The Arbitration Conflict and the Cloud CAT Workspace
You are a sole-practitioner legal translator. On Monday at 09:00, partner Ms Okafor at Harrow & Vale LLP asks you to translate a 64-page expert report, English into French, in an arbitration: Meridian Systems v. Kestrel Energy. Deadline: Thursday 17:00. Your conflict-check spreadsheet shows that 14 months ago you translated a 22-page privileged witness statement in the same arbitration for Kestrel Energy's counsel, Bright & Co. You signed an NDA with Bright & Co that says you will not act for any adverse party in 'the Matter' without prior written consent. Ms Okafor's email says the translation is for a tribunal filing and asks you to use the firm's cloud-based CAT workspace. Harrow & Vale's attached outside-counsel guidelines prohibit uploading client documents to any cloud service that stores data outside the UK. Your CAT tool syncs to a US server by default.
1. Should you accept the instruction? Set out the conflict and confidentiality analysis, including what you may and may not tell Ms Okafor.
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I should decline unless Bright & Co gives informed written consent, and I should not assume that consent will be forthcoming. The NDA expressly restricts acting for an adverse party in the Matter, and the prior engagement gave me access to privileged material whose content I cannot unlearn. A translator is not a solicitor, but confidentiality and the appearance of impropriety apply with equal force in a small market. I may tell Ms Okafor that I have a prior professional engagement that creates a conflict and prevents me from accepting without consent. I may not identify Bright & Co, describe the witness statement, or reveal that I acted for the opposing side, because the existence and subject of that engagement are themselves confidential. I also cannot tell Bright & Co about Harrow & Vale's request without Harrow & Vale's consent, so the cleanest course is to decline and offer a referral. If both firms independently proposed a waiver, I would still need a written scope confirming that I will not use or disclose prior material and that no member of the new team will have access to my old files. A solo practitioner cannot rely on an internal screen.
2. How do you handle the cloud CAT instruction?
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The outside-counsel guidelines are a client instruction and take precedence over my default tool settings. I would not upload the expert report to the US-syncing workspace. I would check whether the CAT tool can run a purely local project, or whether the firm has a UK-hosted workspace approved under its guidelines. If neither is available, I would propose encrypted file transfer, offline translation, and delivery by secure portal, with a written confirmation that no client data will leave the UK. I would document the configuration in the project file: tool version, project location, sync disabled, access list. If the firm insists on the cloud workspace, I would ask for a written variation signed by someone authorised to depart from the guidelines, and I would still decline the engagement if the conflict issue is unresolved. Technology choices are not separate from confidentiality; a tool that stores data abroad can breach both the guidelines and the NDA.