Why language depth is hard
A multilingual review isn’t just translation. It’s coding decisions made by someone with native-level fluency, in a context where idiom, register, and code-switching matter. Machine translation is a starting point, never a substitute for native review of privileged or production-grade material.
The bench math
A workable language bench needs three things at once:
- Native fluency — not high-school French, not college Mandarin. Native or near-native.
- Legal context — review experience, ideally in the same matter type.
- Geography — bar admission and time-zone coverage where the matter sits.
Hitting all three at scale across a dozen languages is the job.
What to demand from a partner
Bench depth disclosure. A real partner will tell you exactly how many active reviewers they have at native fluency for your top three languages, and when those reviewers last worked on a matter. Vague answers = thin bench.