What are the dangers of low-quality translation?

Threat to your reputation

You spent hours or days working on a perfect explanatory statement, information request or decision. Don’t risk ruining your case and reputation by putting your trust into inexperienced or unspecialized translators.

Loss of money

Hire the lowest bidder and you might end up spending more – both in time and money – fixing the problem than if you’d just hired a professional right away. Worse, next time your clients might go to the competition.

Legal risks

A grave error or a few in a document – and your argument is rejected, and your former client is now suing you for ruining his case.

What are the risks of working with big agencies and how can it affect the quality?

Legal terms are translated differently

Big agencies often split documents to be translated among several professionals, and each works on one part of it. As a result, the same terms are often translated differently – although possibly correctly – and you end up with a Frankenstein of a document, getting lost in the inconsistency of terms.

The subject has not been properly researched

Big translation agencies depend on the non-stop flow of work to maintain their businesses. Their freelancers work under constant deadline pressure to deliver projects as quickly as possible, which affects the time spent on the necessary research. Without thorough research, translations are less accurate and at worst incorrect.

The work is done by an inexperienced translator

Big agencies have large overhead; they try to cut costs by hiring young or insufficiently specialized translators who are ready to work for less. They gain their experience at your expense. Don’t risk your reputation and money to help their novice translators learn.

Meet the translator recommended by top-notch attorneys to their colleagues and peers

Anastasia Sch端le
Anastasia Schüle
President, White Star Translations, LLC

My name is Anastasia Schüle, and I am the president of White Star Translations, LLC. I help law firms translate contracts, applications, appeals, decisions, certificates, summonses, press releases, financial documents, statements, and other legal texts.

White Star Translations, LLC is a boutique translation agency in New York. We have been working with clients in the USA and Europe, translating documents between English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Russian.

I have an MA in Translation from the University of Mainz in Germany and am a member of the American Translators’ Association (ATA) as well as of the professional association of interpreters and translators in Germany (Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V., BDÜ).

In my work, I follow the European and American translation quality standards ISO 17100:2015 and ASTM F2575-06, which guarantees quality for my clients. In the legal field, I work with the following language pairs: English into German and German into English.

I also collaborate with a select number of proven and experienced translators in other language pairs. All translations are proofread by a second professional to ensure quality.

My accomplishments in numbers

20 years translation and interpretation experience

> 5,500,000 words translated

> 1,500 hours of interpretation

Why serious firms trust us

Thorough legal research

We research legal terminology, syntax and document structure to ensure that they are correctly understood within the framework of the target legal system. If there are no direct equivalents in the target system, references or notes are made accordingly.

Two-stage proofreading

The finished translation is proofread by a second professional translator, an experienced native speaker with knowledge in the specific field. Once the first proofreading stage is completed, the text is checked once again by the original translator taking into consideration the possible changes.

Formatting

We do our best to keep the original structure of the source text. Our goal is to produce a document whose only difference from the original is the language. This saves you and your client time when comparing and using the original document and the translation.

Advantages of working with us

We protect your reputation

I have been working as a translator and interpreter for 20 years and have built relationships with highly reputable colleagues in my field. We can guarantee that you won’t be embarrassed in court or with the opposing counsel because of an incorrect or inaccurate translation.

We guarantee high quality

When you work with me or my colleagues in other language pairs, only one specialist will be translating your documents. We are familiar with legal terminology, have proven research and analytical skills, and strive to use the modern standards of legal writing. This approach ensures easier readability, consistency of terminology, and certainty and correctness of all information in the original.

We focus on your business

My success is built on personalized approach to each client. My clients know that they can count on me to conduct thorough research of the subject ensuring high accuracy of translation. Every time we work together, I learn more about the particularities of your specialty field and your company, and our collaboration becomes more effective and efficient.

Types of documents

Commercial Law: contracts, licenses, terms & conditions, privacy policies

Corporate Law: due diligence documentation, articles of association,
shareholders’ agreements, certificates of incorporation

Property Law: surveyor reports, deeds, land registry documentation

IP / IT Law: software licenses and contracts, patents

Litigation: documents forming part of discovery, court forms, evidence bundles, witness statements

Employment Law: employee contracts, employee handbooks, codes of conduct

Banking & Finance: loan agreements, debt instruments, annual reports, statements

Regulatory: marketing authorization documents, stock management policies

M&A: financial reports, compliance documentation, actuarial reports, etc.

What my clients and colleagues say

Case studies

Understanding of different legal systems

The word "trial" can cause confusion since in the other country there might be no "trial." In the US, all criminal cases have an option of jury trial. In other countries, evidence may be presented in a series of closed hearings instead. A translated document must be understandable to the court reading it.

Protection from financial loss

In 2011 "dry-docking" was mistranslated as "tank washing" in the contract terms, when it was translated from English into Chinese. This caused disagreements between the companies concerned in regards to rights and obligations of the parties as well as their share of costs.

Legal certainty

A simple comma error in a will can cause a major ambiguity. The phrase "I leave my assets to all my children who loved me," gives inheritance to only the loving children. Put a comma after the word "children" (words of definition vs. words of description), and it is split between all the children, loving or not.

What you need to know when commissioning a translation

The average number of words a qualified translator can handle in a day is 2000 — about 4.5 pages. It also depends on how technical the material is: more technical means more time spent on research. Once the translation is ready, account for some time for a second professional to edit/proofread. Average number of words here is 1000 per hour, meaning 18 pages a day. Knowing this gives you realistic expectations of a time frame required for a high-quality translation. However, the more experienced the translators are and the more familiar with the particular case, the faster things will go.

Estimated cost calculation

Number of words:   Total ($) :

This is an estimate. The exact cost will depend on the language combination, the nature, complexity and format of the text as well as the level of urgency.

Please contact us for an exact quote either below or by email.

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"What you need to know about buying translation"

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