How not to buy legal translations

Dear lawyers and/or companies,

how much time do you need to negotiate an agreement of which the final version is over 160 pages long? I assume weeks, at least, if not months. Maybe even an entire year. How much do your clients pay you for that?

The agreement I am talking about consists of 5 pages of definitions of terms and 12 annexes to enable readers to understand the rest of it. Roughly 50k words which require at least an entire day, if not two, to be read and somewhat grasped, let alone translated.

Last Friday, I received a request by a huge Language Service Provider (LSP). They needed to have such an agreement translated (and the translation certified). Their deadline was December 22nd. That makes 10 working days for the flawless certified translation of 50k words.

Which is absolutely impossible, even though LSPs put a lot of effort into making you believe otherwise. But let me explain:

• A professional translator needs at least 60 working days, which means at least 3, better 4 months for such a translation.
• There are ways of shortening that time frame, for example by using several translators. Those bear certain risks. It is absolutely impossible to translate over 160 pages in less than one sixth of the required time and deliver quality.

If you pay sh***, you get sh*** applies to the translation industry, too. The result of such a terribly managed project might be as bad as AI output and lead you to the conclusion that human translators are no longer needed.

That is not true.

• Professional translators save you time. You became a lawyer to negotiate such agreements, not to translate them. Even if your language skill suffice, I am sure you usually have better things to do than correcting AI output.
• Professional translators save you good money. What is your hourly/daily/monthly rate as a lawyer? Doing translations or their post-editing yourself might cost you more money (and keep you from doing your actual work) than to outsource that.
• Translating your work comes with free proofreading. Translators have to understand the source text and make sure terminology and information is consistent. While doing that, we catch the slightest mistakes or potential ambiguities in your work. If you answer our questions, you don't just get great translations but might also be able to improve your own work.

You would like to know how I come to this conclusion? Feel free to read more:

Working time

Translators do not read the source text and type the target version while doing so. We have to fully understand the source text, before we can begin translating into the target language. Remember: You do not write those agreements to make them pleasing to read.

People say professional translators can do 2k words a day. Even at that pace, this would mean 25 full working days for a draft translation. From my experience, documents like share purchase agreements are written in so much legalese, that I find my daily output often at 1k words. After all, I am not sitting around waiting for you to give me work. I might have other projects, deadlines, I do taxes, I network. The agreement was probably done in a different legal system, so I have to research terms in both legal systems, compare them, explain them, I have to make references that non-linguists would be able to understand.

That would mean 50 working days for a draft translation. Why am I emphasizing the draft part so much? Because after a draft, there will be questions for you as a client. There might be terminology inconsistencies or unclear parts in the source text. We need to clarify that and afterwards, I (or ideally a second professional translator) have to go through the entire thing once more, ensure that everything is correct, nothing has been left out. That will be another 5 to 10 working days, depending on your and the proofreader's capacity.

60 working days for a qualified, flawless, certified translation of your 160-pages agreement. At the very least. Even without any holidays, vacation and/or sick leave, that makes 3 months.

The Language Service Provider told me they would have several translators do the draft within one week and then have one proofreader finalize and certify it within the second week.

Today, they declined my offer. They gave it to "an Agency" because they "couldn't make it on their own". That means, the agency gave your agreement to another agency, which now has even less time to deliver.

What does that mean for the quality of the translation?

Quality

Effectively, this agency has 9 working days plus 2 days weekend left to deliver your translation. They will split the work among several translators and then give it to a proofreader, just like agency #1 intended to. Or they will use AI/machine translation, but explaining that would require at least one separate article. Let's focus on human translations for this one.

Assuming their proofreader needs 2 days to do their work, that leaves 9 days for the translators. They will not make more than 1k words a day on average, as they do not benefit from the synergies single translators benefit from. All of them will research all terms because they do not get the results of the other translator's research. In this case, they will have at least 6 different translators working on your agreement. Perhaps more, as capacities right before Christmas are usually not too great.

Frankly, it is impossible for the proofreader to make sure terminology is 100 % accurate and consistent.

The same term in the source text will end up being translated differently in different parts of the text. Not necessarily falsely, just not consistently. As lawyers, you are aware that this should not happen. Under any circumstances.

Price

In Germany, there is a law defining what legislative bodies have to pay for translations. That rate is not particulaly great, but that again is another topic. According to this law, the translation I mentioned is worth about €11k.

What does a single lawyer make a year? Or your company? Considering that a project like this will bind a freelancer's capacities for about 3 months, this is not much money. It would add up to €44k turnover a year. No one can make a living off that, at least not in Germany. (A much more realistic price for this project would be between €15k and €20k, depending on urgency and capacity.)

At this point, agency #1 is keeping about 50 % of what you pay them and agency #2 is keeping about 50 % of what they are paid. Let's take a closer look:

You pay €11k. Agency #1 gets €5k for giving the project to agency #2 and maybe does a little proofing. Agency #2 receives €6k and keeps about half of that as their profit. That leaves €3k for at least 6 translators and a proofreader. €430 for each. €430 for a 9-day translation marathon on shortest notice and including the last weekend before Christmas.

Would you work for that?

Do you think, this is how you get quality work from people?

Working together provides best quality for your clients, too

I am well aware that translation and translation quality is hard to grasp for many people who do not work in this field. We are not trying to tell you how you best consult your clients or approach certain court cases, so please do not try to tell us how to do our work. We are experts in our field just like you are in yours. Let's try to be a little more considerate and respectful in the future – both your and our work will benefit from that.