The second version is not a one-off cost.
Firms price the first Arabic draft and then absorb six amendments without noticing. Over a three-year agreement with six amendments the routes separate by 13,740 — and they separate by far more than that in what happens when one goes wrong.
Three routes, a three-year agreement with six amendments
Cost is the easy column. The last one is the one that decides it.
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External legal translator
Fat tail9,600 over the lifecycle4,200 initial · 900 × 6 amendments · 5 working days
What goes wrong
A competent translator renders words correctly and has no reason to know that two correct words carry different legal consequences. This is where a termination clause becomes a rescission clause.
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Bilingual associate, in-house
Thin tail17,400 over the lifecycle8,700 initial · 1,450 × 6 amendments · 2 working days
What goes wrong
The best outcome and the most expensive. The real constraint is that a firm has two or three people who can do it and they are all busy on something else.
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Machine-aligned, associate checks
Depends on the check3,660 over the lifecycle2,100 initial · 260 × 6 amendments · 4 hours
What goes wrong
Consistency is near-perfect and judgement is entirely in the check. Skip the check under deadline pressure and you have a beautifully consistent document nobody has read.
Machine-aligned, associate checks comes to 3,660 against 17,400 for bilingual associate, in-house. That saving is real and it is not the reason to choose it — the reason is the four-hour turnaround, because a version that lags the English by a week is where drift gets in.
Four things firms find out late
The second is the one that produces the drift the other page is about, and it is a process failure rather than a translation one.
- The amendment cost is the real cost
- Everyone prices the first version. Over a three-year agreement with six amendments, amendments are where most of the spend and nearly all of the drift accumulate.
- Nobody re-checks the whole document
- An amendment gets translated and inserted. Whether the defined term it uses still matches the other forty uses is a question nobody asks, because asking it means reading both versions again.
- The cheapest route has the worst tail
- That is not an argument against it. It is an argument for knowing which risk you bought, and for spending the saving on a check rather than banking it.
- Turnaround decides more than price
- A five-day turnaround on an amendment means the Arabic lags the English for a week on every round. Most drift enters during exactly that window.
Where this comparison stops
The first line is the condition on the whole table.
- The check is not optional
- The assisted route is priced with an associate reading the output. Priced without one it is cheaper still and it is a different product, and firms that quietly drop the check should not describe themselves as using this.
- These are our numbers, not yours
- Rates, amendment volume and how bilingual your team already is will move all three columns. The shape holds; the figures are a starting point for your own version of this table.
- Some documents should never be machine-aligned first
- A bespoke settlement agreement with a live dispute behind it wants a person from the first line. Volume work is where this pays and it is honest about which is which.
- It does not remove the need for bilingual lawyers
- It removes the need for them to do the mechanical pass. The judgement they bring to the flagged lines is exactly the thing being protected, not replaced.
The other outcomes
Keep the file in the Kingdom
Where documents go, and where they do not.
Cut review time
The first pass on a document set.
Never miss a limitation
Counted from the trigger event.
Bring research in-house
Stop paying counsel to look things up.
Get juniors productive
The precedent bank a first-year does not have.