Sophie Ao | 20 January 2023
🧑💼 Client
A prestigious international law firm in the UK.
🌍 Background
The client is a full-service international law firm with offices across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We work closely with their Shanghai office for legal translation services.
They have their own in-house team, but when they need urgent, overnight delivery, they outsource their legal translation projects to us.
🚨 Problem
The client urgently needed someone to translate a 12-page legal contract from English into Chinese within one day. They required high-quality translation and proofreading services while maintaining consistency throughout, with careful attention to detail.
They didn’t have time for back-and-forth corrections, so the legal translation had to be right the first time.
🛠️ Solution
📌 Step 1: Preparation & Glossary Building
- Imported the contract into our CAT tool for analysis and pre-processing.
- We divided the work in half, then exported and sent the XLIFF files to two of our best legal translation specialists.
- Extracted key terminology and had our in-house linguist research accurate Chinese equivalents.
- Our proofreader, fluent in both English and legal writing, polished the text to improve clarity and readability.
- Ran a QA check against glossary and translation memory.
- Delivered translations in the original folder structure, maintaining document integrity.
🔄 Step 2: Cross-Proofreading by Two Translators
- Each translator reviewed the other’s work to catch errors and inconsistencies.
- Used revision tracking, so all changes were transparent to translators and PM.
- After quick communication, both delivered polished versions with suggested revisions implemented.
🧪 Step 3: Thorough QA Check
- The PM ran final QA checks in the CAT tool to eliminate any inconsistencies between translations and glossary.
- All issues were resolved before exporting the final version.
🖼️ Step 4: Final Layout Adjustments
- Compared the translated contract with the English source side by side.
- Adjusted formatting to ensure the Chinese version mirrored the original’s structure and appearance.
✨ Result
⚡ Delivered within 12 hours.
👩💻 Involved 2 legal translators, 1 in-house editor, and 1 dedicated PM — all working in sync to complete preparation, translation, proofreading, and QA in a single day.
🤝 The client was extremely satisfied with the fast turnaround, high quality, organized workflow, and proactive communication.
💰 They appreciated that no rush fees were charged for this urgent job.
