Skip to content
FacebookTwitterLinkedinYoutubeInstagram
  • Join ATA
  • Renew
  • Shop ATAware
  • Contact Us
  • Log In Welcome, My Account
American Translators Association (ATA)
Find a Language Professional
  • Certification
    • Certification
      • Guide to ATA Certification
      • What is a Certified Translation?
      • How the Exam is Graded
      • Review and Appeal Process
      • Looking for more information?
    • Taking the Exam
      • About the Exam
      • How to Prepare
      • Practice Test
      • Exam Schedule
    • Already Certified?
      • Put Your Credentials To Work
      • Continuing Education Requirement
    • Register Buttons
      • Register for Exam
         
      • Order Practice Test
  • Career and Education
    • For Newcomers
      • Student Resources
      • Starting Your Career
      • The Savvy Newcomer Blog
    • For Professionals
      • Growing Your Career
      • Business Strategies
      • Next Level Blog
      • Client Outreach Kit
      • Mentoring
    • Resources
      • For Educators and Trainers
      • Tools and Technology
      • Publications
      • School Outreach
    • Event Buttons
      • Visit ATA66
      • Upcoming Webinars
  • Client Assistance
    • Client Resources
      • Why Should I Hire a Professional?
      • Translator vs. Interpreter
      • Buying Language Services
    • More Client Resources
      • Need a Certified Translation?
      • What is Machine Translation?
      • The ATA Compass Blog
    • Find a Translator Button
      • Find a Language Professional
  • Events
    • Events
      • Annual Conference
      • Free Events for ATA Members
      • Certification Exam Schedule
    • More Events
      • Virtual Workshops and Events
      • Live and On-Demand Webinars
      • Calendar of Events
    • Event Buttons
      • Visit ATA66
      • Upcoming Webinars
         
  • News
    • Industry News
    • Advocacy and Outreach
    • The ATA Chronicle
    • The ATA Podcast
    • ATA Newsbriefs
    • Press Releases
  • Member Center
    • Member Resources
      • Join ATA
      • Renew Your Membership
      • Benefits of Membership
      • Divisions & Special Interest Groups
      • Chapters, Affiliates, Partners, and Other Groups
      • Get Involved
      • Member Discounts
      • Shop ATAware
    • Already a Member?
      • Member Login
      • Connect with Members
      • Credentialed Interpreter Designation
      • Become a Voting Member
      • Submit Member News
      • Submit Your Event
      • Contact Us
    • Member Buttons
  • About Us
    • About ATA
      • Who We Are
      • Honors and Awards Program
      • Advertise with Us
      • Media Kit
    • How ATA Works
      • Board of Directors
      • Committees
      • Policies & Procedures
      • Code of Ethics
      • ATA Team
    • Contact Button
      • Contact ATA
  • Join ATA
  • Renew Your Membership
  • Contact Us
  • Log In
  • Find a Language Professional
The ATA Compass: Your guide to translation and interpreting in the global market

Translation as a Tool for Understanding

December 2, 2015 | ATA Compass | 10 Comments | Client Assistance, Public Outreach

Legal firm saves on discovery costs by partnering with translation company

We’ve all seen the images on the evening news: federal agents hauling computers and file boxes into the back of a big, white van, to be potentially used as evidence in a lawsuit. Anyone who has worked in a legal firm knows that there will be a small army of people needed to inventory, number and wade through those documents to identify what will be useful if the case goes to trial. This process, known as discovery, can be tedious and costly. But it’s even more complicated when those files are in a foreign language, and the team can’t understand them enough to know whether they have bearing on a case.

A legal firm was faced with exactly this dilemma during discovery for a case where their client suspected embezzlement. Hundreds of boxes of memos and expense reports, nearly all in French, needed to be combed through to determine if funds had been misappropriated. But no one in the Californian firm spoke enough French to even begin to understand what was in the documents.

The legal firm contacted a local translation company that specializes in French. With decades of experience, it didn’t take the owner long to realize that this was a potentially huge project. It would keep just about every French to English translator on her roster busy, and would be very lucrative. But it was clear to both the translation company owner and her attorney client that fully translating all of these documents was not the best use of her resources—translators—nor of the client’s money. And it would lengthen the process considerably.

Making translators a part of the team

So the translation company owner suggested something out of the ordinary. Rather than pulling most of her translators off other projects (potentially leaving her company’s other clients in the lurch) or refusing the project altogether, she sat down with the attorney to determine exactly what they were looking for. Since much of the discovery in these types of cases is done by the law firm’s clerks and interns, it became clear that the translators didn’t need a law degree, they just needed to know what the legal team was looking for. The client was delighted: not only would they save time, but also money.

The translation company set up a method to track the document numbers, and invited its contractors to sign up for times to come into the office to read and summarize the documents. With key terms on a whiteboard in front of them, the team of translators plowed through the file boxes much more quickly than they would have been able to fully translate the documents. What’s more, they could easily set aside a stack of memos that were in Spanish for another translator called in to handle that language.

The needle in the haystack

The team read well over 20,000 pages of documents in just under two weeks, and even better, found what the client was looking for: an invoice for a luxury vehicle that had no business being charged to the lawyer’s client.

The lesson is one we can all learn from: when your company needs to glean specific information from a large volume of foreign language documents, decide up front how to make the best use of your translation budget. In this case, polished translations would have been overkill and unnecessary, and machine translation (translation done entirely by computer) would still have required a huge amount of data entry time, with a high risk that the resulting translations would have been more confusing than helpful. Working with a professional, experienced translation provider made all the difference, and created a true win-win for both the law firm and the translation company.

By Caitilin Walsh


About the Author

Written by Caitilin Walsh, CT; French/German to English translator and ATA President-Elect

Share this

Posts navigation

← Healthcare Interpreters: Replacing Myth with Fact
Creative translation solutions: Making the most of your translation budget →

10 Comments

  1. jsax27 on April 25, 2013 at 11:49 pm

    This is a creative solution to the machine translation/polished human translation dichotomy. There are really situations where something in-between is needed and this translation company was creatively thinking outside the box to supply that needed service.

    Reply
    • Corinne McKay on April 26, 2013 at 2:27 am

      Thanks for your comment; and thanks for being the first person to comment on The Compass! We really appreciate your feedback and are glad you enjoyed the article!

      Reply
  2. Karen Tkaczyk on April 26, 2013 at 3:27 am

    Great example of a compatible customer and service provider working well together. All the discovery document translation I’ve done over the years has been for patent litigation cases. I wonder how the new USPTO rules that came into force on March 2013 (first-to-file instead of first-to-invent being the key change) will affect technical and patent translators. I can imagine translating fewer boxes of lab notebooks in an effort to find the key piece of discovery information, which was often required until now. Instead, I think we will translate more published prior art before filing and for litigation cases, as proving novelty will become so important, and the prior art in any language counts under the new system.

    Reply
    • Corinne McKay on April 26, 2013 at 4:15 am

      Thank you Karen! That’s a very interesting insight about the USPTO rule changes…we’ll have to see how that plays out!

      Reply
  3. Ben Jones on April 27, 2013 at 7:24 am

    Sometimes, though, there are reasons why the whole lot does need to be translated… see http://www.daytranslations.com/translation-news/arabic-to-bulgarian-translation-of-religious-texts-to-be-presented-in-religious-trial-23095

    Reply
    • atacompass on April 30, 2013 at 3:24 am

      Thank you Ben, and thanks for that interesting example of a situation where a creative solution isn’t the best one!

      Reply
  4. Julia Pedro on May 1, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    Caitlin, thank you for writing this article. This is a good example where synergies are combined to achieve the best results.

    Reply
    • atacompass on May 1, 2013 at 6:38 pm

      Julia, thank you for your comment! We’re glad you enjoyed the post!

      Reply
  5. Cost and resource-effective approach to handling translation needs during discovery | Cami Townsend on May 1, 2013 at 8:32 pm

    […] For some lawsuits, translating every single page in every box of documents isn’t the way to overcome a language barrier during discovery. Caitilin Walsh authors a great post for the American Translators Association’s web-based outreach publication The ATA Compass on how one smart law firm partnered with a savvy language service provider to comb through tens of thousands of pages written in French to find that one crucial piece of evidence. And they did it without breaking the client’s bank or exhausting the LSP’s linguistic resources. Learn more here. […]

    Reply
  6. Translation as a tool for understanding ; Carmazzi Global Solutions Carmazzi Global Solutions on January 23, 2014 at 11:29 pm

    […] Case Study: Translation as a tool for understanding […]

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply





I accept the Privacy Policy

Language Services Directory

Find the translator or interpreter that meets your needs. Customize your search by language, specialties, location, credentials, and more.
Start Your Search

Subscribe to The ATA Compass



Connect with The ATA Compass

Contact Us

Recent Posts

The High Stakes of Legal Interpretation: Why You Need a Certified Court Interpreter in Colorado
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and Language Access: Who, What, How
Video Game Localization: Q&A with Expert Marina Ilari (Part 2)
Video Game Localization: Q&A with Expert Marina Ilari (Part 1)
Why Translators & Interpreters with Disabilities Can Make a Difference
Want Your Children’s Book Translated into Another Language? Answer These 7 Questions First!
Guide to Buying Translation Services, Part IV: Terms to Know
Guide to Buying Translation Services, Part III: ATA Certification and Legal Considerations
What is Transcription and Why Does it Matter?
VRI vs VSI Interpreting: A Guide for Language Service Users
Buying Language Services

Buying Language Services

Guide to Buying Translation Services Translators help power the global economy, working with businesses, governments, non-profits and individuals. Translators work with the written word. The ATA Guide to Buying Translation…

Read More
Why Should I Hire a Professional?

Why Should I Hire a Professional?

It takes more than just the ability to understand two languages. Professional translators and interpreters have the education, experience, and expertise to understand the nuances in one language and transfer…

Read More
Client Assistance

Client Assistance

Can I afford to hire a professional? You can’t afford NOT to. Poor translation and interpreting services can be disastrous for your business. See what’s at stake. Learn More What’s…

Read More
Translator vs. Interpreter: What's the difference?

Translator vs. Interpreter

Watch a Day in the Life of Translators and Interpreters See how translators and interpreters work in this short animated video. Translators do the writing Translators work with the written…

Read More
What is Machine Translation?

Machine Translation

What is machine translation? Machine translation (MT) is the use of automated software that translates text without human involvement. Adaptive MT is a technology that learns and adjusts in real-time…

Read More

Language Services Directory

Start Your Search ATA’s Language Services Directory includes a list of all ATA members of individuals, as well as companies. Need help finding the right professional? Professional translators and interpreters…

Read More
  • 1
  • 2
  • Next »
Language Services Directory
ata_logo_footer

American Translators Association
211 N. Union Street, Suite 100
Alexandria, VA 22314

Phone +1-703-683-6100
Fax +1-703-778-7222

  • Certification
  • Career and Education
  • Client Assistance
  • Events
  • News
  • Member Center
  • About Us
  • Member Login
  • Contact Us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Submit Feedback

© 2025 - American Translators Association

Find a Language Professional
Scroll To Top
By clicking accept or closing this message and continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies.I AcceptPrivacy Policy