Two-Part Improved Translation Workflow

This Technical Note describes a workflow as part of a litigation review relating to foreign legal documents:

1) Auto-translate all non-English documents to English and load to the Lexbe eDiscovery Platform (LEP).

2) In LEP, English-language reviewers code responsiveness, privilege, and if key based on machine translations.

3) Responsive, non-privileged documents are produced in the original language from LEP.

4) Human translators update translations of key documents and substitute for machine translations within LEP.

5) Sensitive, confidential, and privileged information can be machine translated, and therefore disclosed to fewer persons.

Workflow Alternatives

Alternative 1-Human Translation of all Documents. One alternative workflow would be to require human translation of all documents prior to review.  This adds expense and delay compared with the two-part workflow of machine translation followed by human translation of key documents only.

Alternative 2-Foreign Review with Translation. An additional alternative workflow would involve conducting a review including foreign documents by segregating foreign language documents for review, and sending to non-English speaking reviewers for responsiveness and privilege review and preparation for production.  This segregation workflow can be expensive and non-English reviewers are sometimes hard to locate.  It can also substantially slow a review and production.  This workflow does not provide an English translation, machine or human, to the English-speaking litigation team, running the risk that key documents in the case are not understood by English-speaking attorneys. 

Benefits of Proposed Workflow over Alternatives.  The benefits of the proposed Two-Part Workflow over alternative workflows are:

Faster production by coding in English from machine translations.

Lower cost by using English-language reviewers.

Lower cost by only using human translators for documents that have been coded as key.

Key documents identified and provided to attorneys faster in the litigation process.

English-language concept search includes documents no matter the original language.

Use internal legal staff or our high-volume auto-translation service to generate machine translations.

Document-viewer integrates foreign-language documents and English-translations (machine or human) in a single tabbed work-environment.

Benefits of the Integrated Document Viewer and Search for Foreign Language Document Review. As part of the Two-Part Workflow, the user would work in LEP using the integrated document tabbed document viewer resulting in the following benefits in a review:

English-speaking reviewers, foreign-reviewers, and foreign-speaking translators of key documents, work in the same integrated document environment.

English translations and non-English originals are available in PDF tabbed views in the same record.  

English-speaking reviewers can conduct responsiveness and privilege review using machine translations.

English-speaking reviewers can redact foreign documents using the integrated English translations.

Coding and fact-timelining will associate with both the English and non-English versions.

The foreign language and English translation are combined in our multi-search index, so the user may search in either language and both versions of the document will be returned.

English searches will work across multiple languages.  This means that a search for Office Building in English will return a German document with Bürogebäude.

Concept searches work across languages.  A concept search for edifice in English would return both office in English and the German word for office, Bürogebäude.  This means that review teams can find all documents discussing issues or concepts, no matter the language.

Use Case

Human translation can be slow and expensive. Computer or machine translation can be done more quickly than human, ussually in just a few days, and therefore speed review.  Machine translation can be done in conjunction with the multi-index tool that incorporates text extraction from both native files and text from a PDF-paginated version, including OCR for superior cross-language search. Our Auto-Translate+ service can be completed in just a couple of days even for large jobs containing millions of documents. Human translation can cost ten times or more than computer translation. In most cases, only a small portion of a litigation document collection needs to be human translated. A workflow consisting of computer translation followed by human translation of key documents can substantially reduce translation costs in a case or project.

Suggested Workflow for Computer Translation of all Foreign Documents

Step 01: Identify Foreign Documents to be Translated using Custom Tags

This step allows the legal staff to identify and tag all foreign documents being translated at once.

From the Management>Manage Custom Doc Fields page, create a custom coding section/field to tag documents to be translated. For example, Coding Section: Translation Workflow, and a Custom Coding Field: Docs to Translate. 

Foreign language documents can be determined in a number of ways, including segregation by Custodian, keyword search of common foreign words (such as sender or receiver in multiple languages for email), and by auto-translating the first page of a large document collection.

Code all foreign documents for translation using the Multi-Doc Edit feature from the Browse or Search pages. 

We also recommend that the user create a custom coding section titled Translation Workflow and Status, and one coding field (text-box) titled Translation to identify the method of translation that works best(e.g. human, computer or Lexbe's eDiscovery  Auto-Translate Services). For example:

1-Foreign-To Translate by Computer. This is also called machine translation (e.g. Google Translate, etc.)

2-Foreign-To Translate by LEP (Auto-Translate+)

3-Foreign-To Translate by Human (e.g. Legal staff translating by hand, professional or certified translators)

4-Foreign-Computer Translated to English

5-Foreign-Human Translated to English

Step 02: Download all Foreign Documents to a Briefcase 

After completing Step 01 above, proceed to download all the original versions of the documents to translate offline by doing the following:

Select All Docs from Browse, click Export to Briefcase and save to a local computer.

For QC purposes, show the fields/columns for Title and Original Title.  See Download Briefcase for more information.  

Step 03: Translate all Foreign Documents using Machine Translation 

Translate all documents using a machine translation method. Lexbe's Auto-Translate+ service uses machine translation to automatically identify the primary language and auto-translate to English and uploads the translated versions to the case associating each translated document with the foreign language original in the Document Viewer.

After translation is complete, save the documents as PDF documents or check properties in file within local PDF viewer when converting translated documents. The translated versions does not need to have the same number of pages as the original documents.

Make sure that none of the translated PDF files are corrupt, password protected, print restricted, extraction restricted, etc.

Step 04: Re-upload  Foreign Documents Translated (Upload Options)

LEP offers the following file upload options:

a) Bulk upload translated documents at one time. 

b) Manual upload of a translated document from the Document Viewer>Translation tab (one document at a time).

Step 05: Review of the Foreign Documents (QC)

Follow the steps below after the upload is complete to assure that all translated documents were successfully imported:

Go to the Browse page, display the built-in field Is Translated and the custom field section Translated Workflow (this will display the custom field Docs to Translate).

Filter on the documents tagged as  Dynamic Coding Filtering= Docs to Translate = Checked.

The two fields should both be checked for all documents.  This will show that a translated document successfully imported for each document intended.  The user may check this either in the Browse view or by selecting all records and downloading an Excel log.

Sample files as desired by clicking on the link titles. Inspect both the original version under the PDF tab and translated version displayed under the Translated tab.

Step 06: Tag Key Foreign Documents with Specific Translation Methods and Create Saved Views

Once all foreign documents have been translated using machine translation and reviewed, the user should identify key foreign documents which require human translation to improve the quality of translation. Use the tags from the custom coding section Translation Workflow and Status (e.g. 3-Foreign-To Translate by Human).

Set up temporary Saved Views in the Browse page after applying filters on the translation workflow tags. This feature allows the user to configure and save specific fields (columns) that will make the custom tags associated with foreign documents easier to identify, while working with different translation methods.  

Sharing Documents with Professional Translators

Several options are available for sharing documents with professional translators as follows:  

Create a Review Set for the professional translator which allows each translator to review assigned documents. See Review Sets for more information. 

Create a Briefcase for the Translator (Offline). This option allows sharing of files and documents with persons outside of LEP by downloading documents to a briefcase and sending the documents using a shared download link or copying the briefcase to a flash drive, CD.

Create a Second Case. Create a second case and download copies of translated documents from the main case. The second case can have outside translators or other users as an Admin Account, that will be able to translate, review, and re-upload translated documents. There is no set up fee for the case, however hosted data charges apply.  

Step 07: Re-upload Human Translated Documents and Update Translation Workflow

Repeat Step04. Human-translated versions re-uploaded will replace the existing computer translated version in LEP preserving coding previously applied.

Go back to the Browse page and re-tag documents as 4-Foreign-Human Translated to English and

5-Foreign-Computer Translated to English, by using Multi-Doc Edit feature.

Set up Saved Views in the Browse page to differentiate the different translation types applied as follows:

1) Translated to English (All) (applying filter on the field IsTranslated above)

2) Translated to English (Computer) (applying filter on the field Foreign-Computer Translated to English)

3) Translated to English (Human) (applying filter on the field Foreign-Human Translated to English)

Un-tag the translated documents recently uploaded by using Multi-Doc Edit feature.  Select all documents uploaded and Multi-Doc edit  Dynamic Coding Filtering= Docs to Translate = Checked.

Repeat the steps for future computer-translated documents followed by Human Translation of key documents.

For information on Auto Translation capabilities, see https://sites.google.com/a/ediscoveryplatform.com/help/auto-translate