Multilingual e-discovery: dealing with international litigation across language barriers and jurisdictions.
In today’s global business environment, companies may have to settle international business disputes in court. This leads litigants to gather evidence to support their case, often in other languages.
The parties must have access to all facts essential to litigation before they are presented in court. This pre-trial phase is known as discovery.
In this post, we’ll delve into the discovery process and how to deal with it in a digital, multilingual scenario.
– What’s discovery?
Discovery is the first phase of litigation. It’s a pre-trial procedure where parties exchange information about their claims and defenses.
Some examples of traditional discovery are depositions, recorded interviews and physical items (e.g., a defective product).
– How has digital data affected the discovery process?
Nowadays, the bulk of documents to review as part of the discovery process is digital:
- Emails.
- Intercompany chat.
- Social media.
- Image files.
- Databases.
Hence the use of the term “e-discovery” to refer to electronically stored information (ESI) as opposed to other sources.
In e-discovery, technology experts tackle hundreds of thousands of electronic documents to find information for lawyers.
But its purpose remains unchanged: uncovering critical facts to shed light on the case and ensure justice.
With this in mind, the e-discovery process covers the following areas:
- Assessing the events leading up to the case.
- Examining the documents supplied by both sides.
- Identifying, preserving, reviewing and producing data relevant to the case.
- Providing access to digital information through keyword searches and other tools.
- Delivering the information needed for all parties involved.
– Is e-discovery universal?
E-discovery follows certain procedures for data retrieval, analysis, selection and preparation for use in court. So, most attorneys approach it similarly.
But each country’s legal system is unique. And the regulations on e-discovery may vary in different jurisdictions.
By way of example, e-discovery requests are subject to:
- The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), as well as some state laws, in the US.
- Part 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules in parts of the UK.
- The Freedom of Information Act 1982 in Australia.
- The Access to Information Act in Canada.
- General freedom of, or access to, information laws in France, Germany, and other countries in the EU.
– How do you deal with multiple languages in e-discovery?
Take a lawsuit involving an American company with subsidiaries in four countries: Mexico, Brazil, China and India.
Saying that e-discovery will be complex is an understatement.
Your legal team will have to process a vast store of documents in different formats, and in as many as five languages.
Now, if you represent a party to cross-border litigation, here are three tips for your multilingual e-discovery:
1. – Ask about languages during the custodian interview phase
Datasets may include documents in different languages. Find out whether the information is in more than one language, so you have a clear notion of what you’re dealing with.
2. – Use a language detection app in your processing software
This sort of tool allows you to identify primary and secondary languages within your dataset. By translating keywords into relevant languages for searching, you’ll be sure not to miss any important documents.
3. – Leverage the best of machine and human translation
Machine translation is very efficient as a supplemental tool. But it may not be able to handle complicated text relying on nuances or context.
That’s why, when reviewing foreign language documents, you should run a test and check if the English output files are good enough. For example, when understanding the gist of a document’s meaning suffices.
Now, documents that are crucial to a case should be reviewed by a professional legal translator. They will correct any specialized language, convey nuances and deliver a rendition that is admissible in court.
By combining machine and human translation, you’ll streamline the multilingual e-discovery process.
– Which questions should you ask yourself when facing multilingual e-discovery?
1. – In-house or outsourced translation?You may have your own in-house translation team. But would your company’s staff have the capacity to deal with thousands of foreign language documents and tight deadlines?
If the answer is no, outsourcing can save the day.
Language services providers (LSPs) rely on experienced legal translators, who also have the industry knowledge needed for the matter at hand. A project manager will oversee their work and keep your multilingual case moving.
Besides, LSPs provide specialized technology, including machine translation capabilities. This results in increased efficiency and lowers costs.
2. – If you outsource, how can you rest assured your client’s data won’t be compromised?
Operating in a secured environment is essential when dealing with legal matters.
Your LSP should have secure file transfer protocols and data storage within their translation systems to keep your sensitive information protected.
– Key takeaways about multilingual e-discovery
When it comes to cross-border litigation, having an e-discovery language management strategy in place is essential.
That’s why it pays to rely on an expert LSP to guide you through the process.
Whether it be:
- Translating keywords for searching.
- Identifying the content suitable for machine translation.
- Creating glossaries to ensure consistency across documents.
- Appointing native translators with experience in legal matters.
- Crafting a procedure that can be replicated for future projects.
An LSP will expedite your multilingual e-discovery and guarantee the accuracy of any documents to be presented in court.
At Montero Language Services, we specialize in legal translation, interpreting and transcription services. Over our 20 years, we’ve created a pool of experts combining language and legal knowledge.
Click here if you’d like more information on our solutions for law firms.
