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Canadian IT Firm Converted 100 to 200 Years Old Legacy Judgment Copies to Newest Judgment Documentation Standards

The Client:

The client is an IT solutions provider in Canada catering to a niche section of the country's legal industry. Their publishing and search services help optimize the way legal information is accessed and published to enable the development of Canada's legal and paralegal fraternity.

Canadian IT Firm Converted 100 to 200 case study

The Situation – Business Need:

The client intended to create a comprehensive Online Knowledge Base with 7500+ Older Court Judgments. These past verdicts were pronounced by judges of Higher Canadian Courts.

  • The judgment copies were presented to us as scanned PDF documents.
  • These judgments dated back 100 or 200 years. They were written in the 18th and 19th century English, which obviously had some characters that are lesser known today.
  • Sections of the judgments were also present in French and Spanish, which had to be translated in to English.
  • The requirement was to convert 7500 PDF pages to MS Word. We were asked to format these Word files and then ensure that the documentation, including the fonts and styles, precisely meet the current legal standards of Canada.

The Challenges:

Some of the challenges faced during and after the data conversion were as follows:

  • There were several styles present in the same document. For example, in a given page, there were as many as 25 different fonts and heading types.
  • No uniformity had been followed in adopting these many styles in every document.
  • The old legal terminologies and special characters relevant to the periods of judgment had to be first understood.

The Solution:

Our solution included the following elements:

  • A team of 5 data conversion executives were commissioned to the task, and we offered an initial trial of 5 pages.
  • We proactively provided more trials to ensure that we meet the customer expectations.
  • A French and Spanish translator with the knowledge of legal jargons was arranged to support the team whenever required.
  • OCR was used for the data conversion. The process followed is illustrated below:

The Results:

Below mentioned were the outcomes of the project:

  • The converted files were delivered within the client's stipulated timeframe of 15 working days.
  • 99% accuracy was achieved, and the client was particularly pleased with the patience shown by our staff in processing this conversion of such a large and complex legacy data.
  • The complete satisfaction of the customer resulted in their signing up of another contract, for which we gladly provided 25% value-added benefits by slashing the cost.
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