Can AI help us with documents in a foreign language?

Yes, for understanding. AI can tell you quickly what a foreign language document appears to be, what it appears to say and which parts look relevant, which is often enough to decide what to do next. It does not replace a certified translation where one is required, and it does not make you safe to rely on a wording you cannot read yourself.

The distinction matters because the two jobs are different. One is triage: working out what is in front of you. The other is evidence: putting a document before a court, a client or an opponent in a form they can rely on.

What this is genuinely useful for

Most foreign language material on a file never needs a formal translation. It needs a fee earner to know what it is.

Useful uses include:

• Working out what a bundle of foreign correspondence contains before you decide what to send for translation.
• Finding the clause, the date, the figure or the name you are looking for in a long document.
• Getting the gist of a foreign invoice, bank statement, certificate or company filing so you can ask the client a sensible question about it.
• Narrowing a large set of documents down to the handful that are worth a professional translator's time and your client's money.

That last point is where most of the value sits. Translation is charged by the word. Deciding what not to translate is often a bigger saving than anything else AI does on the file.

What it does not replace

A machine reading is not a translation you can stand behind. Treat the following as off limits without a human translator.

Documents going to court. The civil procedure rules generally require a document in a foreign language that is filed or served to be accompanied by a translation, and in many situations that translation must be certified by the translator. Check the requirement for your court or tribunal and jurisdiction. An AI rendering does not meet it.

Documents you are advising on. If the client's rights turn on the exact wording of a foreign contract, you need a translation you can rely on, and you may need foreign law advice on top of it. A document can be translated accurately and still mean something in its own legal system that the English words do not convey.

Witness evidence. A statement taken from a witness who does not speak English needs an interpreter and needs to be in the witness's own language, with the usual steps to show it was read back and understood. Transcription or translation software is not a substitute for that process.

Meetings and hearings. Using a tool to follow along is not the same as instructing an interpreter, and a client who needs an interpreter should have one.

Where meaning goes wrong

The failures are rarely dramatic. They are small and plausible, which is what makes them dangerous.

• Legal terms often have no clean equivalent. A word that describes a specific institution or procedure in another system may come back as an English term of art that carries different baggage. Treat any term that looks like a direct English legal equivalent with suspicion.
• Negatives, conditions and exceptions are where sense flips. A clause that says an obligation applies unless something happens is easy to render as though it applies when something happens.
• Names, places, dates and amounts need checking against the original characters or digits, not the translated version. Date order and decimal separators differ between countries.
• Scanned or photographed foreign documents add a second risk. If the scan is poor, the text is read wrongly before it is translated at all, and accented or non-Latin characters suffer most.
• Older documents, handwriting and regional usage all reduce reliability, and the tool will not always tell you that it struggled.

How to use it sensibly on a file

1. Use an approved tool. Foreign language client papers carry exactly the same confidentiality and data protection duties as anything else, so the question of which tool is allowed is unchanged.
2. Keep the original. Never let a machine rendering become the only version of the document on the file. Store the original alongside it.
3. Label the output clearly. On the file and in any internal note, mark it as an unofficial working translation produced with AI, not a translation.
4. Check the parts you will act on. If a date, a figure or a clause is going to drive a decision, verify it against the original, with a translator if the stakes justify it.
5. Decide the translation budget deliberately. Use the working reading to choose what goes to a professional, then record why the rest did not.
6. Never put an unchecked rendering in front of the client, the other side or the court.

The test is simple. If the document is a map, a working reading is fine. If the document is the ground you are standing on, pay for a proper translation.

Where Alesis fits

Alesis is an AI assistant for UK law firms, used through the browser, with one conversation for a matter. It answers questions about a matter from the matter's own papers and names the page each answer came from, and if the papers do not say, it says so. Documents are read page by page, so citations point at pages, and any page it could not read is flagged rather than skipped. It assists qualified professionals and does not replace them, and it does not provide legal advice.