ROI CONSIDERATIONS

With the increasing focus on global revenue generation for

companies of all sizes, general counsel are finding

themselves involved in cross-border transactions in multiple

languages – often upwards of 30 or more. With translations

piling up and pressure rising, centralizing legal translations is

often an afterthought – something global companies realize

they need to take seriously after they embark on

international growth initiatives with little to no structure to

handle the scale or process.

Centralized Legal Translation

This brief outlines key challenges and the ROI considerations for building a case to centralize your legal translation.

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There are seven key challenges to address:

1. Leverage global IT infrastructure

2. Automate Legal Translation Management

3. Eliminate waste and redundancy

4. Bring consistency to terminology and risk

5. Establish linguistic quality and accuracy

6. Provide fast delivery to internal stakeholders

7. Establish a system of transparency, measurement

and continuous improvement

KEY CHALLENGES

In our poll of Fortune 500

legal departments, accuracy

and budget tied for first in

terms of the biggest

translation and localization

challenges facing legal

professionals.

If you’re in-house legal counsel, then

you know managing legal translations

on an ad hoc basis is not going to cut

it. Relying on your satellite offices to

manage this work in-country is

inefficient, costly and creates

challenges around consistency,

redundancy and adherence to

corporate style.

These issues are often further

compounded by limited budgets and

resources to manage the content

review for quality control, summing up

to an increased exposure to risk.

Centralizing or managing legal content

across the organization can provide

considerable advantages.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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If doing nothing is not an option,

then consider these two directions:

1. Regionalize your controls,

whereby a geographical group

controls the checks and

balances; or

2. Centralize your legal translation

process for optimal risk

management.

CHALLENGE #1: LEVERAGE GLOBAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Has your organization already implemented a

Content Management System (CMS)?

You may be wondering how well your CMS will support

legal content management from your global stakeholders.

The better you can leverage existing in-house

infrastructure, the faster you will achieve a return on

investment from the centralization process.

Rarely does the purchase of an additional system make

sense and most CMS’ today come with a globalization

component. The critical component you are looking for is

the ability to enable your stakeholders to move content from

the authoring to the translation process without loss of

formatting or metadata. In addition, it should allow them to

engage with your translation vendor as a role in this step.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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CHALLENGE #2: AUTOMATE LEGAL TRANSLATION MANAGEMENT

Managing legal content through the

translation process requires many

steps, often due to the technical and

precise nature of the translation

needed. Typically, it goes from policy

and legal authoring, to translator,

editor, proofreader, project manager,

QA/file engineer, and back to legal

review.

Each project requires six to eight pairs

of eyes before the content is approved

for use or publication. For example, if

you are localizing an average of 10

legal documents per week, into 13

different languages, then this could

multiply the number of touches or

transactions to 910 per week. The

more you can automate workflow in

this process, the faster you’ll find a

return on investment.

Many corporations have been

tempted to overflow legal into

a shared corporate

localization process, only to

produce inferior or polluted

translated legal content.

It is important to recognize that

centralizing legal translation is unlike

centralizing standard corporate

translation (e.g. product marketing and

general content). The specialized

knowledge of legal linguists differs, as

does the setup and maintenance of

productivity tools, including your

translation memory, style guides, style

sheets, glossaries and review

processes.

Due to the nature of legal translations,

many documents require a non-linear

translation approach, creating

problems with both the content and the

workflow, when approached like

traditional localizations.

Content typically managed through

Centralization

• End User License Agreements

• Product or Service Level

Agreements

• Warranties

• Partner Agreements

• Channel Agreements

• Solution Contracts

• Consulting

• Lease Agreements

• Other Services or Recurring

Agreements

• Non-Competes

• Code of Conduct

• Company Policies

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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When selecting a legal translation vendor, look for one with

automated internal workflow and the ability to integrate with

your CMS or internal workflow process. You are looking for

their system capability to automate the file preparation,

selection of the translation team, and routing. If they do not

have this capability, then you may be paying for

unnecessary overhead and the inefficiency. For example,

an agency that selects and prepares the content manually

will require 30-120 minutes for this first step alone and then

a similar amount of time once the file is returned from the

translator.

Streamlining processes and eliminating unnecessary steps,

will not only reduce costs associated with manual work, but

is critical to achieving the benefits that make a case for your

centralized ROI.

Tip: For the most acceptable translations, part of the process should include the ability for teams to work with in-region reviewers. Aim to do this in an unobtrusive manner, while gaining their buy-in and approval, to ensure the final products are not heavily edited during final review.

CHALLENGE #2: AUTOMATE LEGAL TRANSLATION MANAGEMENT

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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CHALLENGE #3: ELIMINATE WASTE AND REDUNDANCY

With your use of a CMS and centralized translation

process, consider viewing your translation as a digital asset,

stored safely in a central repository. As this repository

builds, your asset becomes more powerful – allowing you to

eliminate redundant translations and recycle previously

translated segments to cut cost.

Work with your translation vendor to establish a legal

translation memory process with associated match rules.

Your translation memory then captures previously

translated text and matches it to incoming requests.

Companies typically cut 30% or more of their translation

expenditures through use and maintenance of a good

translation memory. This is especially useful for recurring

documents such as global contracts, boiler plates, manuals

and policy updates, wherein only a fraction of the text

changes. The more content centralized over time, the more

content that will likely be recycled. Translators can then

focus on new content, while proofreading matched content.

Translation memory is also an important productivity tool to

the centralized process for improving consistency.

It is not uncommon for divisions of the same company to be translating similar documents, using different approaches, and even different translation vendors.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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CHALLENGE #4: BRING CONSISTENCY TO TERMINOLOGY AND RISK

MANAGEMENT

Global companies regularly struggle with consistent

representation in terms of policy, terminology, style and risk.

By building and maintaining a centralized repository of legal

content, stakeholders are assured of consistent corporate

style and terminology use across all their geographies.

To reduce revisions and corrections, as well as establish

stylistic congruency, any centralized process must include

multilingual style guides and glossaries with key words,

phrases and terms for each language pair. The style guide

should not only include legal style preferences, but a

number of other references including literacy level, tone,

formatting and exceptions by country. Such tools, alongside

a well maintained translation memory (see Challenge #3)

will greatly improve the consistency and accuracy of legal

content for any organization. In most cases, your vendor

should be able to automate reference and use of such

materials, as part of the translation management system.

When considering centralizing your legal content translation, the benefit of consistency and risk management should be factored into your ROI calculation.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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CHALLENGE #5: ESTABLISHING LINGUIST QUALITY AND ACCURACY

Ensuring quality and accuracy for your

internal stakeholders is pivotal in

managing a positive ROI for

centralized legal translation. Attracting

and retaining specialized legal

translation talent across the globe is

not an easy task. Work with a vendor

who specializes in this domain and

brings with it a segmented and stable

database of translators to select from,

as well as a proven forecasting model

to scale with your peak volume needs.

Look for translators with at least 5

years of professional, legal experience.

Require native fluency in the target

and source languages, as well as

technical experience in the various file

formats and tools known to the trade.

Be sure to include in your criteria,

industry subject matter expertise, if this

is important for your content, and/or

ask your vendor to assist in the

development of a translator on-

boarding program.

Tip: A vendor specializing in

the legal translations process

will have a deep and

segmented database of in-

region certified legal

translators; something that

may help you to assess your

LSP’s suitability, to manage

your volume and legal content

needs.

Lastly, identify any additional

requirements up front where possible.

For example, will your internal

stakeholders need sworn translators

for certain countries?

Perhaps your stakeholders regularly

make use of notarization, attestation or

attorney review services? A specialized

legal vendor should be able to provide

you with full service support.

Also, look for a vendor who has a

mature internal quality management

process of its linguists to manage

accuracy and error rate or ISO-9001

certification.

There may be a cost savings benefit

to your organization in addressing

Challenge #5 as well. It is not

uncommon that attorneys do the

translation work, for lack of an

alternative resource. On average,

attorney translation costs 60% more

than professional legal translation. The

cost difference can be substantial,

especially when utilizing external

counsel where the billing rates are

based on a relatively high hourly rate,

compared to the cost of a professional

legal translation.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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CHALLENGE #6: PROVIDE FAST DELIVERY TO INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

This dramatic improvement is achieved through the sum

total of small improvements addressed in Challenges #1-5.

When you centralize ordering, eliminate manual steps,

reduce duplicate content, implement productivity tools for

quality control and ensure professional linguistic resources

are in place, the improvement to delivery time is

remarkable.

With legal content, a delay in the translation time is often

tied to a delay in an important business transaction

somewhere in the organization. Speed of delivery is an

opportunity cost or soft cost, but nevertheless, it is an

important consideration for any centralized legal content

ROI business case.

With proper centralization and translation automation, it is not uncommon for organizations to reduce a three week process to 2-3 days.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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CHALLENGE #7: ESTABLISH A SYSTEM OF TRANSPARENCY,

MEASUREMENT AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Communication, logistics, reporting, and auditing are not

easy when you are managing employees and suppliers

across multiple regions and time zones. Invisible costs of

administering global programs are high, such as

productivity loss due to glitches in communication. Most

companies cannot track translation expenses across

multiple business units, because costs are hidden in the

line-item detail of project budgets across many

departments.

Look for a vendor who can, as part of their translation

management system, provide you a dashboard with real-

time reporting of important key performance indicators

including per job/language cost, volume, turn-around time,

job quality error, etc. on a user, department and division

basis. Over time, this visibility and tracking will provide for

greater predictability around costs and help improve overall

performance.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS

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Centralizing legal translation does not make sense

for every corporation, so how do you know if it

makes sense for yours?

A good rule of thumb is, if your organization spends upward of

$200K per year on legal content only, you will realize savings and

benefit from the consistency and quality that centralization brings.

The ROI of centralization tends to grow along with spending. For

example, companies averaging $2-5M per year on legal content

translation will often see a higher percentage of savings than

companies spending $1M per year. See how VIA helped one

world-leading software company streamline its global

contract process.

ARE YOU A CANDIDATE FOR CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATION MANAGEMENT?

About VIA

VIA is a trusted provider of legal translation services to leading

brands around the globe including Cisco, Oracle, Google, Nike,

Walmart, HP, Expedia and more.

Contact Us

To learn more about VIA Legal translation

solutions or how VIA can help your organization

achieve improved translation processes, contact

us at 1-800-737-8481 or visit us online at

www.viadelivers.com.

CENTRALIZED LEGAL TRANSLATIONS: ROI CONSIDERATIONS