It may be costly
A question that has recently reared its head with several new clients left languishing because of misunderstandings and time differences.
One of them was a relatively small project but as it was for court, the deadline was set.
An Australian lawyer went online and found a translation service – likely from a google ad – clicked and received a quote. All good and project confirmed. The due date was ten days out – a great lawyer making arrangements early rather than last minute – oops forgot to get this translated, or forgot to book an interpreter!
The only problem is that the work never turned up and the lawyer couldn’t get a reply. Two days before the court case we intervened and sorted out the requirements and delivered a subtitled video in English which was the end requirement. We later found out that the translation provider was in London; not sure if UK translators would be acceptable to a court in Australia requiring NAATI credentials and certainly the time difference made communication difficult.
The second recent case was an Inquiry. National inquiries don’t come cheap, so the last thing they want is to adjourn because of interpreting problems. Same thing happened. The lawyer found an interpreting service online and booked an interpreter – problem is they weren’t in Australia and had limited knowledge of our legal system. A lot of funds were wasted while a qualified, Australian interpreter was found who was capable of doing the work.
Moral to the story – take a note of where your translation service or translator is. Do they really have an office – some of our competitors have fictitious addresses and many are offshore. It’s worth checking out as one day you may need to find them.