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45 I L T A N E T . O R G A report from the EDRM (EDRM. net) recently advised that Chinese multinational organizations "increasingly face legal challenges in…foreign jurisdictions." With this, "cross-border civil litigation discovery quickly became a critical issue as these companies, for the first time, had to deal with the concept that they may be required to collect a large amount of data and documents from China and send them to a foreign court or enforcement agency." Indeed, Chinese language document review work has steadily increased in recent years due to the growing global footprint of Chinese multinational corporations and the expanding presence of Western companies in China. This article highlights some initial considerations for legal teams when preparing to manage such a project. Recruiting A necessary first step in managing a Chinese language document review is staffing the project with qualified Chinese language reviewers. Achieving this objective will require a team of dedicated recruiters who are familiar with the foreign language review staffing market and maintain long-standing relationships with Chinese language reviewers. It is important here to highlight the difference between written Chinese and spoken Chinese. Written Chinese, which would apply to the vast majority of Chinese language document reviews, refers to Chinese in either traditional or simplified script. Spoken Chinese, on the other hand (e.g., Mandarin or Cantonese), is normally not a factor in document reviews apart from its possible presence within audio files. Mandarin is a spoken language. It is therefore a misnomer to generically refer to all Chinese language reviews as Mandarin reviews, as is frequently the case. To properly staff a Chinese language review, the most important point to focus on is a candidate's proficiency in reading and comprehending traditional or simplified text, and not their proficiency in a spoken Chinese language. Therefore, in order to know which candidates to staff, recruiters and the review manager must inquire into the source of the data to determine which form of written Chinese is used. There are two forms, as previously mentioned: traditional text, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and simplified text, largely used in Mainland China. If data is sourced from a Taiwan client, for example, care must be made to recruit qualified reviewers who can read and comprehend both traditional and simplified script. This important detail is frequently overlooked and, if not quickly addressed, can lead to delays, increased project costs, revenue loss and strained relationships between various stakeholders involved in the matter. Review Management and Quality Control As part of the recruitment process, a review manager should insist on having an experienced Chinese language team lead. In fact, the goal of identifying and developing a core group of team leads should be continuous and ongoing. Ideal team leads are those who are proficient in reading both traditional and simplified script, possess leadership skills, the ability to manage others and familiarity with review technology and the review workflows used in foreign language reviews. In addition to an experienced team lead, the review manager must also maintain an adaptable squad of quality control reviewers to keep review quality at a very high standard over the life of the project. Search Term Development The process of translating and developing search terms must be meticulously managed. Search term development should account for such things as cultural and regional

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