Global Law Firm 'A' (anonymized Korean firm)

Legal translation is a high-stakes, high-cost function for global law firms — errors carry professional liability, and confidentiality breaches can compromise active matters. This top-200 global firm, headquartered in Korea with 500 employees and a practice spanning dispute resolution, litigation, and intellectual property, was spending disproportionately on outsourced translation: higher per-page rates than general documents, extended turnaround times, inconsistent terminology across matters, and recurring communication friction with external vendors. In-house lawyers were explicitly prohibited from using public tools such as Google Translate, Papago, or ChatGPT due to data security requirements — leaving manual translation as the only compliant option, at roughly one hour per page for experienced translators, and longer for technically complex legal texts.

In 2023, the firm deployed BeringAI, a Natural Language Processing-based translation platform developed by Bering Lab, configured as a private-cloud, on-premises installation to meet the firm's strict data confidentiality requirements. Unlike public cloud translation services, BeringAI automatically deletes all translation data upon job completion, eliminating residual exposure. The platform was purpose-built for legal document formats — preserving original fonts, layouts, and styles across Word, PDF, and technical specification files, which is essential when translated documents must be submitted in proceedings or shared with counterparties. Critically, BeringAI replaced a fragmented set of individual tools with a single internal platform, giving practice groups shared access to translation history, reference documents, and outsourcing project management through the BeringAI+ interface — unifying workflows that had previously varied by team member.

By Q1 2024 — within roughly one year of deployment — the firm was processing over 2,000 documents per month, totalling 9,276,271 words translated. Key outcomes:

• 50% reduction in translation costs versus prior outsourcing spend
• 10x improvement in translation processing speed, reducing lawyer time on translation tasks proportionally
• BLEU score improved from 21.3 to 51.8 (a near-doubling of machine translation accuracy), significantly cutting post-editing burden on legal staff
• Lawyers reported improved access to multilingual documents, directly supporting faster strategic decision-making on cross-border matters

The combination of cost savings and throughput gains allowed the firm to scale translation volume internally without a corresponding increase in headcount or vendor spend.

• Private-cloud deployment is a prerequisite, not a preference — law firms cannot adopt AI translation tools that store data on shared infrastructure, regardless of vendor security assurances.
• Format fidelity is a first-class requirement — translated legal documents must match the original layout and structure, particularly when used in filings, proceedings, or client-facing deliverables.
• Platform consolidation multiplies value — replacing individual ad-hoc tools with a single shared system improves terminology consistency and enables knowledge reuse across matters and practice groups.
• BLEU score is a trackable accuracy benchmark — legal teams should establish a baseline before deployment to quantify post-editing reduction over time.
• Compliance restrictions on public tools accelerate ROI — where lawyers are already prohibited from using free services, a secure in-house alternative faces minimal adoption friction.