The Dutch– an exceedingly practical and direct people– have a saying: Goedkoop is Duurkoop. Cheap is expensive. We of the anglophone persuasion have a variation on that theme: you get what you pay for.

But the Dutch version captures reality far more forcefully. Cheap is expensive is an apt way of articulating the constant

Just getting the address right is only half the battle, y’all.

A huge hat tip to my friend and fellow law blogger, Ted Folkman, for his Case of the Day post last week about Peanuts Worldwide v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A (N.D. Ill. 1:23-cv-02965).* He very deftly connected the dots

(Hat tip to Ted Folkman, for whom Gurung v. Molhatra is a White Whale. This issue is one of mine, for similarly frustrating reasons.)

Remember that legal analysis hierarchy they told us about as 1L’s? In order of authority:

  • Precedent (binding and then persuasive, giving obiter dicta less
  • At least once or twice a month, when I deliver the bad news that service on an offshore defendant will cost several thousand dollars and take several months– if not a couple of years— a prospective client will decide that the better way to go is to seek an order for alternative service, usually

    I don’t have an FAQ page on this blog, but if I did, the very first question out of the gate would be “How do I cut that translation cost down from $50,000 to a more manageable figure?”

    It really is a shock to a litigator’s system– especially that of a patent litigator– when they’re told that the documents they have to serve in Germany or China or Mexico will cost them five (or six!) figures to translate. Those countries’ declarations to Article 5(3) of the Hague Service Convention require translation. Period. And most other countries require it too, with no exception or variance as to what gets translated and what doesn’t. It means everything. Continue Reading The time to save money on translation is *before* filing.