget based on the number of minutes a translator was expected to take to catalogue one file. In this case the number of minutes equated to 5.
  2. Client confirms which files are relevant based on Document Review: The spreadsheets were then combined and delivered to the client the following morning. By the end of the day, the client had reviewed the spreadsheet and marked an ‘x’ next to each file that contained information of interest. Of the 51 files originally catalogued, 41 (German – 20, French – 6, Spanish – 5, Russian – 5, Swedish – 3, and Polish – 2) were marked for machine translation.
  3. Machine translate only the relevant files: Files for machine translation totaled approximately 730 pages, and special optical character recognition (OCR) technology was used to scan and convert the PDFs into doc files. By the next morning, the files were ready to be prepared for machine translation. It took two people, working for three hours each to complete this process. As the files were completed, they were uploaded to the machine translation technology for translation into English. By the end of the day, the machine translated files were exported as docx file types.
  4. Client highlights sections of the files for professional translations: Using the highlight feature within Microsoft Word, the client marked the text they wanted retranslated professionally. Taking the client just three days to complete, they returned between 2 – 4 pages for a total of approximately 35,000 words for retranslation.
  5. Professional translation done on only the sections of the relevant files: The files were then sent to different teams of in-country professional translators for translation and editing. As the files were delivered back to BURG Translations, the Project Manager conducted a quality check to ensure all highlighted text was translated and that the files met our presentation standards before delivering them to the client. 

The Results

Since we were able to reduce the scope of the project in the initial steps, our streamlined approach expedited the process to just eight days – exceeding the client’s delivery expectations.

The reduced processing time enabled the client to save employee time and reduce overall translation costs. As their single vendor for translations, they received a greater discount further reducing their overall translation costs.

Since 1936, BURG Translations has been dedicated to providing superior localization, translation and interpreting services across multiple global industries. The company offers a wide variety of language services to Fortune 500 clients – ranging from prestigious medical journals, legal firms and leaders in biotech and manufacturing to new tech startups, universities, healthcare groups and life science organizations. The key to BURG’s success lies in its more than 85 years of cultivating an elite corps of translation professionals and customer support team.

If you’d like to learn more about how BURG Translations helps your company ensure high-quality translations, contact us today.