Customer Since
2022

Headquarters Location
Johannesburg, South Africa

Share Their Story

How did they do it?

  • Used RelativityOne to translate documents in multiple languages – including Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, and Russian – and perform anti-corruption compliance risk assessments
  • Set up workflows to mass translate priority foreign language data and swiftly incorporate information into their workspaces overnight
  • Reviewed all translated content in its native format to preserve context
  • Trained their review team in minutes

Africa’s Leading Law Firm with a Multinational Client Base

ENSafrica is Africa’s largest law firm and was the first on the continent to adopt RelativityOne in February 2022. ENSafrica has more than 600 practitioners who specialise in law, tax, forensics, and IP, covering several international languages for specific review needs.

Headquartered in South Africa, intelligENS, a specialist division within ENSafrica, provides offshore translation services for large volumes of data. The team often transfers data among multiple third-party service providers.

In 2022, ENSafrica received an urgent request to perform an anti-corruption compliance risk assessment as part of a partial divesture on a multi-jurisdictional transaction. The documents were in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, and Russian. As the client request coincided closely with the release of Translate in RelativityOne, ENSafrica decided to investigate how long it would take to get the translation process underway directly in the platform.

Hitting the Ground Running

As ENSafrica had already adopted RelativityOne, they were able to install Translate in less than a day. The intelligENS teams set up workflows to mass translate the priority foreign language data into their business language (English) and automatically incorporate the documents into the various review workstreams by the following morning. ENSafrica cited the following benefits of deploying Translate to handle their mission-critical request:

Streamlined operational efficiency

English was the most common language across the teams working on the multi-jurisdictional transaction, which is complex enough without the added burden of multiple languages. By using Translate to unify the documents into English, subject matter experts could perform their review tasks in a familiar language. This removed the need to spend time briefing other subject matter experts who spoke the languages needed.

Seamless implementation

intelligENS’s reviewers got up to speed with Translate in a matter of minutes. RelativityOne mass translated priority documents overnight, while Automated Workflows incorporated the translated data into the review streams.

"Multi-jurisdictional matters bring enough complications. The ability to translate without data leaving RelativityOne has significant advantages, most notably data security and privacy considerations. Translate enables firms to do more with less using AI-based translation at a fraction of the cost and significantly narrowing down documents requiring human translation (if any).”
Linda Sheehan, Head of intelligENS, ENSafrica

Instantaneous results

The ability to translate on the fly meant that the intelligENS team could consider the high volume of lower-priority emails and technical project documents containing English (and a mix of other languages) for translation on a case-by-case basis. With a single click, reviewers could access translated versions in their business language. As a result, the team carefully managed costs and efficiently spent their time bulk translating higher-priority documents.

Retained native context

The ability to review the translated content in its native format preserved the context of the document. Reviewers were able to read documents as if originally written in the chosen translated language and not as an abstract block of text. This increased the quality of the review decisions, as all components of a document, such as headings, were translated in context.

Unlocked early case assessment

The translated documents assisted in determining and validating search criteria. ENSafrica was able to search for key concepts across the English-translated text, which helped in accurately translating the wider review pool and prioritising documents for review.

Transcending Translations

Following the huge success of this project, ENSafrica expanded their use of Translate outside of assisting with cross-border document reviews. They are now able to take on projects such as translating interview notes and transcriptions conducted across various jurisdictions.

The ability to translate documents at a fraction of the cost and speed provided ENSafrica with a better sense of context across a much larger set of foreign-language documents. Translate helped fortify the firm’s ability to respond to high-urgency translation requests quickly and easily.

"I love that RelativityOne gives us immediate access to the latest and greatest tools. We can focus on adding value and creating novel solutions for our clients. Translate, in particular, helps us seamlessly assist our clients on matters that span across multiple jurisdictions with multi-linguistic requirements. The cost-effectiveness of an integrated machine learning translation capability combined with our offshore e-discovery pricing helps us to grow our business globally.”
Linda Sheehan, Head of intelligENS, ENSafrica

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